No title

CINEMA

Journal Volume

of the VI

JOURNAL

Society

of Cinematologists 1966-67

CINEMA

JOURNAL CONTENTS

Donald E. Staples / The Auteur Theory Reexamined

1

Donald W. McCaffrey / The Mutual Approval of Keaton and Lloyd

9

Robert Steele / The Two Faces of Drama

16

Robert Gessner / Studies in Past and Decelerated Time

33

Walter Stainton / The Prophet Louis Ducos du Hauron and His Marvelous Moving Picture Machine

47

Editor: William Sloan, Donnell Library Center, 20 West 53d Street, New York, N. Y. 10019. Manuscripts are accepted from members and Please enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope. non-members. Printed at the University of Kansas Printing Service, Lawrence, Kans.

Volume

VI

1966-67

The Auteur Theory Reexamined Donald E. Staples

All of us have read about the auteur theory and some of us have written about it. Most of us have talked about it and each of us seems to know what it is or purports to be. But, do we really have a complete picture of the Politique des Auteurs? I have attempted to draw together some of the more basic writing about the theory (much of it from original French sources) in the hope of gaining a better understanding of what the theory was intended to be and do and what it might mean to serious students of film today. The development of the auteur theory and the subsequent controversy over it can be traced both chronologically and geographically. It can be followed from its start in 1954 and brought up to the present; similarly it can be considered as a flow from France to England and on to the United States. It started in Paris in 1954 (this has been erroneously reported as 1957 in some film journals) with the publication of an article by Francois Truffaut in the monthly periodical Cahiers du Cinema. 1 Jacques DoniolValcroze who was an editor of Cahiers du Cinema at that time has said: . . . the publication of that article marked the point of real departure of what represents today, wrongly or rightly, Cahiers du Cinema. A leap was made, a process was initiated for which we were mutually responsible, something gathered us together. Henceforth, it was known that we were for [certain directors] and against [other directors]. Henceforth there .2 was a doctrine, the "Politique des auteurs" .. It is interesting that Truffaut's article founding the auteur theory was not a piece of writing which was intended to establish a framework of criticism, nor was it strictly an appeal to directors to become auteurs. It was

2 / Cinema Journal more of an anti-screen-writers article, against the traditional and commercial French writers for film. Truffaut pointed out that the French cinema was suffering from a rather than exer"tradition of quality" -- making films for film festivals cising artistic integrity -- and he stated that something should be done to He noted that French film making had shifted from a remedy the situation. "poetic realism" which had existed before World War I to a "psychological realism" during the post war period, and that the writers of this "psychothe capacity of film by logical realism" were completely underestimating In this atattempting in each film to continue the "tradition of quality." tempt, they would always choose subjects which contained the habitual dose of non-conformist elements and gloom combined with an easy daring, and create characters typifying the lowest, the basest, the most abject in human nature. 3 Truffaut went on to complain that films of this type were writers' films, and that the film was truly completed when the writer finished writing it; that the director was only a craftsman who went out to get it on film. 4 That school [psychological realism] ways destroys it at the same time more careful it is to enclose beings caded by formulas, plays on words, us see them for ourselves with our not always dominate his work. 5

which aims at realism alof finally capturing it, the in a closed world, barrimaxims instead of letting The artist canown eyes.

This domination of the work by the auteur is of foremost importance in the eyes of the Cahiers critics, and Truffaut noted that "the directors are, and wish to be, responsible for the scenarios and dialogues that they illustrate. "6 who pronounce After condemning the "abject characters" "abject realism" he concluded: phrases" in films of "psychological I know a handful of men in France who would be incapable of It is a question of Jean Renoir, Robconceiving them .... ert Bresson, Jean Cocteau, Jacques Becker, Abel Gance, Max Ophtils, Jacques Tati, Roger Leenhardt; these are, however, coincidence --that and it happens --curious French cineastes, these are auteurs who often write their dialogue and some of them invent themselves the stories that they direct. 7 Thus Franpois Truffaut was ready for a break from the old and was some groundwork for the new in saying that "I unknowingly establishing cannot believe in the peaceful co-existence of the Tradition of Quality and a cinema of auteurs. "8 In December 1955, Cahiers du Cin6ma published a list of sixty top American directors, and since that time the list has been contemporary An introduction to the list points out that there taken much too seriously. are approximately three hundred eighty directors working in Hollywood and that Cahiers had picked sixty of the most important and the most promising

Cinema Journal / 3 directors -- leaving out especially the older ones, whose inspiration, they in citing relatively young talent felt, had vacillated. They were interested and merely list the three hundred twenty others at the end. 9 Instead of taking issue with the list, it is more significant to look at it in context with other lists of this nature which have appeared in Cahiers du Cinema. The May 1957 issue contains a similar list citing sixty French directors and in April 1961, a dictionary of French television directors apand in In May 1962, fifty-four Italian cineastes were recognized, peared. December of that year a list was published which noted the appearance of This compulsion for listing one hundred sixty-two new French cineastes. tends to make certain individual lists much less important. An article entitled "De La Politique des Auteurs" by Andre Bazin appeared in Cahiers in the April 1957 issue, and it was here that the auteur theory was first discussed in great detail with its strengths and weaknesses pointed out. 10 It is important to notice that Bazin mentioned that the politique des auteurs had never been formally written down, and that it was a theory that had evolved from a body of criticism and from a multitude of film reviews which had been written by the contributors to Cahiers du Cinema. According to Bazin, one of the main desires of this group is to find and the Rembrandts of film. the Shakespeares It is evident that the "Politique des Auteurs" is only an application to cinema of a notion generally admitted in the individual arts. 11 And even though Mr. Bazin did not mention it, this "policy" of consida ering authors or artists in terms of their total output and considering work in terms of the artist, is an accepted pattern for studying as well as criticizing works in all of the performing arts, visual arts, and literature. This procedure has also frequently been used for film study and the organization of film writing; however, it has not obtained a place of imporanatance in the field of film criticism. Until this policy is understood, will the film to and of and Rembrandts use, put Shakespeares lyzed, revised, of the auteur never be found. carry usually theory However, proponents Bazin says: this practice to extremes. Of the equation auteur + subject = work they wish to retain Certain only the auteur, the subject being reduced to zero. ones will pretend to agree with me that, the strength of the auteur being equal to others, a good subject is obviously worth more than a bad one; but the most frank or the most insolent ran on will swear to me that it is just as if their preference the contrary to little B films, where the banality of the scenario leaves more room for the personal contribution of the auteur. 12 And Bazin goes on later:

