Does the Eye of the Artist Ever Wink?
We like to think that between the outside and inside worlds, there is a simple, impartial one-way window called the eye. But a simple demonstration will show you — there is a good one at blindspottest.com — that our brains and eyes have a penchant for modifying reality to fit our preconceptions of it. Yes, there is a camera lens attached to the optic nerve, but there’s a projector whirring away in there as well. Most of us discount this fact, preferring to see ourselves as totally objective. (Ahem: see “projection.”) But some people take a more imaginative view. Michel Gondry, the French-born director whose latest film, “Be Kind Rewind,” is about a pair of filmmakers remaking Hollywood classics on a 99-cent-store budget, has his own idea what “visionary” means. Every day, Mr. Gondry, a charming mix of amateur and auteur, tries to see something as something else. It is a defiantly unrealistic exercise very much in keeping with the childlike romanticism that has defined his work, which i
