In his introduction to the 1909 edition of The Golden Bowl, Henry James wrote, "My instinct appears repeatedly to have been that to arrive at the facts retailed and the figures introduced by the given help of some other conscious and confessed agent is essentially to find the whole business—that is, as I say, the effective interest—enriched by the way." 

In this film, James acts as the confessed agent, and the glass through which every image is reflected or filtered takes on a kind of consciousness.