If an image that is present does not make us think of one that is absent, if an image does not determine an abundance—an explosion—of unusual images, then there is no imagination. There is only perception, the memory of a perception, a familiar memory, an habitual way of viewing form and color. The basic word in the lexicon of the imagination is not image, but imaginary. The value of an image is measured by the extent of its imaginary aura. Thanks to the imaginary, imagination is essentially open and elusive. It is the human psyche’s experience of openness and novelty. More than any other power, it is what distinguishes the human psyche.

Gaston Bachelard, Air and Dreams.

Physically, every human being is always alone, suffering in solitude, enjoying in solitude, incapable of participating in the vital processes of his fellows. But, though self-contained, this island-organism is never self-sufficient. Each living solitude is dependent upon other living solitudes and, more completely still, upon the ocean of being from which it lifts its tiny reef of individuality.

Aldous Huxley, On Art and Artists

Wong Kar Wai: I’m not a neorealist.

Peter Brunette: No. But it’s a curious form of documentation. In other words, what you’re not interested in is a kind of surface realism, per se.

WKW: Right.

…

WKW: Antonioni’s great. And I learned one thing from Antonioni, he told me, sometimes the main character is not the actors and actresses, it’s the background. Like Eclipse. Eclipse is one of my favorite movies.

PB: I think it’s his best.

WKW: The last ten minutes is great. And it influenced me a lot, that ten minutes.

PB: Ah, that’s good to hear, because when I was watching your film, I was thinking of Antonioni, and I said that to somebody, and they said, “Antonioni? You must be crazy.” But it’s the formal, the idea that abstract lines, and forms, and shapes, and colors can give emotional meaning and expression as much as narrative lines, dialogue, characters. That’s what I saw. Yeah the last, what is it, seventeen minutes or something?

WKW: Yeah. It’s about the place, not about the people. It’s about the activities. It’s great, and it was a new angle to me at that time…

AT PARTING

I dismount from my horse and I offer you wine,

And I ask you where you are going and why.

And you answer: "I am discontent

And would rest at the foot of the southern mountain.

So give me leave and ask me no questions.

White clouds pass there without end."

-Wang Wei (A.D. 701 - 761)