Conclusion: Broadening Out

The conclusion journeys back across the different processes explored in the preceding chapters in order to stress continuities in the procedures that prompt mental image composition in spite of the very different films from different geo-political contexts and eras that have informed this study. It also asks how the fruits of this research might relate to an even broader range of filmic examples. The argument throughout the book emphasises that no one process is attached solely to the examples discussed in any given chapter and indicates how a number of processes sometimes coalesce when viewing an individual work. To take this argument further, the conclusion suggests that these processes, especially the opening account of layering, are portable and relevant to moments of mainstream narrative cinema as well as further examples from art house cinema and documentary. When characters tell stories in the diegetic space without their words giving way to images that illustrate what they are narrating, when a voice-over is evocative and diverges from what is seen on screen, or when a soundtrack speaks louder than words, there is an opening for the image-making capacity of the imagination that has been the book’s focus throughout.