As Pasolini in The Cinema Of Poetry , says : The author constructs a character- speaking if need be in an invented language- which allows him to express his particular inter- -pretation of the world...When a writer "relives" the discourse of one of his characters, he steeps himself not only in his psychology but also in his language: free indirect discourse is therefore always linguistically different from the language of the writer...This implies that the "free indirect subjectivity" in cinema is endowed with a very flexibile stylistic possibility that it also liberates the 'expressive' possibility stifled by traditional narrative connection, by a sort of return to their origins...It is this 'free indirect subjective' which establishes the possible tradition of a "technical language of poetry" in cinema. 7. And it is in the use of this cinema of poetry that Joseph Conrad moves from the scenographic/thetre based narrative of the pre-Victorian era with its multitude of immediate details to the perspectivistic and cinematic selection of details that blossomed into the cinematic mode of regard during the Victorian and early modernistic era. This cinematic mode of regard is further strengthened by Conrad's use of opposing images, which are woven into the very intricate pattern of 'Heart of Darkness'. "The black figure" of the native woman, the savage, " waving long black arms" contrasts with the refined anaemic paleness of Kurtz's Intended who came forward " all in black with a pale head" and room seemed to have grown darker ,as if all the sad light of the cloudy evening had taken refuge in her forehead". Thus there are things that are dark and things that are light. There also things that are dark and things that are white. Moreover, many of the things that are light or white are surrounded by darkness. For, instance we have the candle held by Kurtz's Intended in his painting of her.We also have many a thing that at first glance belong to the dark or black side of things but manage to partake of light and whiteness.Kurtz's jungle bride is described as glittering and flashing and Marlow often notices the white eyes or teeth of the black natives or a bit of white cloth around a black man's neck. Along the same lines Europe was described as a place of light and enlightenment while Africa was generally thought of as a place of darkness and savagery. Moreover , the book begins at sunset on the bright Thames and moves into a night so dark that the men on the Nellie can't see each other. Apart, from the obvious imagery of 'black and white' it also brings to mind the image of the supremacy of the white power of Europe,holding sway over the blacks of the African continent.So 'Heart of Darkness' also becomes a statement of what Conrad thought of as the truth of the world . Along with opposed images such as these, is a more complicated opposition between things that are inside or within and things that are outside- things that are at the heart or centre and things that are at the periphery. We travel from the 'outer station to the 'inner station' to the heart of darkness and outward again , just as we travel from the "outside narrator" to Marlow and to Kurtz. Thus Conrad through the use of opposing images and rivetting visuals intervenes upon reality, sectioning it into several autonomous pieces, like pictures and strings them together to make a synchronized whole which is mimetically true to the vocation of naturalism and realism.
Part of the Dream Weave Walk 1999-2010