Blackbirdan online journal of literature and the artsSpring 2021  Vol. 20  No. 1
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back ROBERT GIBB

Cinema Club, Kutztown State College, 1971

Those movies about the movies: Sunset
Boulevard
, Singing in the Rain, Targets . . .

We cherished every close-up of the projector,
Its smoke-swirled beam,
the film editor

Splicing footage together in the dark.
Keaton crossing the proscenium arch.

The boom mic taking center stage
In Welles’ stark trailer for Citizen Kane.

~

Mirrors held up to mirrors. Soliloquies
Of light.
In black-and-white especially—

That old, combustible, nitrate stock
The images themselves could touch off.

Veronica Lake in a bathrobe in Sullivan’s
Travels
, the film lit as if with platinum.  


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