Letter: In Brief

Sir: David Thomson's view of film (Comment, 8 September) is unduly pessimistic. Film is now one of the most accessible and culturally entrenched of the arts, yet the hardest to get right. Modern film seems to have fallen into a naturalistic trap. Allegory and metaphor are eschewed. In animation images can be conjured up that are free from these realistic constraints. If movie-makers synthesised animation with video images (as is possible with digital technology), to "paint" rather than "shoot" scenes, whole vistas would open up.

ALEXANDER SULTOON

St Catharine's College

Cambridge