Film theory via camera operators, this is amazing stuff from Anthony Bourdain’s man behind the lens.

Transfixed on this future-past, the operator’s mind is split between now and later. The Present is displaced by near-present. The operator filmed the event, but is left with a peculiar feeling of not fully being there. Something has been lost. What? The act of recording blocks an operator’s access to adirectly-experienced present. Life experienced through the lens is not the same as life without it. They are not fully here. The situation appears dangerous.

Some connections to a book I reviewed for Cinej Cinema Journal last year. Really, really interesting ways to start thinking through cinema in the age of the digital.