TELLING A STORY IN IMAGES

The cinema is still a form of graphic art. Through its mediation, I write in pictures.. .. I show what others tell. In Orphee, for example, I do not narrate the passing through mirrors I show it, and in some manner, I prove it. 

Perhaps no aspect of film and video is more powerful in terms of narrative than the appearance of reality. Images on the screen have a validity, a weight of their own, in a way that words do not. What follows is an excerpt from the scene in Orpheus to which Cocteau refers. In the screenplay, based on the myth, the poet Orpheus has lost his wife to Death. Heurtebise is the chauffeur of the Princess of Death. The film takes place in 1950, the year in which it was made. 

Note that the format is not proper screenplay format, which you will find in the Appendices, but a compressed version favored by book publishers. 

He throws the gloves at Orpheus. Orpheus catches them, hesitates for a moment, and puts them on. (The action in the following scene is shown through reversed film.) 

With those gloves you ll go through the mirror as though it were water  

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Yet the resurrection of alchemical tropes at the birth of modern atomic science demands a third version of the story. Weart notes that the word transmutation offered a clue that could help explain almost every strange image that would later appear in nuclear energy tales (6). In order to understand fully the relationships between alchemical transmutation and the science of radioactivity, I take a path that branches off from both the traditional history of scientific discovery and the image history that Weart provides. In Modem Alchemy, I reconstruct the history of how scientific knowledge was produced and how it was elaborated in a broader cultural and spiritual context. That is, I look at science, its public elaboration, and its spiritual4 dimensions as mutually interacting realms, and tell a story of how science and occultism were entwined. 

As soon as he said, "That s what I want to film," I could see the film. I could see why you would go around a Chinese factory in the company of these people looking into whether the Chinese factory conforms to European safety and health requirements, and whether that would be a comedy or not. And in fact the film was very funny, though a lot of people didn t get the humor. Somehow filmmakers manage to tell you, through an image or a description of the situation, that that s why they want to approach the story. And that tells me what the story s going to tell the audience. 

For this next part of the assignment, you will need two or three different-colored pens. Mark on one of your photocopies the events, images, and remarks on characters or setting that seem essential to the story you want to tell. Then, using a different color, mark material you think you will probably want. Last of all, in a third color, mark anything that seems problematic but intrigues you. 

Almost all leaders today, whether in politics, business or elsewhere, lean on image-based words and brief story-telling to motivate audiences. Link to at htq> //www. osha.gov/ to see how OSHA leaders. Dr. David Michaels, head of OSHA, and his assistant, Jordan Barab, apply these communication skills. Here is an example from a recent speech ... 

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