First of all I have to define the notion of “ideal cinematograph” (a synonym for “interior cinematograph”). It is a hypothetical projection of inner images of mind (“through the eye retina”) outside and regular manipulations with this material as if that hypothetical action is already done. The epithet “ideal” has no connotative meaning, it indicates that visual images are generated directly by the sphere of the ideal. With all this the manipulation with pictures inside the mind (or even with images) is other than treating a materialized, shot film in the traditional cinematograph. One may, of course, regard the notion of ideal cinematograph as a metaphor to denote the concentration of the phenomenon of consciousness on the generating of namely visual images, but the important here is aiming at realization and being sure that – at least hypothetically – such project is feasible and therefore one can speak of it not only in the future but also in the present tense.

            Consequently, I will not speak only about psychological phenomena. Although research in the field of the psychology of memorizing peculiarities and image reproduction (particularly visual) is also important. Beginning from Galton who back in the XIX century studied  the possibilities of visual reproduction of various impressions, a lot has been contributed to psychology and aesthetics. We will not turn to a complex classification of various images in mind (visual and other) since we are interested in the possibility itself of developing techniques which allow to present impressions and memories.  We are also interested in the possibility to compare operations with sequences of memories in mind and actions made by a film director and an editor in the traditional cinema art. The question about a direct transference of an inner image to an outer screen in “a reverse ray of vision” does not seem that fantastic now considering modern technology. If you remember, in 1910s Staudenmayer wrote about a possible reproduction of mind images in reality; the famous Russian philosopher Pavel Florensky discussed the same thing – in the philosophical aspect – in his work Organoprojection. There is another thing: any intrusion to the inner sphere of consciousness bring new ethical problems. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to speak and discuss such technologies.

            “Ontological principles” of imaginary cinema, just like methods of creation of its form, are still not clear. One can imagine its peculiarities if he remembers that we have the information about ideal inner images of another person mainly from his words, but images as they are remain his property. I said “mainly” because there was some experience of drawing dreams. A painter actually is the one who constantly tries to find a way to render his inner visions. Modern computer methods of creating special effects, the success of animation can do a lot for a film. But we are still far from being able to film (even on an imaginary, magic film) an inner sequence of images in our mind, not mentioning “the shooting” of  an idea as it is. One may ask, of course, if we should try to shoot at all something that can not be viewed since very often it hard to “examine” a thought. But if we speak of the speculative in a high sense, then one can catch an image and hold it only by trying to fix it on an imaginary film (at least for now).

            The traditional cinematograph strives to break this barrier. Actually, it acts as if the dramatic difference between an inner image belonging only to us due to the impossibility of its practical expression and reality which can be commemorated by means of cinema, did not exist. Experiences of conveying dreams by Tarkovski, Bunuel, Fellini and Kurosava are impressive. But to depict an inner image by methods of the traditional cinema you will always need its physical analogue, its “double” – it may be a living person, and it may be an object, and this is what a film director shoots and presents to the spectator as a real image of a dream or a vision of an artist. And it’s honest, there is actually no substitutes. That is the whole point of the “exterior” cinematograph. Kraсauer was the one who best described this process and who understood cinema as an apology of physical reality.

            The picture in the existing cinematograph can be considered a documentary proof of a literal physical reality, although the idea of a film immediately transfers us to the sphere of the ideal. We distract ourselves from the shot “raw” substance. One can always oppose (although it is not that easy) an abstract idea of a feature film to the “here and now” fixed reality. The picture in fiction can be regarded as a proof of existence of objects (just like people and animals), analogous to documentary cinema. With the proviso that reality which is shot that way (decorations, for example) resists, it “doesn’t want to be” just an object, a thing among things because the poetics of art transferred it to a higher sphere. But still you can find such total “documentalism” (with all its apparent primitiveness)  in the existing fiction. Shooting an actor on film fixes a part of his real human biography. They say, for example: “Look how young he was in that old movie!” The sense of such statement pertains to the actor himself, not his character. It doesn’t mean that they try to treat a work of art as a vulgar physical reality, it only demonstrates the nature of the contemporary cinema (“according to S. Kracauer”). But this is how the ontological peculiarity of projecting “the ideal cinema” is revealed. So if today’s cinematograph is documentary towards material reality, “the inner cinematograph” is documentary towards an image and an idea which is closely connected with human conscience.

