"L'Egypte de Mlle Cleo de Merode cours elementaire d'histoire naturelle"
1940
“The idea of working in boxes had occurred to Cornell years
earlier when he left his house one day on his daily foray to the supermarket
and passed a theatre on the opposite side of the street. He happened to look at
the box office, which was separate from the theatre in the old-fashioned way,
and saw a new ticket taker--blonde, blue-eyed, very young, altogether a very
pretty girl. He was awestruck by this vision of a girl in a box. After a week
or two of walking past this girl, he finally screwed up his courage and bought
a dozen roses from a florist. When he walked up to the girl he became
tongue-tied and couldn’t get the words out, so he just opened the door and
hurled the flowers at her. The girl screamed, and the theatre manager came
running out. The police were called, and Cornell was taken off to the station
house, where he spent the day.” [The Art
Dealers, Laura de Coppet and Alan Jones 1979]
"If you love watching movies from the middle on, Cornell is your director. It's those first moments of some already-started, unknown movie with its totally mysterious images and snatches of dialogue before the setting and even the vaguest hint of a plot became apparent that he captures." [Dime Store Alchemy, Charles Simic 1991]