4 / Cinema Journal The "politique des auteurs" consists in sum, in choosing in the artistic creation the personal factor as a criterion of reference, then in postulating its permanence and even its progress from one work to the following. It is well recognized that there exist "important" or "quality" films which escape that frame of reference, but justly, one will systematically prefer to them those where one can read in filigree the imprint of the auteur, were it on the worst scenario possible. 13 This progress of the auteur's talent from one work to the next is an important tenet of the auteur theory, and Bazin and others have questioned whether this can be applied as strictly to films as it can be in the more traditional arts. In music, painting, or literature it is easy to find a one-to-one ratio between artist and work. In film, however, One artist: One Work. the artistic variables are so numerous and so constantly changing from one production to the other that it is difficult to establish a one-to-one ratio and discover who the auteur of any film really is. Thus the thread of artistic advancement by an auteur is tenuous in considering most works. There are two symmetrical heresies inherent in criticism generally, to Andre are Bazin. according They (1) the objective application of a critical grid or overlay, a master frame of reference to the work, and (2) considering sufficient the critic's affirmation of his pleasure or distaste with "The first denies the role of taste, while the second sets forth a the work. priori the superiority of the taste of the critic over that of the auteur. "14 Mr. Bazin went on to point out that the system of values proposed by the auteur theory commits the first heresy by departing from any system where taste and sensitivity play a foremost part. It is more a question of being able to discern the contribution of the artist as such -- beyond the elements of subject and technique -- finding the man behind the style. Thus for the auteur theorist analysis of a film begins with the principle that if the film is by an auteur, it is good, and the framework that this imposes on the work is therefore an aesthetic portrait of the director which has been drawn from his previous works. 15 On the other hand, the politique des auteurs is the most perilous for its criteria are very difficult to formulate. It is significant that, practiced for three or four years by our finest writers, it is still waiting for a great part of its theory. Instead of developing a real theory, its proponents have limited themselves to dogmatic and, it must be added, somewhat subjective assertions as to who the real auteurs are. "One sees the danger of an aesthetic cult of personality. "17 Mr. Bazin felt, however, that if the auteur theory was practiced by people of taste who remained vigilant, the cult of personality would not be the principal aspect. What bothered him about the auteur theorists more than their negative approach to good films made by non-auteurs was their conferring of praise upon films which did not merit the praise, but were works of directors whom they had labelled auteurs. 18

Cinema Journal / 5 Mr. Bazin's article did much to clarify many points concerning the auteur theory, and his death the following year dashed hopes of any followup articles. His April 1957 article concluded thus: The politique des auteurs appears to me to harbor and protect an essential critical truth which the cinema needs more than all the other arts, exactly to the extent that the act of true artistic creation is more uncertain and menaced in it than elseBut its exclusive practice would lead to another peril: where. the negation of the work to the benefit of the exaltation of its auteur .. Useful and fruitful, it seems to me thus, independently of its polemic value, that [the politique des auteurs] should be comfact which pleted by other approaches to the cinematographic would restore to the film its value as a work. This is not to deny the role of the auteur, but to restore to him the preposition [of] without which the noun auteur is only a lame concept. "Auteur," without doubt, but of what? 19 some of the later articles which have attempted to Unfortunately, criticize the auteur theory have been done with a tongue slightly in the cheek, and they rarely propose the idea that it is not the auteur theory which gives cause for argument, but only the application of it, particularly as it involves labelling directors. It is also necessary to point out that the auteur critics are performing a particular service to the overall field of film criticism in their efforts to that can express the originate and utilize a vocabulary for film criticism are ideas to be conveyed very simply. They taking existing phrases or new words and that are peculiar to ones to to establish try phrases coining At present, however, we are still in film and very exact in their usage. that period in which some of these new words, or new uses of words and are not clearly defined, or at least the definitions are not comphrases, pletely agreed upon by all critics -- especially when they have had to hurdle the language barrier. Quite probably this problem will gradually work itself out. Having seriously considered the auteur theory, it is difficult to balance the advantages and disadvantages of this theory against each other, much for film, since few less compare them to any other such set of principles seem to exist. Most other forms of film critical theory have been peculiarly individual and have used as a base an understanding of older forms of criticism founded in philosophy and the arts. This is not necessarily wrong; based that common are so dissimilarly however, these forms of criticism Earlier film critics and most of the grounds for comparison are elusive. from their favorite leading ones today have adapted the body of criticism ballet, sculpture, pomusic, drama, painting, subject (philosophy, adjacent the most useful parts of a disciAfter cannibalizing etry, prose, etc.).

6 / Cinema Journal pline's critical principles, they have colored it with their personal preferthrown in a dash of ences, popular culture or box office appeal, and added a of acid ludicrous assertion, sarcasm, wordy trickery, or flavoring style few been A have and None lesson. pedantic unprolific. thoughtful, serious, of these have added up to a critical theory of film which could be applied, Thus the advent of a principle of cinematic critiadjusted, and evaluated. cism is to be praised simply for its being, and for any other advantages that Even if one feels that the disadvantages outweigh the admight be found. the to extent that the entire theory should be discarded, the fact of vantages the existence of the Politique des Auteurs is still significant. Just as each individual member of an audience sees a particular film slightly differently from his neighbor, it follows that individual film critics will see films and film history from slightly different points of view. And, if they think deeply about film and attempt to analyze their thoughts and ideas they may come up with other theories of film. Although it is easy to criticize and find fault with almost all theories, it is necessary to have theories against which films can be tested and examined. They are necessary for the beginner as guidelines and hypotheses which he can side with, rebel against, or revise. This paper has been a call to the origin -- a call to go back to the original version of la politique des auteurs and to examine it closely. It's always convenient to choose a theory of film that embraces our Each theoretician has done it. It is much more diffavorites as examples. ficult to grant a theory which does not let in all of our personal preferences. Although as critics we should be flexible in order to bend with the time and the place, the criteria upon which various theories are based should be inflexible -- not adaptable to every situation. the tendency sometimes to like bad films and Let's admit realistically Let's not change the criteria to accomsometimes to dislike good films. modate our temporary tastes. There will never be a "perfect" theory of film, but let's have more theories and let's make the theories we have basic, and available in their theoretical form. Footnotes: 1 Francois Truffaut, "Un Certaine Tendance du Cinema Francais," Cahiers du Cinema, No. 31 (January 1954), pp. 15-29. Translated for purposes of this paper by Diane Staples. 2 Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Cahiers du "L'Histoire des 'Cahiers,'" for Translated 100 No. 68. Cinema, purposes of this (October 1959), p. Diane Staples. paper by 3 Truffaut, Cahiers, pp. 15-25. 4 Ibid., p. 15. 5 Ibid., p. 24. 6 bid., p. 25. 7 Ibid., p. 26.

Cinema Journal / 7 8 Ibid. 9 "Dictiolnaire des Realisateurs Americains CaContemporains," hiers du Cinema, No. 54 (December 1955). 10 Andre Bazin, "De La Politique des Auteurs," Cahiers du Cinema, 70 Translated for purposes of this paper by No. (April 1957), pp. 2-11. Diane Staples. 11 Ibid., p. 3. 12 Ibid., pp. 9-10. 13 Ibid., p. 10.

14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17Ibid., 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid.

p. 11.

Bibliography: The Saturday Search for Value," Anderson, Thom. "The Controversial 52 Review, XLVII, No. (December 26, 1964). "Qu'Est-ce Que La Mise En Scene?" Cahiers du CineAstruc, Alexandre. ma, No. 100 (October 1959). Cahiers du Cinema, No. 70 Bazin, Andre. "De La Politique des Auteurs," (April 1957). Cahiers du Americains des Realisateurs "Dictionnaire Contemporains," 54 No. Cinema, (December 1955). Cahiers du Cinema, "L'Histoire des Cahiers," Doniol-Valcroze, Jacques. No. 100 (October 1959). "The Art That's an Industry," Films in Review, XV, No. 5 Dunne, Philip. (May 1964). "The Critical Question," Sight and Sound, XXIX, No. 4 Houston, Penelope. (Autumn 1960). "Circles and Squares, " Film Quarterly, XVI, No. 3 (Spring Kael, Pauline. 1963). and ControLetter from the Editorial Board of Movie. "Correspondence 1 No. " Film XVII, 1963). Quarterly, (Fall versy, Esquire, LX, No. 4 (October 1963). MacDonald, Dwight. "Films," Marion. Auteur," Commentary (March 1964). "Auteur, Magid, "The French Line," Sight and Sound, XXIX, No. 4 (Autumn Roud, Richard. 1960). "The Director's Game," Film Culture, No. 22-23 (SumSarris, Andrew. mer 1961). "The American Cinema," Film Culture, No. 28 (Spring Sarris, Andrew. 1963. "Top Ten," Sight and Sound, XXXI, No. 1 (Winter 1961-62). Ca"Un Certaine Tendance du Cinema Franpais," Truffaut, Franpois. hiers du Cinema, No. 31 (January 1954).

