Quinta do Napoles in Santo Adrião (P)

The Cinematic Gaze as ‘A Long Loving Look at the Real’: Andrei Tarkovsky and Walter Burghardt’s Theology of Contemplation

“…From this understanding of the 'real', Burghardt moves in reverse through his description of contemplation: 'This real I look at,' 13 he writes, succinctly beginning a new section. This 'look', of course, is not merely visual.…”

“…And so I am most myself, most human, most contemplative, when my whole person responds to the real.' 14 Thus contemplation, for Burghardt, involves an embodied act of attentive 'looking'; a 'look' which is phenomenal, tactile and haptic, even audible. In his own words: 'To 'look' wholly means that my whole person reacts.…”

“…Not only my mind, but my eyes and ears, smelling and touching and tasting.' 15 Here Burghardt is surely thinking of Ignatius, when he encourages the person who prays to use all of their senses in the act (Spiritual Exercises n.121-5). This recognition of our embodiment and the embodied nature of 'seeing'/'looking' is crucial, and it will be particularly important in the next section's discussion of cinema as an embodied, enfleshed medium of seeing.…”