Jirij Lotman: 

"Cinematography resembles the world which we see.... But this similarity is as unreliable as the words of a foreign language which sound like words of our own. That which is different pretends to be identical. The illusion of comprehension is created where no genuine comprehension exists. Only by understanding the cinema can we be convinced that it is not a slavish copy of life, but an active recreation in which similarities and differences are assembled into an integral, tension-filled - sometimes dramatic - process of perceiving life."


Reference: Sobchack, V. C. (1980). Beyond visual aids: American film as american culture. American Quarterly, Vol. 32(No. 3), pp. 280-300. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org May 8, 2013