In conclusion I want to note briefly two different responses to the new texture of modernity taking shape in the 1920s. The painter Fernand Leger writes, in a 1924 essay titled "The Spectacle," published soon after the making of his film Ballet Mecanique,

The rhythm of modern life is so dynamic that a slice of life seen from a cafe terrace is a spectacle. The most diverse elements collide and jostle one another there. The interplay of contrasts is so violent that there is always exaggeration in the effect that one glimpses. On the boulevard two men are carrying some immense gilded letters in a hand cart: the effect is so unexpected that everyone stops and looks. There is the
origin of the modern spectacle . . . in the shock of the surprise effect.21

Spectacle, Attention, Counter-Memory
by Jonathan Crary