What characterizes gesture is that in it nothing is being produced or acted, but rather something is being endured and supported. (Agamben 2000: 57)

INTERMEDIALITY AND THE CINEMA OF JAN ŠVANKMAJER

In film any object, gesture, emotion, rhythm or idea seems removed from its points of references in actual and imagined worlds. A smile on screen, for example, takes on a doubtful and fragile ontological status. It fl oats in space and time. The closer the camera gets, the stronger this effect occurs. The close-up enhances this ontological status of in-betweenness that characterises cinema. The image emerging is torn from its circumstances of production. Historic time and space is ruptured. Moreover, the fragility of the cinematic image extends to the subject and object worlds on-screen as well as off-screen. The dubious ontological state of the image (in)forms the subjects and objects represented. Ontological fragility opens communicative channels and creative potential.

The fragility of the ontological status of the cinematic image relates to the idea of intermedial density that the following discussion would like to put forward. A piece of wood on the palm of a hand, for example, purports densities in terms of material qualities: the wood weighs, smells and looks in a specific way as well as the hand radiates warmth, tenderness and humidity. Sensing these qualities and the contact between them, engaging with them and making sense of them is part of a dialogue emerging between the Self and the Object that requires a shared context between them. The piece of wood or the hand will not share anything about its qualities if there is no contact, no ‘communicative’ act. Inner and outer worlds open onto each other and merge into one another. The exchange of qualities between different medial worlds may function in a similar way. Object worlds, for example, bear painterly qualities as a result of a dialogue, of worlds opening up to one another and sharing a common ground. The intensity and intimacy of this dialogue blurs the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity. It is very difficult to discern the painterly qualities outside painting, in a physical environment in an objective manner, as the exchange subjectifies the communicative partners.