            Before I actually pass to “the inner editing”, I have to mention the necessity to extract an inner image out of a system of marking signs which accompany and hold it (we’ll regard only a part of this approach which as an action may be called “the dis-editing of worked out designations), and we’ll discuss only verbal signs. Since an inner image “for others” is almost always enclosed in a verbal form, “the inner cinematograph” then is essentially literature-oriented. There exists the problem of a direct transference of a visual image caused by a word, to the inner screen, which a man can imagine as an external screen. Many authors write about a cinema like quality of some literary works and separate episodes. (We shall not turn to a very popular topic of the possibility of making a film version out of them). Most of all we are interested in the problem of the identification of an original inner image which outside is represented by a word. For example, they often mention the scene at horse races from Anna Karenina. In this scene the changing of different “points of view” and backgrounds is corresponding to “the psychological verbal soundtrack”, i.e. we are inside of a mobile, dramatically organized inner space determined by the word. This episode is important for us because it helps to understand how a visual image can split from its verbal form in reader’s memory. But when they speak of the cinema-like quality, they mean that this episode of the novel may generate adequate plastic visual images in reader’s mind. The author of a literary work appeals to the personal experience of a reader. The writer implies one thing, but the reader “operates” phenomena of his own conscience. Reading a very well written passage he gets some visual impressions, but those are his own visual images. Such visions are connected either with his former life experience, or they emerge as new pictures in the process of reading, or else they are the result of the interference of both. The reading leaves us with a sum of feelings which helps us to reproduce in memory the picture/impression of the read episode.

            With all this the reader usually doesn’t care what actually “saw” Leo Tolstoy, although the undoubted existence of some conception in writer’s mind may provoke “the inner cinematograph” to search for this prototypic conception.  To solve the problem of the documentalism of “the inner cinematograph”  it is very important to see the inner image “as it is”, i.e. as is was seen by the author (or any person who has memories if the topic of discussion is something other than a literary work). But methods of work with these images and the documentary time of this cinematograph are special and yet need to be figured out. (We may, of course, wonder whether a writer should always represent something definite in bright, vivid  pictures so as to cause the perceiving mind to have a clear visual image, but let’s consider that it is so). Besides it is undoubted that many literary works cannot be “deciphered” by visual images alone, but we are still interested how a word may be connected with the inner image carried by it.

            Now let’s try to talk about the arrangement of visual imagery, about editing in “the inner cinematograph”. Images in mind still represent some unformed unity. And still a man is able, as a rule, to point out what belongs to the world of his fantasy, what - to his memories of events that happened to him in reality, and what – to fragmentary memories of dreams. But we must find significant expressive units for these types of memories. For these images are not separated into frames. This is what differs it from the traditional cinematograph, where there is always a sequence of frames. In the traditional cinema one can cut this sequence into fragments and rearrange it, re-edit it in different ways: the important is that there is a primary unit – a frame, and it is a replica of the world. (It is useful here to remember Sergey Eisentsein’s words which express a point of view on editing in the traditional cinema: “A frame is not at all an element of montage. It is a cell of montage. … Montage is the development of an inside-frame conflict first into a conflict of two closely put parts which then turns into montage jolts between parts being edited.”) In “the ideal cinema” we can imagine other ways of making the final copy. Not only the linear thread of film can be imagined (with all the complexity of interaction between the frames), but also a possible plurality of joint simultaneous displays which reflects the multi-channel quality of simultaneous expressions of an image in conscience and sub-conscience.

