In short, Scorsese's film will be a tribute to a great cinema pioneer — and to a child's encounter with the classic cinema — and thus, of a piece with the intensely personal view of cinema history, as seen from the perspective of his twelve-year-old self, that he works out in the dark wonder he's currently got on view, "Shutter Island" (which is set in 1954; the director was born in 1942).
Three themes characterised these more private views: fear of the dark; wonder at the lights going out; and concern about modernity 'going backwards'.
My father said he went up to the church and sat there in the dark, wondering what he should do.
"Hello," I shout into the dark, wondering if my travel agent has made a mistake and the hotel has been closed.
Trying to explain what it felt like to go home in tears, to sit in the dark, wondering if you had done the right thing.
And glossing over those details left people who suffered from what are now well-known afflictions, like postpartum depression, entirely in the dark, wondering if they were alone in their misery.
Angry waves crashed up on the shore outside our windows, and as the wind howled, we huddled in the dark wondering if a madman was lurking in the shadows.
No, we're on the slope of a minor mountain, in the dark, wondering what in hell we've signed ourselves up for, and how's it all going to play.
At 15, I had my first experience of caressing a girl's shoulder in the dark, wondering why her nipples didn't go hard and why it didn't make me come.
"And then, very suddenly and without warning, there were three… For a long time after that, we sat in silence, in the dark, wondering which of us would be next in the box". Wisely – thankfully – she steers clear of the details of the ordeal, leaving the reality of Sarah's day-to-day existence vague, and all the more terrifying for it.
I walked back alone in the dark, wondering how Dickens ever survived the bashing he got after "American Notes" to be the subject of such elaborate academic scrutiny and popular adulation that two hundred and sixty people had given up a precious week of summer vacation just to talk about him.
