We are witnessing the birth of an extraordinary art. The only truly modern art perhaps, assured already of its place and one day soon of astonishing glory, because it is simultaneously and uniquely the offspring of both technology and human ideals.
Louis Delluc, 1917
To concentrate all the force of feeling or thought on an inanimate object, to crystallize around an inert accessory scattered feelings, fleeting memories, passing dreams, is that the work of an artisan or an artist? . . . Is it to produce the work of an artisan or an artist that all these magical forces are intelligently arranged in the cinema, so as to recreate a world as seen “through a temperament”?
Emile Vuillermoz, 1918
On the screen, objects that were a few moments ago sticks of furniture or books of cloakroom tickets are transformed to the point where they take on menacing or enigmatic meanings. . . . To endow with a poetic value that which does not yet possess it, to willfully restrict the field of vision so as to intensify expression: these are the two properties that help make cinematic decor the adequate setting of modern beauty.
Louis Aragon, 1918