The MutualApprovalof Keaton and Lloyd Donald W. McCaffrey

While ours is an age that certainly has the milieu to produce "sick" or "black" comedy, films like Dr. Strangelove and The Loved One, it might puzzle us to find the re-emergence of an elder tradition, the light-hearted, fast-moving slapstick comedy -- a genre spawned in the formative age of cinema. I'll leave it to those with stronger sociological inclination than I have to decide whether these types have similar roots, are merely examples of the widening tastes in humor, or a revolt from the genteel comedy of the past twenty-five years. I'm concerned mainly with the failures of those who try to revive this older tradition. Directors and actors today seem to be poor students of comedy and I question their affection for the past models for they do not seem able to capture the vigorous freedom and spirit that has produced excellent works in the past -- films by such masters of laughter as Chaplin, Lloyd, Keaton, and Langdon. Abortive efforts to resurrect the tradition, such as It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, and The Great Race, not only leave me cold, they also fill me with something short of outrage when I view an audience, like Romans viewing the spectacle in the arena, soaking it all in with apparent glee. It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is probably the most colossal failure. A barrel full of contemporary comedians -- Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Phil Silvers, Jonathan Winters, and Terry-Thomas -- plus color and Cinerama (a Cinemascope version for the provinces) could not save this epic farce from grinding away until it entered the strange valley of antic boredom. More chases, numerous comedians, a larger screen, and a longer script obviously do not make a first-rate comedy. Hollywood's strange affection for elephantiasis when it tries to create often reveals that its producers realize (perhaps unconsciously) they are on shaky ground. I'm afraid that directors and writers of such products as Those Magnificent

8 / Cinema Journal

Buster

Keaton:

Re-releases

should have music,

no sound effects.

10 / Cinema Journal

Men in Their Flying Machines and The Great Race have only investigated and not absorbed some of the working methods of the great comedians of the past. They have not graduated beyond Mack Sennett's most primitive efforts to produce laughter. Blake Edwards, director of The Great Race, reveals a dilettante's grasp of his task when he states, "Comedy is a science. The only way to learn a science is to study, and the only way to study is to look at what the old masters did and take from them. Race is an accumulation of dozens of the great comedy cliches. ",1 His view reveals the fault of those who sometimes imitate an old tradition. They have not absorbed the spirit of an art work. They probably don't believe in it; consequently, they poke fun at that which may already have been caricatured. The comedy of Chaplin, Lloyd, Keaton, and Langdon is often rooted in burlesque; Sennett generally used this approach. For example, the chase itself was a take-off on the elaborate, deadly serious pursuits of the serious melodrama of the 1910's and 1920's. A burlesque of a burlesque becomes self-conscious and often artless. At least two old masters of comedy were not concerned with the duplication of cliches, as I believe my interviews have established, but were concerned with renovating and excelling with their common bag of tricks and situations. They were concerned, first of all, with the comedy character and the development of a well-motivated dramatic story that sprang from the roots of the leading comic character. Fortunately my interviews were not confined to words alone. Harold Lloyd treated my wife and me to a showing of three of his features -- one of which I had not seen before, The Kid Brother (1927). While many of Lloyd's and Keaton's working methods may be found in their autobiographies, An American Comedy (1928) and My Wonderful World of Slapstick (1960), my interviews with them have helped me focus on the procedures that made them "perfecters" of silent screen comedy. I believe these two comedians, more than Chaplin and Langdon, were careful, conscientious craftsmen who created a strong genre -- the tightly structured film comedy that reached a level of perfection that has seldom been equaled. Both men admired the overall composition of each other's work. Keaton told me that he not only admired Lloyd's story development but that he found him "an experimenter" of first rank. During his discussion of Keaton's films, Lloyd explained how he valued the total presentation of the character and plot development. He rejected the producer of "Silents Please" (who desired to have him narrate the series) when he saw a butchered version of Keaton's The General. To those who have viewed his release of two years ago, Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy, and a potpourri like Robert Youngson's many stews of silent screen comedy, it would seem It's my belief, that the comedian reversed his views or is inconsistent. however, that Lloyd presented excerpts from his comedies as a "feeler." While both he and Keaton told me of the enthusiastic reception of their twenties features in Europe, they seemed more wary of U.S.A. audience tastes. I was glad to learn during my visit with Lloyd that he had taken my

Cinema Journal / 11 (and others') view to heart and had planned a release of his total work, The Freshman (1925) under the title, Harold Lloyd's Funny Side of Life, a reissue he allowed me to preview. From mytalks with the comedians and my knowledge of their writings and a body of data I have collected over the past eight years, I was able to pin down many of the developments of their story, shooting, and editing proBoth comedians had evolved their techniques from what Lloyd lacedures. beled the"park comedy" --a low-budget formula of the early and mid 1910's that featured "mo" (comic) clothes on the lead, a beautiful girl, and a heavy With only these ingredients in a policeman's uniform. inciting them, the early film makers drove to the park and began their impromptu shooting of a vaguely conceived plot. It is amazing how fast their teclmiques became sophisticated. By the and Keaton mid-twenties (in 1926 the major comedians Chaplin, Lloyd, of high comedies feature had developed length Harry Langdon joined them) merit. Fortunately they retained some of the qualities of impromptu shooting by rejecting the use of a script -- standard practice by the makers of But serious films and many of the light or genteel comedians of that time. of writers a team efforts their creative gag by employing they sophisticated Much of the perfection of their features was and a director or co-director. gained by a methodical reworking of the story, specific situations, gags, and even the character as they shot the film day by day. Control of their total work was not absolute but it was strong. They paid attention to many details of the production from the inception of the comic idea to the "sneak previews, " and the eventual reshooting and re-editing of the product for the final release. Evidently these comedians depended heavily on the "sneak is seldom emphasized in their writing. It preview." They were vocally ardent when they spoke of specific situations and gags. Keaton told how he often discarded gags which did not fit the situathe same gags for another reconsidered tion or character but sometimes Lloyd picture or another portion of the film on which they were working. indicated that he had similar problems but did not consider it one of his greatest problems as Keaton did. Lloyd stated that he avoided the "fantastic gag" even though he once yielded to the temptation in a 1920 two-reeler, Get Out and Get Under by showing his comic protagonist crawl under the automobile until he disappeared -- obviously in a pohood of a recalcitrant He sition where his body and the motor would not fit at the same time. the for out reaching punctuated the gag by showing an arm periodically This type of gag was employed proper tools to fix the faulty mechanism. in the late twenties; many times by Laurel and Hardy in their two-reelers Both Lloyd and Mack Sennett sprinkled all of his films with such gags. Keaton felt that such gags were not in the province of their charactercomedies -- that using this type of joke intruded on the development of the nature and its tendency to break story and character by its self-conscious the suspension of belief necessary for the total movement of the film comedy. They indicated to me that such a gag was a "cheap" and easy way to In gain humor and a type that should be consigned to the animated cartoon.

