da matéria de que são feitos...

The country doctor... a story of temporal deeds that reap spiritual reward… acima, The country doctor, feito por Griffith para a Biograph: a filha de um medico adoece e morre, e ele nada pode fazer; a paisagem, imperturbável, contempla a agonia da criança; na foto abaixo, Ingeborn Holm, magnífico melodrama em surdina de Victor Sjostrom; uma mulher perde tudo, inclusive os filhos; anos depois, reencontra, enlouquecida, o filho que lhe foi tomado; por ele e nele, todo o passado advém, e o filme vai se retirando devagarzinho, num fondu crepuscular, do quarto onde o encontro se dá, camara obscura de ressurreição.

E claro, lá vem o bardo:


Time's glory is to calm contending kings,

To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light,

To stamp the seal of time in aged things,

To wake the morn and sentinel the night,

To wrong the wronger till he render right,

To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,

And smear with dust their glittering golden towers;

To fill with worm-holes stately monuments,

To feed oblivion with decay of things,

To blot old books and alter their contents,

To pluck the quills from ancient ravens' wings,

To dry the old oak's sap and cherish springs,

To spoil antiquities of hammer'd steel,

And turn the giddy round of Fortune's wheel;

To show the beldam daughters of her daughter,

To make the child a man, the man a child,

To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter,

To tame the unicorn and lion wild,

To mock the subtle in themselves beguiled,

To cheer the ploughman with increaseful crops,

And waste huge stones with little water drops.


Shakespeare, The rape of Lucrece.