Out of the Landscape, into the Portrait

Constable, “Wivenhoe Park, Essex”

“And the screen, as a faithful mirror, not only of conflicts emotional and tragic, but equally of conflicts psychological and optically spatial, must be an appropriate battleground for the skirmishes of both these optical-by-view, but profoundly psychological-by-meaning, spatial tendencies on the part of the spectator.” –Sergei Eisenstein

On September 17, 1930, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held its most consequential meeting ever. Under the ausp...