Abstract

While the inner (non-volitional dreamed) moving image may be a bona fide faculty of the mind unhindered by physical feedback, it is nonetheless neurologically grounded in the body. In a way, the dream vision is a sensory experience without the senses. Moving image technologies externalize this most private space/time – the oneiric space-time - rendering it open to the public eye. They extract the mental vision from the sensory isolation of dream and render it accessible to the senses in cinema (viewing). Departing from this twofold view on the moving image as a cinematic technique, on one hand, and as mental phenomenon, on the other, this paper will examaine the two basic ways of rendering the image into cinematic movement – continuous editing and montage. How do those approaches to the moving image correspond to mental processes and what are their implications for the viewer? Bringing together examples from the far ends of cinema (experimental film and pornography), the paper will map out certain cognitive connotations of the cinematic language as well as ways it problematizes vision and sensuality (corporeality).