It's been decades since French film critic Alfred Bazin first noted the peculiar power of photography to compel belief in the truthfulness of images - even if those "truths" exist only in our minds.
The motion-picture camera, little more than 100 years old, introduced something completely new to the ancient art of image-making: a photographic likeness so compelling that it convinces us the flickering forms on the screen in a darkened room are as real as the person sitting next to us.
Exhibit
The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality and the Moving Image, through May 11. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Independence Avenue and Seventh Street Southwest, Washington. 202-633-1618 or hirshhorn.si.edu.