But characters aren't specific to Cinema.

You can find characters in a novel, on stage, in a play, and so on. I am becoming more and more obsessed, invested entirely in the image. In style, in excess, in authorship and visual composition. My interest in Character is only in relation to how it might be cinematically evoked.
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Anyway, I've seen five films in the past two days, four of which were on the big screen:

Rebecca (1940/Hitchcock): Suffocatingly constructed "woman's picture", full of feminine aspirations to be desired by the male, who here, played by Laurence Olivier, is a welcome contrast to the infuriating (and effective) Joan Fontaine. The final half-hour or so opens up into a murder mystery we care little about, and the ambiguities hitherto maintained are lost. [A shoddy bfi print upset the rhythm.]

Children of Men (2006/Cuarón): 2nd time, I wanted to catch it again before it disappears from cinemas. Outstandingly-shot film, full of breathtaking sequences, using long takes and a hand-held, fiercely independent and roaming camera which restricts our view but enhances the immediacy of many incredibly complicated settings. The most impressive of these are the rebel attack on a car full of people, with the camera rotating three-sixty degress inside the car, before alighting and ending up left to observe two dead policemen as the car speeds off; the giving birth of a child in some worn-out, secluded safe house, with the very near threat of war and manic dogs outside; and the moving to different levels via a stairwell in a building at the heart of the fierce battle, with the relentless cry of a baby which, by the end of the shot, has silenced the guns and brought calm to a scene of devastation. It's genuinely thrilling, with a believable grittiness rarely seenin sci-fi. Best film so far this year.

Sky Captain and the World Tomorrow (2004/Conran): It might be easy to defend this film as a) experimental, b) an interesting failure, or c) visually fantastic. We probably shouldn't ignore the fundamental innovations of blue-screen, but just because it's new and experimental doesn’t mean it is by default any good; the acting is atrocious, often painful to watch, with nobody interacting with their CGI surroundings. Sound design is very flat, and it doesn't even look all that nice.

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944/Minnelli): Piercingly colourful musical, which, if it suddenly becomes preachy in its nostalgia and family moralsin its final quarter, is delightful from beginning to end due to some wonderful performances and a sharp, often dark script. The younger children, sweet, innocent and imaginative, are all obsessed with murder and death, whilst the older daughters, including Judy Garland, are interested solely in impressing the men in town. The narrative, divided into four seasons in a year - three of which constitute a single night - gives a real sense of depth to these characters without ever becoming detached; Minnelli only cuts when he has to. Certainly purged away the pain caused by Sky Captain.

And I also rewatched Godard's Weekend (1967) on DVD; probably my favourite film.