I think they (poetic films) have a very wide social significance, and precisely because of the approach which many of us have to the art—the individual approach. I believe that through the individual approach you will arrive at an integration with other human beings. Vittorio de Sica has said that the essence of today’s drama is man’s inability to communicate with his fellow man. I believe the reason for this failure of communication is that most attempts at communication have been made through the surface mind. We have come to distrust all surface communications because we have seen how deceptive they can be. Now, some modem writers, painters and many jazz musicians have succeeded in reestablishing communication in depth—under the surface and through the subconscious. When film-makers discover the true Ianguage of the film medium, as only a few have begun to do, and succeed in expressing themselves as film artists in that universal language, the film will become the most potent means of communication among human beings.
— Ian Hugo (1898-1985), during a symposium on “poetic film” conducted over radio station WFUV-FM, New York and transcribed in FILM CULTURE No.14, 1957. (via indicativemood)
