cinema is centerless and originless

[ Film analysis ][ Atomic Note ]

From Towards a positive Definition of World Cinema, this is the idea that cinema has existed forever, and is in essence centerless and without a true starting point. This frees filmmakers to try and see what works, instead of following "rules", since those would juse be some guidelines for some time in some period of history.

This quote sums it up nicely

What is cinema? Is it not story? Nagib say she agrees with the german filmmaker Alexender Kluge who said

‘cinema has existed for over ten thousand years in the minds of human beings’ in the form of ‘associative currents, daydreams, sensual experiences and streams of consciousness. The technical discovery only made it reproducible’ (1975: 208) (30)