West of Sunset

The capacity of a photograph to stir

instant recognition of time and place

isn't specific to photography and, to

hear many tell it, isn't even worthy.

Possibly the photograph allows time

and place to escape into permission

elsewhere to be valued. This lenity

is also not specific to photography.

So, it's the low coastal range in a

classic melting haze, the ample ten-

nis whites, and the molded chair by

Charles Eames that lift the seal of

memory for refreshment to be taken.

                  All it lacked, really, were the

                  reminding bells from countless

                  steeples at dawn and at sunset,

                  and at moments throughout the 

                  day. On the other hand, at the

                  age which he had managed to reach

                  in comparative comfort, he was

                  perfectly happy not to be remind-

                  ed, that time, his time, was pass-

                  ing. Uncomfortably quickly.

                   

Criterion has refurbished Visconti's

film of Death in Venice, in time for

permissions to extend to its escape.

Charles Eames

Chair in bent wood

Los Angeles, ca 1950

Dirk Bogarde

West of Sunset

Penguin Books, 1984©