From the beginning he is asserting that film is seen from different angles, that the cameraman is shooting the scene from different angles and perspective. He also mentions that film does not include any of the items that film uses, such as other cameras or lights, unless they are in the scene.

He then moves on to raise the point that when the film is put together through the editing, it is this process that creates a reality through film. He describes this as:

The camera free aspect of reality is here at its most artificial, and the sight of what is actually going on has become the blue flower [of romanticism] in the land of technology (P24)

He then compares a painter to a cameraman and then compares these two to a magician and a surgeon. His main thrust of this comparison is that a magician tries to heal by laying on hands, whilst a surgeon actually operates and makes changes. The painter “lays his hands” on reality whilst the cameraman “operates” on reality by editing to create a camera free perspective.

This camera free perspective is crucial in the production of a convincing reality, because it mimics our own perception so strongly.

That is why the filmic portrayal of reality is of such incomparably greater significance of people today, because it continues to provide the camera free aspect of reality that they are entitled to demand of a work of art precisely by using the camera to penetrate that reality so thoroughly (P25-6)

So the reason why film is so realistic is because it is a virtual copy of the reality we see and also because of the camera free aspect reinforces that sense of reality. We forget we are watching a film, a virtual reality in a sense because we expect to see a camera free perspective, we expect reality to be mimicked and recreated.