This
canister of film contains a clip
requiring
restoration. We can see
the sequence opens in a studio;
a flapping muslin sky diffuses all
the
ambient sunlight. Although the heat
looks
terrible, we spot a withered palm
sighing
and swaying inside a pot with each
gentle
breeze blowing through the lot;
a
lot still ringing from a bang somewhere
along
the Western Front—a Ford back-
firing
in the distance. After these
imagined noises fade, we find the world
returns to silence once again: black
and
gray and white. A dented derby fans
Edna Purviance and her bouncing leg.
Windows
are replaced and hinges greased.
Cops
and crooks—wearing identical
false moustaches—whisper, exchanging their
own
views about the news: the war, their wives,
sore
bums, their pay. A puppy—on a leash
that’s
growing shorter as he sniffs around
a fake hydrant—nearly strangles him-
self
in search of some comic relief.
A
titter passes through the company.
The
dog breaks up the day’s monotony:
endless takes and retakes; wasted time;
the camera always turning, turning, like
the
door to a hotel you can’t escape.
This is not a movie. This
is life.
No
longer the director, our hero
races from behind the camera
and
acts. His face says everything. But
we only see a blur: a little man,
without a hat, running very quickly
without a hat, running very quickly
toward a dog. The rest is lost. Perhaps.
