Quote for Joseph Cooper.

--Picture by Grandville

"Even more revealing is the comparison of these circumstances, which differ so much from those of the theater, with the situation in painting. Here the question is: How does the cameraman compare with the painter? To answer this we take recourse to an analogy with a surgical operation. The surgeon represents the polar opposite of the magician. The magician heals a sick person by the laying on of hands; the surgeon cuts into the patient's body. The magician maintains the natural distance between the patient and himself; though he reduces it very slightly by the laying on of hands, he greatly increases it by the virtue of his authority. The surgeon does exactly the reverse; he greatly diminishes the distance between himself and the patient by penetrating into the patient's body, and increases it but little by the caution with which his hand moves among the organs. In short, in contrast to the magician--who is still hidden in the medical practicioner--the surgeon at the decisive moment abstains from facing the patient man to man; rather it is through the operation that he penetrates into him."

--From Walter Benjamin's, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.