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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 25, No. 6. 1962.

The Man in the Street

The Man in the Street

Its biggest disadvantage is the total boringness of these people and their lives. The life of the common man is not interesting to others, is not glamorous and is not worthy of comment unless it is altered, in its description, by artistic manipulation. And if you put a camera on the events of any Tom, Dick or Harry for a day or so, using available light photography and on the spot tape recording, it doesn't mean to say that you are going to get a good film. Quite the reverse it looks what it is, a home movie.

The artistic manipulation is done by the man behind the camera, he is the selective agent, and If he has no inspiration (I prefer the word ability), it doesn't matter how he gets the finished film onto the screen, whether he shoots it with a pinhole camera or shows it with a camera obscura. The means is unimportant if the creator has something to say which Is worth saying and can present the old in a new way.

And really, there is nothing in Shadows that we haven't already seen in a hundred other films about people who don't conform, belong, are a social or anti-social or whatever word you prefer, and the very spontaneity (i.e. lack of preparation) in the treatment ensures that we get no insight into the motives or reasons for the characters' behaviour.