            The problem of time as an organizing beginning in this hypothetical cinematograph is very important. If we turn to theoretical temporality of cinema, then each frame denotes zero time (it is corresponded by a point on the axis of time).  Just a picture is a pure spatiality. I have already written on how using separate frames (pictures) one can build a relative model of time which can be mathematically expressed. The way of representing the world (and time) by changing frames is also one of the principles of editing in cinematograph. From the point of view of relativity a moment of time is the sum of spatial relations in a frame. Now, for this definition to make sense, all figures and characters in the frame must be separated in parts (some objects may be these parts), so that by  their spatial correspondence we could judge of changes when the next frame comes. If the location of these parts does not change from frame to frame, we can say that time stood still. With all that the uninterrupted exterior time (and the time of the spectator) are totally able to give the sensation of a complex time interaction, although the indicated relative cinematographic time stands still in this case. When choosing the space (that determines time), not only a system of purely physical distance relations goes, but a generalization is acceptable, for example, using a correctly set color space.

            The role of principles of time sensation is a constructive one. Actually,  all the inner life is a document of conscience, of soul’s work. In the narrow sense we can consider the inner “documentary” cinematograph only those things that relate to that particular man’s memory. Those things may be something that took place a minute or ten years ago – the important is that they actually happened (invisible even for conscience, a profound work of sub-conscience can also be in some way presented to the world, although it is very hard to imagine this even hypothetically). What a man has memorized may turn out to be what they call “a historical event”. Especially important may be personal memories as a sample of a document undergoing dynamic transformation. With all this memories have some unchangeable part, a so called “invariant”, which makes the memory of any given person valuable and therefore is kept by him with love. It is essential to understand that inner images “of this particular man”  may be a document (it’s not about a cold-blooded intrusion of the state into the sphere of personal, it’s about a vivid interest in saving and reproducing of fragments of a private human life). Such an approach would allow to introduce “a film of memory” as an evidence of a really lived human life. This would be a part of History which is understood not only as a sphere of great events and great people but also as a totality of life experience of all contemporaries (perception as well as impression). But the most important is that the world could appeal to this perfectly intimate visual experience of memory and imagination of a particular person as to a work of art, the world would look into the man’s eyes not with the curiosity of a mere observer but with the compassion and admiration of “this particular man’s” contemporary. The most essential in “the inner cinematograph” is that the image as a phenomenon of conscience does not disappear, it is able to become not only “our property” and be memorized – question of hypothetical technologies stands apart – but it can be pictured and restored. An inner image may serve “an objective” document.

            One of essential questions about the purpose of organizing the visual imagery of the inner cinematograph is the problem of the structure of the time scale. Memories in their sequence (or violation of it) constantly correlate themselves with real time. Therefore a more complex time scheme is being built which is interwoven with customary time characteristics. Consequently we can point out not just one but many inner times. Beside the absence of a clear discreteness, separation between the frames there are strange relations in the inner cinematograph with the customary linear time since one separate fragment of memories can be more important than others. More over, the position of an episode on the scale of  inner time, its coordinate does not coincide with time marks of usual clocks and calendars. So it can turn out that a memory of the childhood with its brightness is literary “closer” to the present time than a not so distinct episode of mature age, that is the marks on the inner time scale can be non-linear compared to the scale of physical time.

            The filling with time of an episode of “the inner cinematograph” can also be different. One of the most important properties of a unit of the inner cinematograph is its great “capacity” compared with a frame of traditional cinematograph. Although perception often can not cut a sequence into frames (it does not differentiate between frames that are alike and follow each other), with some emotional and rational effort we may succeed to separate the fragments, that is “a marking according to the uniqueness” can be done which allows to differentiate between  episodes. A usual film equally fixes anything that occasionally gets into the viewfinder. In the inner editing the essential is that a repeatedly happening in life uninteresting event can hardly be replayed and sometimes is not memorized at all. On the contrary, a unique event (especially a happy one) can be replayed many times so that the time of  “the inner cinematograph” accumulates in such episodes. 

