A moving prism

The Trial, Orson Welles - 1962 » Narrator: Before the law, there stands a guard. A man comes from the country, begging admittance to the law. But the guard cannot admit him. May he hope to enter at a later time? That is possible, said the guard. The man tries to peer through the entrance. He'd been taught that the law was to be accessible to every man. "Do not attempt to enter without my permission", says the guard. I am very p owerful. Yet I am the least of all the guards. From hall to hall, door after door, each guard is more powerful than the last. By the guard's permission, the man sits by the side of the door, and there he waits. For years, he waits. Everything he has, he gives away in the hope of bribing the guard, who never fails to say to him "I take what you give me only so that you will not feel that you left something undone." Keeping his watch during the long years, the man has come to know even the fleas on the guard's fur collar. Growing ch...

Duane Michals, Untitled 1968 » Finally, I am getting older, any change becomes more and more difficult. But in all this I foresee a great misfortune for myself, one without end and without hope; I should be dragging through the years up the ladder of my job, growing ever sadder and more alone as long as I could endure it at all. But you wanted that sort of life for yourself, didn’t you? — Franz Kafka, from Diaries 1914-1923. Translated by: Martin Greenberg  

The Kiss of Death, Edvard Munche (1899) »  I called for my horse to be brought from the stable. The servant did not understand me. I myself went into the stable, saddled my horse and mounted. In the distance I heard a bugle call. I asked him what it meant but he did not know and had not heard it. By the gate he stopped me and asked, ‘Where are you riding to sir?’ I answered, ‘away from here, away from here, always away fr om here. Only by doing so can I reach my destination’. ‘Then you know your destination’, he asked. ‘Yes’, I said, ‘I have already said so, “Away-From-Here”, that is my destination’. ‘You have no provisions with you’, he said. ‘I don’t need any’, I said. ‘The journey is so long that I will die of hunger if I do not get something along the way. It is, fortunately, a truly immense journey.’ – Franz Kafka