12 / Cinema Journal a world where anything is possible, such a gag, they believed, was not out of place. Probably one of the most difficult things to determine is the originalSome writers have attempted to play the ity of a gag used by a comedian. game of "Who did it first?" but I find it a fruitless task. Nevertheless, it's a problem worthy of a brief discussion since it crops up so often when peoIndividual gags have ple try to establish the relative merits of comedians. never been copyrighted, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone could tell me that Sennett or Linder created something akin to the dream-movieIn this film the pokerediting gag employed by Keaton in Sherlock, Jr. faced little man becomes a victim of editing as he enters a movie screen The term "origiimage as his character has an elaborate dream of glory. nal" or "unique" might be discarded by the evaluator and Keaton might be called the "perfecter" of this gag. Lloyd did not seem surprised when I told him that British comedian Norman Wisdom appeared to have lifted the "revealing" gag which he had used in Movie Crazy (1932) -- that is, a situation in which a young man seems to be riding in an expensive open-topped car (as if he were a millionaire), but when the car pulls ahead, it is revealed that he is just a poor fellow riding a bicycle on the other side of the automobile. (This, incidenthe was of better other executed than comedian. tally, type any joke Lloyd It indicates his skilled invention and his grasp of the medium to create huAlso, I indicated that Jacques Tati's perplexed comic character in mor.) Hulot's Holiday tries to interpret a series of arm movements protruding from a car ahead of him -- not knowing whether the vehicle means to turn left or right or stop. The arms, of course, in this case belong to excited who are sharing the scenery with their companions. In Lloyd's sight-seers 1929 two-reeler, Haunted Spooks, the "signals" are produced by two old Jewish men holding a conversation as they drive down the street. Tati, it would seem, had refurbished this joke to fit the situation and his character, while Wisdom's execution of the gag was so close to the earlier work that it can be called outright artistic thievery. With gags as common property comedians have playfully (and sometimes scornfully) accused each other of lifting a gag when the latest products Both Lloyd and Keaton admitted that some problem hit the movie market. of originality had always plagued them and that much of what we identify as originality actually lies in the inventive adaptation of the gag to their own style, character, and story. This type of invention was also a working method employed by Chaplin. While there is little indication of this in his writings, it is well known in the world of the early film makers that Chaplin viewed the works of his contemporaries carefully and learned from them -as they learned from him. There was, in short, a kind of cross-fertilization of gags, ideas on comic character and situations, and production techniques that made this a great age of comedy. These comedians demanded a firm control on the complete creative not only the acting skill to create a superior They possessed process. comic work; they also had a taste in comedy superior to that of most of

Cinema Journal / 13 their gag writers and other production personnel. When they had such control they did their best work. It can also be said that when they were forced by production techniques and the studio hierarchy (especially in the thirties) to compromise that control and taste for comedy, their works suffered. but faulty advice Evidently Keaton began to suffer from well-intended in the late twenties. He reported that he was given over twenty gag writers who thought for The Cameraman (1928) and was plagued with executives they were gagmen. "bright-idea Rigid thinking of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer boys" seemed to foment the conditions that brought about his decline. Lloyd must have been victimized to a lesser degree by similar develAs late as 1938 his feature Professor Beware revealed an aging opments. version of his shy fellow with high ambitions that still ("middle-aged") But another decade passed and proved very appealing in warmth and vigor. he indicated that he had With utmost graciousness Lloyd ran into troubles. with his last Mad feature, many problems Wednesday (1947), because he with Preston a director who seemed to think Lloyd's compromised Sturges, his use of akin to the primitive and material was style slapstick of Mack needed a Sam 1914. Sennett, vintage Taylor or a Fred Obviously, Lloyd directors who assisted best him his Newmeyer, years in the twenduring ties. All The final step of the comedy-makers was to test their creation. the major comedians of the twenties relied a great deal on the "sneak preview" to polish up their final product. This practice was even instituted in the days of the one- and two-reel comedies. Sneak previews, Lloyd informed me, were his equivalent of the Broadway theatre production's method of trying the show on the road to get audience reaction before opening in New York. As in the Broadway show, such tests sometimes resulted in a great deal of "rewriting" before the finished film was placed before its Eastern views, especially the movie largest and most critical audiences. critics of the big New York papers, were often feared because many comedians felt they held great sway over the potential audiences of their pictures. Lloyd sometimes tested his features in the same theatre and immediBuster feature of his strongest competitor, ately following a first-run his unfinished work did better Keaton. On one occasion, Lloyd claimed, than a Keaton feature. This, of course, indicates how much alteration was made (by cutting out, reshifting, adding scenes) before the work was given After a preits general distribution as the final creation of the comedian. elaborate chase sedid of the he a lot of view, Lloyd explained, reshooting in this in more in order to Grandma's portion quence Boy incorporate gags of his picture. Audience reaction indicated to him that more comedy was expected from this sequence. The length that comedians went to in order to analyze their audience can be illustrated by checking P. K. Thomajan's "Lafograph" for Lloyd's for the Harold Lloyd CorpoThe Kid Brother. 2 As a "special researcher" ration, Thomajan charted, by the use of an elaborate graph, 138 gags that received strong enough audience reaction to register on an ascending scale

14 / Cinema Journal using the terms "titter, " "chuckle, " "laugh, " "outburst, " "scream, " and At least a dozen performances "screech." were attended -- notes and a I know of no other attempts by the stop-watch were standard equipment. creators of the comic films to use such an elaborate design for analyzing When I mentioned it to Lloyd, he didn't remember using audience reaction. it. He Today Lloyd still uses previews of his works to test his films. knows that his pictures could play at "art houses" but it seems a matter of pride with him to know that the general public still likes his type of comedy. I told him that Keaton seemed to be satisfied with his European receptions. -to which he refilms on his had been written two major French books read can't it!" Lloyd, but I one of me them, plied: "Yeah, somebody gave on the other hand, is seeking acceptance in the U. S. A. He told me that his Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy made over a million dollars in Europe and For an inexpects to make over twice that much on the domestic market. vestment of about $100,000 to refurbish his works, the results seem outBut Lloyd is not worrying about the money. It is only important standing. his status. as a sign of re-establishing It was obvious that the comedian was concerned about his place in the the supportsun when I observed his careful attention to all the trimmings, of Life. Side of Harold and his sound music Funny Lloyd's forthcoming ing After a special preview, he commented on his narration immediately before the presentation of the complete work, The Freshman -- a film used in the body of the work which came after a kind of prologue showing the different kinds of characters Lloyd portrayed -- given in sequences from For Heaven's Sake (1926), The Kid Brother (1927), and Speedy (1928). He indicated a slowing down process that the fast pacing of these sequences necessitated or technique in order to start "character building" for The Freshman. I asked Keaton why he had done the "beach pictures, " knowing very well that his husky voice would reply: "Money. " It was a sad thing to hear and he assured me that he was going to do a picture in Italy called Two Soldiers and a General where he would have control of the total film like he used to. Of course, his death brought this to an end. Unsolicited, Lloyd In this I detold me that he had watched Buster take jobs he had refused. tected an admiration for Keaton and the same feeling I had about this waste of a great talent. The values of music for the silent film have been discussed by Wagenknecht (The Movies in the Ae of Innocence)3 and Montagu (Film World).4 In the twenties all the large theatres had orchestras and a score often preIn the smaller theatres a pianist was used. pared especially for the film. The compromise was generally the many-faceted theatre organ. Today, unfortunately, film societies often present the feature comic Some violence is done to the silent film film of the twenties without music. when it is this silent, even though it is projected for a special type of audiThe function of music in the twenties was an important one which I ence. This was brought home to me believe to be a vital part of the total effect. when I viewed Lloyd's Safety Last and The Kid Brother at Richard Simon-

