poemimage

Experiments at the Hadron Collider

were perhaps on my mind

as I digitally revised

the image of a crowd

observing an early flying machine.

The serendipity of the moment

was surprising.

I realized I wanted

to add text.

The first page I turned to,

in the first book I opened,

a paperback I bought for one dollar

many years ago

titled

Cinema in Revolution,

mentioned the word aeroplane

almost immediately.

‘Generally speaking the character of the local people helped us a lot.

They are very sensible.

Nothing surprises them; they continued about their business

without paying any attention to the camera.

They did all the market scenes themselves,

at our request,

perfectly calmly and amiably

and exactly as we wanted.

They are really excellent people.

When we needed to collect a large number of them

 together for the final scenes,

the aeroplane served as bait.

We offered them trips in the plane.

Well, as I say, nothing surprised them!

They saw an aeroplane for the first time in their lives,

and they got into it as calmly as might be –

a man must not show that he is frightened of anything.

As for the monks, the lamas, it was even more simple:

they said that all this had already existed long ago,

only men had not considered it useful,

so had forgotten it…

Pudovkin was very impressed by all this.

We made the film,

with a very strong feeling

for all its living material.’

Interview recorded in Moscow (1965)

with

Anatoli Goloynya – Cinematographer,

Storm Over Asia.

Page 149, Cinema in Revolution,

Hill and Wang, 1973.

Edited by Luda and Jean Schnitzer

and Marcel Martin.

Translated by David Robinson.

As a result of the Khrushchev cultural thaw

Russians were able to see the work

of the Soviet experimental filmmakers

for the first time

since they were suppressed

under Stalin.

Director Vsevolod Pudovkin’s 1928 film

Storm Over Asia 

can be found on YouTube.

In 1848,

an archaeological expedition working in Egypt

discovered hieroglyphs of flying machines

at an ancient temple in Abydos,

several hundred miles south of Cairo.

I do not claim copyright to the original image

of spectators & the flying machine

(photographer unknown).

I have revised the image to create a new work

for non-commercial purposes.