Virtual Feeling

The poem I wrote was an attempt to convey my virtual feeling of the piece; the melancholy, the loneliness, and the jealousy of the man sitting by himself. I like the duality of certain things in the painting, the light of the cafe versus the dark of the street, salt and pepper shakers, the single man versus the couple, etc. It's as if Hopper is trying to convey loneliness through a contrast of many different elements. Besides the obvious empty streets and late night setting, this painting is almost two-thirds devoid of people. Loneliness is a given.

The woman is the only thing that bothers me. If Hopper was trying to perceive the (ironic) loneliness of the modern urban landscape, why have a loud, hot girl in the mix of the painting? I think the secondary objective here is jealousy. The single man sees the couple, at whatever varied degree of hapiness they may be enjoying or not enjoying, and is simply jealous of them. The red being so vivid, leads me to belief that the jealousy is intense and saddening at the same time. We can't see the single man's face, but I'd imagine its less neutral than the rest of the bunch; I'm pegging him as the protagonist of the story of the painting. He is the voice in my poem as well. Although it's ultimately the loneliness of an entire city that Hopper is trying to convey, he is the one we identify with as truly lonely in this still shot.

I feel like this is a movie, and several things I read supported this; Hopper liked the cinema. I can see the camera zooming out at the end of the shot, to a slow, dizzy saxophone, trailing off into the fade to black.