Cinema Journal / 15 ton's home theatre at Toluca Lake area, California, on the evening of June to these films had been 14, 1965. Gaylord Carter's organ accompaniment and with 16 mm Last's climactic taped played Safety prints. sequence, the climb a labored, obstacle-packed featuring up building, was far more thrilling because Carter so expertly supported the visual aspects of the film with music. Lloyd's serious moments in The Kid Brother were also underscored so effectively that greater emotional involvement was achieved even though we had a small group (of which Lloyd was a member) viewing the film. Keaton seemed to be more disturbed than Lloyd about the proper use of music for the silent comedy. He said that he found organ music inferior to a full orchestra and desired no sound effects. When I asked him why, he He then replied: "That's the way it was done -- with no sound effects." added that if he released his films in the near future, he would add only a musical score. If his films are refurbished by his heirs, I doubt that such wish will be respected. As far as I know, only one or two comedians of today have been able to recapture some of the spirit of the past. We will have to be content with refurbished products -- maybe even Youngson's. But both Jacques Tati and Pierre Etaix in France have been able to adapt the older tradition to today's Etaix seems to be most successful. tastes. His one-reel Happy Anniversary and feature work, The Suitor (1963), show that he has studied the proHis character follows totypes of the best comedy of the twentieth century. of Keaton the logical and steady growth that we can find in the characters that were exhiband Lloyd. The Suitor shows many structural similarities ited by the best comic works of the twenties. Etaix does not need the many chases, fights, and thrills that seem to fascinate the Hollywood imitators who turn out epic comedies. When these inferior craftsmen look closely at that the best works of the golden age they will find working methods stressed economy of situation and an inventive skill that explored the gamut of these quite simple comic situations, relating them directly to the character of the leading comedian.5 Footnotes: 1 Review of The Great Race, Time, LXXXVII (September 24, 1965), 106. p. 2 P. K. IX Thomajan, "The Lafograph," American Cinematographer, 36-37. pp. 1928), (April 3 Edward Wagenknecht, The Movies in the Age of Innocence (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962), pp. 8-9. 4 Ivor Montagu, Film World (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, Ltd., 1964), pp. 65 and 168. 5 Interviews with Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton were made possible through the assistance of a faculty research grant from the University of North Dakota.

The Two Faces of Drama Robert Steele

It is all wrong for cinema and theatre to be rivals. Despite their mutual parenthood, the drama, and peripheral similarities, each is a unique art form. Remembering this will give us the chance to have better films and better plays. Film, from its beginning, has had an inferiority complex because of its unfavorable comparison with theatre. Over and over again, in most countries of the world, film has tried to be better by leaning on theatre people and imitating the plays of the theatre. This social-climbing is like an index to film history. It has taken film seventy years to forge the essentials of its nature, the forming devices of its artistry, and an aesthetic to give it its own feet to stand on. A few films, mostly non-American, have made themselves into an art form independent from theatre, but still most films "in the money" are canned theatre. Our speaking of "legitimate theatre" probably does not remind many of us of the theatres of England which had to have a license from the Lord Chamberlain in order to operate; otherwise, they were declared "illegitimate" and were in danger of being closed. Legitimate theatre has come to mean live actors; by implication, film actors are nonliving. Legitimate theatres are those elite places close to Broadway that were there before the advent of film and are citadels of better taste and more intellect than the movie palaces that went up in the twenties on Broadway. By implication the latter were illegitimate theatres because they came later and the actors came out of cans. For most of us "legit" theatre has meant plays of substance to which the "better" people go. Circuses, fairs, and vaudeville have been illegitimate, and so have films. Unfortunately, this "illegitimate" form of theatre is still indulging in Cinemas are built to look frou frou in order to make it respectable. swanky, and they announce their lifted faces by ultramodern paintings in the

Cinema Journal / 17 foyer. They have escalators and little cups of coffee, and the audience arrives unnecessarily well-dressed. Seeing the new Antonioni, despite its being a bore, is the thing the "in" people do. Attending certain movies has become outre. Because legitimate theatre has gotten itself turned into show business, catering to benefit parties and entertainments for businessmen and their clients, now one has to go Off Broadway to find theatre at its best in New York City. Inexpensive movie entertainment of artistic stature has not been sufficiently furthered. It is the show-business domain of both film and theatre which explains Variety's weekly reports on who is going back and forth between New York between the two entertainCity and Hollywood. Some cross-fertilization ment forms helps both to be stronger, but Siamese-twin interdependence arrests the maturity and achievements of both. When compared to a play book, the scenario of a film or the transcript of the dialogue is so slight that it does not give a satisfactory idea of the film. The depth, beauty, and power of a film are not perceived by reading the dialogue. The essence of a film is in its visual content. One gets a "Cinema" film from its total content only and not from one of its parts. means "moving image," and the image moves, whether it is a photograph of a girl running or a camera passing over Picasso's Guernica, because of changes in light -- from light to dark and dark to light. Like a play, the experience of reading a short story or novella based on a film is a radically different experience from seeing it. Both are essentially reading experiences, and the reader has to visualize according to the words that are read. The experience of reading the most satisfactory verbal rendition of a film is less satisfactory than the reading of a play, and this makes another difference between film and theatre. Theatre surpasses cinema when it has to be conveyed through words. Laboriously I took notes on four screenings of La Strada. Despite my feeling that I have memorized almost every detail of the film, now, having seen it dozens of times, it astonishes me to discover the extent to which I have imaginatively added to what is said and done. I identify with its actuality more completely than I can ever do with a play. A tape-recorded transcript of the dialogue has exposed for me much that I thought was there which is not there. The dialogue revealed by Gelsomina's face is so clear and rich that a Balzac or Flaubert could write pages about what she is Chapters of thought are conveyed thinking and mentally saying to others. of form a wink or The a tear. reality we get in a film gives it by knowing our be and to to concrete perceptual capacities by minute, play upon power and the concreteness convisual detail. Details provide concreteness, the which in the a is real daily happenings of our lives are way veys reality real. We step into the theatre mentally prepared to see actors and sets through the proscenium arch. We are fully aware of and even inured to the artificiality of the whole form. We must see through the artifice to experi-

18 / Cinema Journal ence the reality of the drama. This is such an accepted convention of theatre we are not conscious of the nature of our perceptual conditioning. Our encounter with a film is with a different sort of artifice from that of the theatre. In film we meet nothing but the illusion of reality, but the illusion seems to have more to do with a projector and a screen rather than what is put on the screen. We accept what we see up there, even if it is Real persons in real places doing natural things confantasy, for reality. stitute most of our better films. We do not think of actors as actors or sets as sets. Recently, the appearance of stars in our better films has undergone some change. They are less gods and goddesses with perfect teeth, faces, and bodies, and are more satisfactory as characters in dramatic situations. Vehicles for stars are passe in our better films. The idea, drama, story, and slice of life take precedence over stars; consequently, many of our finest directors no longer use professional actors or repeat faces in their I am thinking of the films of Robert Bresson and Ermanno Olmi -films. not Vincente Minnelli or John Huston. Still it is not merely a matter of whether the actor has ever been seen in a film or not; it has to do with his being handled so that he is subservient to the total impact of the film rather than his being presented as a personality -- Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, In fine films we meet persons who convince us they are Anthony Perkins. real persons rather than actors. If a play is to succeed as a film, it will do so because it has been in cinematic language: i. e., cinematic forming and narwholly re-created rative and dialogue techniques that visualize clearly and artistically. The from which he serves the film a book writer as storehouse play merely raw material which out and It is he conflicts. ideas, characters, pulls If he does his job well, new work, which may be a new shapes into a film. art object, results. re-created as It is difficult to find plays that have been successfully films. A Taste of Honey is a contender. Tony Richardson directed the film and, with some assistance from the play's author, Shelagh Delaney, wrote The plot and characters of the play are similar to the film the scenario. The camera gives us details of the envibut the film has more substance. ronment and other characters which involves us deeply with the girl. She is The expemore understandable and invincible in the film than in the play. rience one has with this material as a film is heightened because the camera centers our involvement in that which is most crucial, and yet it never omits the backgrounds and details which can grip us and hold us in the The film has a more frame of reality Miss Delaney has to share with us. concentrated focus than the play, thus, more unity and impact. (Usually it works out better for a playwright to act as a consultant to a screenwriter rather than be the screenwriter.) When a play proves to be good material for a film, oftentimes one The Knack is feels that the play should have been a film in the first place. an example. Frequently, the material would have been a film except for a

