To endow with a poetic value that which does not yet possess it, to willfully restrict the field of vision so as to intensify expression

Louis Aragon, "On Decor."

Poets without being artists, children sometimes fix their attention on an object to the point where their concentration makes it grow larger, grow so much it completely occupies their visual field, assumes a mysterious aspect and loses all relation to its purpose. Or they repeat a word endlessly, so often it divests itself of meaning and becomes a poignant and pointless sound that makes them cry. Likewise on the screen objects that were a few moments ago sticks of furniture or books of cloakroom tickets and transformed to the point where they take on menacing or enigmatic meanings. The theater is powerless where such emotive concentration is concerned. 

To endow with a poetic value that which does not yet possess it, to willfully restrict the field of vision so as to intensify expression: these are two properties that help make cinematic decor the adequate setting of modern beauty.

 From French Film Theory and Criticism: 1907-1929 (Princeton UP, 1988: 166).