It is part of the “Movies” series, produced between 2014 and 2018

The first thing that caught my attention in the film “How to Turn the Eyelid Inside Out” (1948), produced by the London Institute of Ophthalmology, was the opening shot of a woman with pale, slightly rosy skin and a round face, the attention drawn by her gaze to her large eyes, accentuated by the sparse presence of light-colored eyelashes contrasting with the color of her black hair, which matched her austere dress, revealing her slender neck.
The scene continues, with the figure of the doctor in a white coat entering the frame as the woman sits in the patient’s chair, giving way to a succession of shots of hands examining the eyelid, until reaching a close-up of the fingers turning the eyelid using the various methods of eversion.
Despite the elegant staging, the film’s color palette, the smooth transitions, and the exquisite fades to black—in the face of such a marvel of classical audiovisual language—the reaction of most viewers would be one of aversion, even though they know no cinematic techniques have been used to provoke such a rejection; the contradiction is present, generating perceptual misunderstandings.

“Extra capsular cataract extractions” (1937) Linked to the previous film, another film about a cataract extraction operation, “Extra capsular cataract operation” (1937), by the British Medical Association. In this second part, a person who appears to be asleep is prepared for surgery. Wrapped in a white cloth that reveals only their pale face—reminiscent of a shroud or burial cloth, were it not for the presence of a hand in the frame holding a glass syringe and injecting anesthesia to induce akinesia and prevent spontaneous movements.
This close-up gives way to a detailed shot of the eye, isolated from the rest of the face through a hole in the blue cloth. This color is used today because it conceals blood, reduces confusion caused by optical illusions, and conveys a sense of cleanliness and calm.
Furthermore, the color blue is captured better by the camera and improves the recording of the operations. From here on, the hands guide the surgical instruments, which involve making an incision with the scalpel to open the anterior capsule of the lens, in order to extract the cataract in one piece with the help of serrated forceps and other instruments, with absolute precision and barely a drop of blood.

This is another marvel of classic cinema; although this was not the filmmaker’s intention, cinematic strategies and the use of traditional audiovisual resources were so deeply rooted in society that they constituted a widespread visual semiotic system. It should be added that the music incorporated into the video is Pietro Mascagni’s Intermezzo from the opera “Cavalleria rusticana,” linking it to the audiovisual narrative more through the visual elements than through the progression of the operation.