Cinema Journal / 19 Hollywood agent or producer who pushes a "play" on the boards in order that drama critics may see it with the hopes that the critics will help to build its name, so that it will be bought by a studio for a higher price. The headline in a trade paper reads: "Broadway hit sold to United Artists for Its having only a two-weeks run makes little difference. ---." This going back and forth between theatre and film and film and theatre is usually an economic ploy rather than an interest in giving us fine entertainment in both media. Think of the miserable film that resulted from Teahouse of the August Moon. The charm of the play was undone when we saw lumber being carried around rather than a teahouse being dropped, as if by magic, from the flies and pushed on stage from the wings. On the In the film we are made to think stage it was fresh, daring, and exciting. about military dishonor. Think of the converse: Rashomon, a beautiful film, creaked along on a revolving stage when it was undertaken in the theatre. Overstatement and the punchy performances of Claire Bloom and Rod Steiger could not save it. Another of Kurosawa's films, Seven Samurai, became fodder for a Hollywood vehicle, The Magnificent Seven, which pulled theatrical stops and was combined with the western genre. If the work was good in its original form, switchcovers may make some money but they do not increase our pleasure. Almost always the plays of Shakespeare have provided abysmal film fare. Failures: Hollywood's Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It; Olivier's Hamlet, Henry V, Richard Romeo and Juliet; Partial successes: Castellani's III; the Soviet Othello. Kurosawa's Welles' Macbeth and Othello; Chabrol's Ophelia. Successes: named of Hamlet. Kozintsev's Throne and Blood, Macbeth, rightly Grigori The dialogue in this Soviet Hamlet is annoying when we read it in English but the work is such powerful cinema that, despite its length, it sub-titles, If we could understand the speech of the involves us deeply with Hamlet. film in Russian, probably we could be more completely involved in having a fresh, artistic experience. Reading sub-titles -- some of which remind us of the speeches we know from memory, some that are upsetting because of -- mars the experience. The film is a good one, howtheir nonfamiliarity ever, because it makes Hamlet and everyone else in the play more underWe can standable and more real than they have ever been on the stage. One is care more about Hamlet because his dilemma is more convincing. Kozintsev's more of a participant in the life at Elsinore than a spectator. mastery of cinema makes the film flow, cohere, and have pictorial rhythm, on and the subject takes on stature which Burton and Gielgud performances the stage lacked. The history which Shakespeare drew from Holinshed's Chronicles can but this leaves us without his poetry, and his plots be handled filmically, seem melodramatic. He gave us poetry to be listened to and thoughts to be savored rather than pictures to thrill us. Consequently, attempts to film the plays have been self-conscious, Their value is for labored, and arty. persons who are deprived of theatres and who fail to get enjoyment from The more dated the adaptations have become and the reading the texts.

20 / Cinema Journal more we have become accustomed to films' being cinematic, the more embarrassing these well-intended but ill-conceived attempts to film Shakespeare have become. Yanking in movement, conniving visualization, having acres of sets that reek with realism -- the usual handling of Shakespearean plays on film -- do not insure a fine film. In fact, bigness and spectacle usually work against the poetry. The plays are what they are principally because of their eloquent and soaring poetic speech and its revelation of what is going on inside a character. No one has succeeded in giving us a film to match the effectiveness of the plays and probably no one ever will, because the film medium, despite the good taste and power of the Soviet Hamlet, is just not at its best when these theatrical demands are made of it. In a film the driving forces of the action provide the occasion for speech. In a play, the driving force comes from the speech and the action follows. Even fantasies, when used in the cinema, become more real, and this explains their occasional filmic interest over their presentation in the theatre. After we come away from having seen a woman's eyeball sliced by a razor in Bunuel and Dali's Le Chien Andalou, we tell ourselves that an actress' eye could not have been permanently destroyed even for the sake of Dali's passion. But while it is going on, we are convinced it is a fact. Surrealism in the film is more visually intensive than in the theatre and gets additional power from its realism. It becomes so real it shoots beyond and above reality. We can actually see dreams! In the theatre surrealism gets its force from a playwright's imagination rather than the presentation of reality. It is more symbolic and usually demands more intellectualizing than is necessary with films. Probably, surrealism is more intellectually probing in the theatre and more visually stunning in the film. Thus, if Grandma is dumped on the sand of the miles-long Long Beach, I will get a different and less effective blow than I get from her being dumped in a sand box on the stage. Albee, DUrrenmatt, De Ghelderode, Ionesco, Genet, and all the other playwrights who have soared in their theatrical visualization, fantasy, and surrealism are in for an abortion if they go along with our film age in agreeing to have their plays re-tooled for the movies. The pleasure of reading a good play contrasted with the reading of the dialogue of a good film pins down a crucial difference between the two art forms. Good film dialogue has such an ordinary quality that it is like pedestrian chitchat, but it may be very dramatic. (Tyrone Guthrie would " has a valid point about He He damns films for being "journalism. agree. the dialogue, but he makes no sparks fly because a film is not to be exclusively judged by its dialogue. )1 But in the theatre there has to be plenty of dialogue, and it had better be worth listening to. Thus, the plays of great speech writers, Shakespeare, Shaw, Wilde, and Van Druten do not make The production of plays as if they are plays the grade of being fine films. on film is their doom. The closer a film is to the play upon which it is based, the harder it will fall. The converse is also true. Plays staged as if they are films -- that is, handling space, time, and movement according

Cinema Journal / 21 to filmic language -- are also doomed. The writer and director of films who creates within the limits and potentialities of cinematic language has a chance to bring off a fine work. The worst thing we can say about a film is that it was like the stage play. Rather than Lawrence Olivier's Othello being an exception towhat has been said, it confirms this analysis. While the play is on film, it is not a film. It does not use the language of film and does not strive to appeal to the audience in the way that a good film does. It is an honestly photographed play. Even though it is shown in a cinema, it gives one a theatrical astute in experience rather than a cinematic one. Olivier was aesthetically and the play recorded on film. The "film" prehaving his performance serves the play and it makes it available to a larger audience. He did not Film is relerevamp the play in order to attempt to pass it off as a film. gated to being a distribution vehicle for the play and the aesthetic experience one gets is from the art of theatre and not the art of film. Aesthetically and artistically this makes sense. it makes little sense to say film is more "real" Except superficially, than theatre. Film does have a surface reality which transcends that which can or should be striven for in theatre. And theatre has an inner reality that points to a reality behind its physical appearance. Films excel in preexternal and let audience sensibilities senting reality identify with what they see immediately and directly. on the screen which is They project reality from on the screen the if the audience has the capacity audience introjected to receive reality. The depth of reality in La Strada, a film that is a prime example, has much to do with the individual as he looks inside himself in the light of the two characters on the screen. Theatre excels in presenting and the inner recesses of a so that we get more ideas, character, thoughts, of what is inside the parson Brand in Ibsen's Brand when he is on the stage than a film could ever give us. Reality in the theatre surpasses that of the film in that it does not use shots of multiple points of view, created by hundreds of differing angles and which shift constantly in a film. While the actor in a play is obdistances, viously an actor and unlike the "actor" in Bicycle Thieves, who was "discovered" in a factory and appeared only in a single film, playing himself, he is a human being rather than an image of a human being. We know that any time he wishes, he can step out of character or onto the apron. If we have fallen in love with an actress, we can send her flowers and invite her to supper. The camera achieves intimacy with an actor but the relationship is always an impersonal one. Even without meeting outside of the theatre, we can feel we have a personal relationship in the theatre to actors, and this makes them real. In the theatre we are conditioned to accept the reality of imitated reNot so in the cinema. ality -- persons and events that simulate reality. This kind of imitation of reality in a film becomes arty and unmoving. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, important curio that it is in film history, with its sets and make-up from the theatre and its distorted imitation of life, does

