The discussion of slow-motion seemed to invite references that went= further and further back in time. Here's a reference to a slow-motion film= of a boxing match that was being screened in Paris in the early twenties.= =20 In Paris, 1922, a year after his fight with Jack Dempsey,= French boxing idol Georges Carpentier lost his light-heavyweight title to= an unknown boxer from Senegal called Battling Siki -- this despite the= usual rumor that the fight had been set up for Carpentier "to make a good newsreel film" by knocking out Siki. The film played widely in France,= but the conditions of its reception led to interpretations quite distinct= from previous fight films. Writing in PARIS-JOURNAL, the surrealist Robert D=E9snos provocatively suggested that the movie was an illustration= of cinema's powers of eroticism. "It's because, despite everything,= it is protected by an objective representation of reality that the cinema= escapes the control of its legal guardians. It transforms external elements= to the point of creating a new universe: this is how the SLOW-MOTION film= of the Siki-Carpentier fight in fact simulates gestures of passion." =20 -- Robert D=E9snos, "Eroticism," PARIS-JOURNAL, April 20,= 1923, reprinted in Paul Hammond, ed., THE SHADOW OF ITS SHADOW: SURREALIST WRITINGS ON CINEMA (London: BFI, 1978), pp. 122-23; and in D=E9snos, CINEMA, (Editions Gallimard, 1966), pp. 101-03. (A citation pointed= out to me by filmmaker Laurie Block.) ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]