The pure image is in fact the object that is stripped of all cinematic decorations that adorn it – left naked and exposed: it is a moment of cinematic grace created at a moment of temporarily lost control. A moment where the filmmaker stands frozen facing a reality more powerful than her; she can only observe the frame spread out before her, completely unable to react. It is a pure cinematic shot without its reverse shot, a cinematic shot that’s no longer attributed to a specific individual, not to the film’s protagonist nor to the director himself – but to cinema alone.
Gilles Deleuze