
PERSISTENCE OF VISION: THE FILMS OF PAOLO GIOLI
After the history of the rectangle in film, we’ll have
to write a history of the meaning of darkness in
the cinema.
Paolo Gioli
IN HIS DE ANIMA, Aristotle identifies the human being as a blinking animalat once capable of vision but also, and more importantly, able to close his eyes, to choose not to see, and therefore able to reflect. “[Human eyes have a certain superiority] over those of hard-eyed animals,” the philosopher observed. “Man’s eyes have in the eyelids a kind of shelter or envelope, which must be shifted or drawn back in order that we may see, while hard-eyed animals have