Eyes1970

After wishing for years to be given- the -opportunity of filming some of the more mystical occupations of our Times–some of the more obscure Public Figures which the average imagination turns into bogeyman ... viz.: Policemen, Doctors, Soldiers, Politicians, etc.:– I was at last permitted opportunity largely due to the efforts of a Pittsburgh newspaper Photographer, Mike Chikaris... who was sympathetic to my film show at the Carnegie Institute, and responded to my wish as stated on my thanks to him, to Sally Dixon of the Carnegie Institute, and to the Policemen who created the situation that made this film possible. As to the film itself: 'Polis is eyes,' said Charles Olson, having found the archeological root of the word-end (thus beginning) of, say, metropolis, etc. Police is a clear etymological derivative of polis. The more currently popular fix on these terms comes form, say, Dashiel Hammett's 'private eye,' & the sense of response-ability which Raymond Chanler and even Ross MacDonald give to their detective heroes under that term. The Police, then, are the public eyes; and they are, thus, expected to be Specialists of that ability-to respond which most of the rest of the society has lost all Metro sense-of. The experience of making this film prompted that clarity of terms: 'Polis is eyes' was my constant prayer, to make that experience clear, the last entire day of photographing. The film mostly assembled, rather than edited, is thus the surest track I could make of what it was given to me to see. It is 'framed' by clouds and the ocean for the simplest reasons of 'perspective.'