            The arrangement of the inner time of memories and the arrangement of time when reproducing can dramatically differ from each other. The exteriorization of inner experience is based, of course, on certain models. The time flow  of memories – although it does not coincide with physical time flow, determined by the clock – still adopts some of its principles. First of all it’s a possibility to be calculated. Inner time is able to condense. In infinite repetitions of one and the same event – especially when a man gets older – the time experience accumulates acquiring the hardness of a block of salt out of which can be created indestructible (may be illusory) statues. The man finds himself inseparable from these statues and cities of memories. Very often he attempts to  express them in words. Although, of course, he doesn’t want a memory to be presented completely (very often writing memoirs is an art of leaving “behind the scenes” some people and events, hinting, nevertheless, how important they are).  Visual memories in this sense can be more merciless. They can hardly be censored. Although an experienced director-memoirist will probably be able to arrange his stream of consciousness so that what others will see in his memories will essentially differ from what is actually kept in his memories. Memories are highly subjective, but there is an aspiration for commemorating a truth which does not depend on personal notions and is a universal document of memory. Though a personal memory can also be estimated as a document which is not less (or even more) significant than universal memories. “A work of art of every person”  is his memory, although our cold vision can not convey it, it can only imply an emotional color of it.    

            The significance of a certain memory can be “calculated” when we see how often a person addresses to it in his consciousness. The more significant is this fragment of memory for him, the more often he appeals to it. With all convention of using of such “mathematical” approach it still corresponds (to a certain extent) to how we experience this when we differently evaluate various moments of our lives (though they are probably all invaluable). Of course, it is hard calculate how many times our memory addresses this or that episode of our life, but it absolutely clear that these numbers are different. The repetition of one and the same episode in memory can even create something like a time trap. Therefore “a film of memories” of a man is not at all an even film with a cold record of events. Its consists of incredibly strong parts where the inner time “accumulates” (it is calculated, as we have mentioned, by the number of appeals to these fragments), rather vague and fragmentary memories of many years and a number of lacunas or hollow spots which correspond to a part of live not reproduced on the screen of memory. There is no doubt that the subconscious keeps much more memories (there is a hypothesis that a man forgets nothing at all), but we are trying to speak about the medium level of memorized events which is possible to be clearly presented.

            In “the inner cinematograph” it is often quite difficult to ascribe the happening to a certain point in space and time in a traditional understanding. In this case it is rather the arrangement itself of what is “shot” that determines the inner time. One may disagree and say that the so-called cinematograph of a single film-director (like Fellini or Bergman) presupposes a more complex time arrangement. But it is not about real events transferred on film, it’s about memories of consciousness which are basically not ready for editing in a normal sense.

            The method of constant “re-editing of memories” determines the time of such imaginary cinematograph, permitting a concentration of time which is impossible in the physically limited traditional cinematograph. It corresponds to the general problems of contemporary poetics. The transparence of an image and its fullness. Concentration without a feeling of overflowing of an invisible cubic capacity. A great virtual concentration of material also gives a possibility for physical realization. Mutual permeability and penetration in numerous parts of inner space.  A real interaction in one point of normal time and space of various times and spaces from the inner cinematograph, which can hardly be described in a usual language: one must search special words. It will depend a lot on a method of projection of inner pulsating unformed material which is “arranged” on the outside.  The inner cinematograph is interested in its outer projection. Without that it will remain an amorphous clot, a concentration without structure, like a forgotten dream. A method of arrangement of the inner time for it is equal to a method of arrangement of memory. The memory structure in this case is calculated in units connected with time units. The world, just like a clever pupil,  may peer into the arranged world of a man’s consciousness and be surprised to see vast expanses, landscapes and what is given in the special inner time of cinematograph of this person.

            Therefore it is necessary to reveal the universal philosophical sense of such constructions. Th