22 / Cinema Journal not work well as a film. Of course, in the film reality sometimes is partly but it is so meticulously fabricated that it can get by staged and artificial, for actual reality. Studio and location shooting intermingle, so that the keenest observer will not have the film spoiled by his perceiving the way it was brought together. Symbols and gestures are inadequate for movie reality. The actor, you would swear, is in a real cathedral or real jungle, and to make sure there can be no doubt about this in the mind of the least gullible member of the audience, the director goes to great expense and even danger to get a two-shot; that is, to put the actor, or his stand-in, followed by a close-up of the actor himself, in the midst of real life, whether it be a packed Mass in a real cathedral or only an arm's length from a real tiger. The joining of shots which were made under artificial conditions will then sustain believability in the reality of the subject matter. Probably, the quality of the reality striven for in The Pawnbroker would have come through in the theatre. The film comes off as a trumpedWe are outside in one. all the time, and we are not moved to the up looking inner being of the pawnbroker by the device of seeing first in snippets and then in long takes what the pawnbroker is reminded of. Lumet's fuzzy conHis ceiving strives to put us in cinema and theatre seats simultaneously. We watch him devices come off as a trick which robs the film of reality. punch his hand down on a bill file, and instead of being identified with his supposed internal anguish we just sit there like spectators andwatch him do a silly thing with his hand. The way it is handled could satisfy only the A straightforward sadist. cinematic handling of the material might have made this a passable film. For the story to have made maximum dramatic sense, the pawnbroker (my hunch is) needed to be a character on the stage. The intimacy with which films move into us, the way they disarm us of our psychological censorship and knock out the wall between our con-- the way our minds become like scious and unconscious mental processes so in a inside us and invade our dreams -that the film live people sponges suggest that different facets of our imagination go to work in a film than in the case of a play. The imitation of reality in the theatre is a barrier which "protects" us from this invasion on an intimate plane and also prevents theatrical experiences from haunting us. Ideas in the theatre stay with us and may get into our innermost beings, and our admirations of performances and less sensual never abate, but the "taking over" is more intellectual than in the case of films. Who among us, who has gone to films, is not permanently haunted by the faces shot in close-up which he has assimilated? The Passion of Joan of Arc is in me with Mme. Falconetti of Carl Dreyer's more potency than any Saint Joan I have seen on the stage, and I have seen some great ones. So is Bette Davis in Dark Victory, Greta Garbo in all her films, Leslie Howard in his best films, and Oskar Werner in Decision Before Dawn. In addition to film and theatre having the same parent, they have some similar clothing, and this likeness has launched much confusion. Audiences for films and plays pay to be entertained by looking at what is going

Cinema Journal / 23 on in front of them. Both use actors. (A film made with nonactors presents persons acting.) Both can be art objects, show business, means of communication, and sometimes communion. They can provide us with unforgettable experiences which can change our thinking and behavior. Both use speech. While the use is different, dialogue or monologues in films and plays are used only when verbal language rather than visualization can express more clearly and beautifully the writer's intention. This them from graphic gives film and theatre a similarity which differentiates I feel it makes them the greater art forms -- dearts, dance, and music. and Aldous Huxley have said about music's being the spite what Nietzsche greatest art. Speech is man's peak development and unique possession. We do not have X-ray eyes; therefore, there are times in films and plays when only speech can let an audience know the intentions and decisions of a character. Verbal language in both films and theatre must be used at certain times to make the invisible understood. Thus, silent films and films showing only objects, films made of paintings and sculpture, and films that have cut out in their structure the possibility of using speech cannot be as great experiences for us as those that permit a voice to be heard. (Seeing is sometimes and to see superior to speaking for obtaining understanding, with penetrating vision is our primary business in life, but we can't see everything, and at times speaking as the consequence of our seeing is unavoidable and to be desired.) The handling of verbal language as well as what happens visually makes the difference between dramatic arts (film and theatre) and documentation and improvisation. Attempts to record reality give us so-called films and television newsreels. documentary Trying to make speech in theatre as real as that of life gives us plays like Jack Gelber's The Connection and The Apple. A development of the documentary film is called cinema The real person speaks as he really speaks. He verite, or direct cinema. is photographed in long takes, and the result comes close to being a televisionlike interview. Gelber's attempts to create a naturalistic theatre, to let actors be free to improvise, and the whole spontaneous or extemporary theatre are missing the artistry achieved by meticulously conceived and written stage action and business. Dialogue and monologue serve similar functions in fine films and plays. They are both rendered less dramatically effective in the alleged documentary recordings of real life that are called direct cinema and improvised To transform documentary speech theatre. into a film, the director supervises the selection and ordering of the takes. In He converts extemporary speech into what for him has artistic reality. the theatre, principally, the writer selects and orders speech so that it takes the form to make the point he is striving for. Don Owen, director of Nobody Waved Goodbye, the first feature film officially made and released by the Canadian Film Board, managed to manipulate spontaneous speaking and acting so that he achieved a film rather than a recording. As far as I know he did something which had not been tried before and it worked. of the film, he knew As the writer-director generally what he wanted to capture on film and tape. He had the overall

24 / Cinema Journal structure of his film in mind but used improvisation to develop its parts. Roughly, he knew what his sequences would be about, who his important characters were, and what was to happen to them. He talked individually with his professional and nonprofessional actors. He achieved his stunningly dramatic dialogue, for example, between Peter Kastner and Ron Taylor by preparing Kastner for the scene and keeping Taylor in the dark. Taylor comes to pick up Peter's sister to take her to see a spectacle movie. Peter puts in the time with him while he is waiting for the sister to come downstairs by asking him what he's living for -- what he really wants to get out of life. Peter pins Ron down by attacking everything that Ron stands for in life. Ron is aghast, sputters, and finally explodes with anger. Peter was given an idea of what he was supposed to find out from Ron and then was left to improvise. Ron was purposefully left completely unprepared. Naturalism and dramatic punch result from Owen's directing technique. Sometimes he told actors playing a scene together different subjects they were to talk about. Such a method of getting the naturalism of cinema verite is an expensive and leisurely way to make a film, because of all the re-takes which waste raw stock and tape, but it has proved to be a successful way to achieve performances that hit a peak of naturalness and power. Film and theatre, to climb to their highest pinnacles, must both, from time to time, depend upon verbalization, but the verbal language, like the visual language, has to be handled differently in films and plays if maximum artistic effectiveness is to be attained. The opportunity to select and edit spontaneous, impromptu speech recorded for a film paves the way for converting raw material into a shape that will give it aesthetic power. No such editing opportunity exists for improvised theatre, so despite the naturalism and spontaneity it achieves, the stature of the play is impaired. Actuality, no matter how enjoyable, is not art. To transform a play into a good film destroys the essence of what made the play a fine play -- its verbalization. Its verbal language needs to be mauled in the re-creative process, and the play comes out looking quite different from its original self. Much of the heightened and compressed verbalization will be gone. The film director, because of the medium's concreteness and detailed rendition of reality, rightly depends upon the sensibilities of the audience to perceive without theatrical conventions and tricks. Novels, short stories, or subject matter pulled from one's life or the newspapers are more promising grist for films than plays. After having had writing, editing, and directing experience, film-makers usually are astonished when they study certain novels. Many of our finest novelists have written excellent scenarios for films. Joyce's novels are highly cinematic. Gerald Noxon has made this subject his special study. He and others have perceived the extent to which certain novelists unknowingly created what we now think of as cinematic language.2 Novelists not only hammered out the narrative forms of presenting subject matter as we do in film, but anticipated the transitional forms between sequences such as the fade-in,

