the ideal cinema...

"...it is safe to say that old forms of the cinema will disappear.

the film has nothing to do with the symphonic, spatial organization of the stage elements. its task is to break clear of all imitation of the theater. the film has grown mature enough to create its own form of architecture which must signify 100 percent cinema. our age is an optical one. the rapidity of events and their brief duration require a receding apparatus that can register as speedily as possible. it is the eye. the speed of light waves exceeds that of all other waves. the film is the optical flying machine of camera.

the film is a play on surface, the theatre a play in space, this difference has not been realized concretely in any architecture, either that of the theatre or the cinema. the ideal cinema is the house of silence."

frederick j. kiesler, 1929, from selected writings.