dying

That the process of showing movies was physical, controllable, and infinitely repeatable provided a definite sense of security: the strips of film wrapped around the reel, looped through the slot, guided by sprocket holes past the lightbeam. Dust glistened in the ray that bisected the room. The projector gave off a characteristic smell of heated metal which became the smell of resurrection, the odor of yards and bodies brought to life out of nothing.  The odor of mere blur: the shoulder hurtling beyond the camera range, the clump of red jacket blocking out light, the sloppily truncated grin, the unanticipitaed incursions of shadow and glare. The motion of the pictures was demonstrably organic by its jerkiness and chaos: an eerie alternate life form.

Geoffrey O'Brien, The Phantom Empire: Movies in the Mind of the 20th Century