Cinema Journal / 25 Also they got hold of the fade-out, dissolve, wipe, iris-in, and iris-out. ideas used by D. W. Griffith and Sergei Eisenstein to edit film. An example of such techniques would be the use of crosscutting, which is a rhythmical way of handling action so that even though it is going on at different times and places, associations are made which make a single theme apparent; simultaneity of events is conveyed in this way. Robert Gessner's book on writing for films, The Moving Image, shows the parallels between shot juxtapositions in Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin and idea juxtapositions in Flaubert's Madame Bovary. Both men had a profound cinematic sense, and their works have comparable orchestration. Some of the dialogue in a good film may be presented out of earshot; that is, we hear it as if it doesn't matter whether we catch it all or not. It signals the milieu; it is the commonplace way talk goes on around us whether we are listening or not. Maya Deren's Ritual of Transfigured Time, a silent film, makes a cocktail party more enjoyable than a new sound film, Cocktail Party. In her film we know from what we see the nature of talk we are not hearing. Our imagination tells us all we care to know. In Cocktail Party inane and humorous quips and statements are audible which result in some laughs. Being left to see and to imagine more, as in the Deren film, makes observation of a cocktail party more interesting, unless we are supposed to be closely identified with a single character or two whose thoughts remove them and us as listeners from the party. The principals in a play talking inaudibly or musingly from the stage in an attempt to achieve this degree of naturalism do not achieve the same effect as a film using this technique. Instead, our not hearing in the theatre is an annoyance. Expressive inaudibility in the theatre may be modish today, but it is foreign to good theatre technique and form. Cinematic language and form hinge on the camera and editing table. These instruments for manufacturing shots, which are selected and organized with the help of a viewer and splicer, are the pivotal tools of the filmmaker. In film the writer, director, and actor do what they do because of the limitations and potentialities of these machines. In theatre the writer, director, and actor do what they do because of the size and shape of the building in which a play is to be performed. Except for the Brechts among us, we should keep projectors and screens in the cinema and lights and human beings in the theatre. Brecht combined live actors and projected moving images, but I cannot find out to what extent he did or did not use them simultaneously. Film clips were incorporated into plays so that theatre and film forms, seemingly, did not fight each other. Brecht, in meeting revolutionary changes in the world by hammering out excitingly new forming techniques for the theatre, nibbled at Despite all that has combining art forms within the same performance. been said here about the differences between film and theatre, it is not inconceivable that a neo-Brechtian or aMeyerhold may some day relate these forms, transcend their differences, and give us a new artistic experience. (Despite its attempts at combinations, we have yet to get a success from

26 / Cinema Journal of a In the course of this metamorphosis Cinematheque in New York City.) new art form, both film and theatre, as we know them, may be supplanted. as yet unnamed, from which something, They will serve as raw materials the of to be the art excellence par twenty-first century. may emerge The shot, the essential ingredient from which films are constructed, has to be understood if the nature of cinema is to be perceived and if theain film. Cinematic shots ortre professionals are to work successfully chestrated together handle space, time, light, and movement so that good films result. The absence of anything comparable to the shot in theatre makes it radically different in its handling of space, time, light, and movement. The minute and fixed selection of subjects -- as revealed by the shot -- and the rhythm with effectiveness with its set length and its psychological which subjects are strung together or played against each other in a film are both foreign to the -controls available to the director of a play. The only way a "camera" gets into a theatre is by way of the eyes of While eyes do not see in the way a the individual members of an audience. camera "sees" -- they see selectively rather than everything that is in the action field before the lens -- they have the freedom of the camera to move about, to look at the person sitting across the aisle, at the usher, at the wig of the maid rather than at the star, or at what the director has designed to The eyes in the theatre, like the camera, function as selecbe looked at. and there is no absolute control of the tive and recording image-takers, director or actor to make them see what they choose not to see. In the cinIt goes up ema the camera is at work constantly as one's private usher. to order in film of the for duration the and down and sideways give the eyes best the possible view. Perspective which dictates a point of view is another factor in cinema The ratio of sizes and proportions of what is which is absent from theatre. for the person sitting in the front row is constant on the screen there up This constancy of perspective is a bulwark and the last row in the house. In the theatre the perspective differs according to of cinematic language. If the distance and angle of every single seat in relationship to the stage. the constancy of angle and distance in the cinema were merely a mechanical matter having to do with the warp and woof of making shots in order to put it would not be of importance, but this is not the them together pleasingly, case. The distance and angle which is set in the film to fixate our perspective make a difference in the point of view we get toward the subject matter of the film. Distance, angles, the use or nonuse of opticals (transitional that inform us about changes in time devices such as fades and dissolves, we like this character and dislike anthat so and locales) are manipulated or are amused, the protagonist, of the about are fearful safety other, the in film devices These horrified. or grammar of cineprovide shocked, matic language -- some work as nouns, others as pronouns, and some as The aspirant film-maker learns the grammar of this verbs and adjectives. language in order to free himself to express and realize tangibly on celluloid what is inside him wishing to be expressed.

Cinema Journal / 27 Obviously, theatre is fundamentally different at this point. It matters more where you sit; thus, ushers are needed. Because I started going to the theatre when you could sit in the back of the second balcony for fiftyfive cents, my initial perspective on plays was that of a long, high-angle shot. In the cinema this is the device used to make someone seem small and unimportant. It lacks punch, tension, and clarity. Probably, my limited money and the idea that I had to see every play running in New York left me with a limited perspective on theatre. Now that I have a little more money and wish to avoid more plays than I care to see, my perspective has changed, and I'd rather not attend if I don't have an orchestra seat. When I am in the second balcony, I feel I'd rather be reading a book or wish I'd gone to a movie. Intelligently constructed theatres and cinemas are billboards announcing the distances between these two art forms. In the theatre we had better be able to hear everything. Of course, we want to see everything, and for an occasional scene played in silence, we must be able to see if Hedda Gabler pulls out a gun or poison is poured into a chalice. But most of the time consumed by a play is dominated by the importance of our hearing. In the follow a we we can it is more that see and cinema, important everything, film even when we miss hearing a line of dialogue. If we can hear in the second balcony of the theatre, even though we miss seeing the head of the actor who speaks from the upstairs bedroom on stage, we do not lose out in comprehending the play. Our getting a play depends on our almost total dependence upon hearing everything that is said. The lessened importance of talk in a film means that we can follow a well-made silent or untitled film. Good cinemas are designed so that we never miss a corner or any portion of the screen. The camera has the jump on our eyes in determining what we will look at, so the cinema theatre is not in need of decor. A dark room is all that is needed. We are treated like sheep in the well-built cinema. The lead from that light beam coming from the projection booth is much more absolutistic in coercing us to see and follow what the filmmaker has designed for us than is the grip of the happenings on a stage. Another difference between theatre and cinema, and a big one, is in the responsibility and opportunity of the actor. The greatest writing and directing in the theatre is that which provides the greatest challenge to the actor. The scenario of a film is less important for the actor than a play text. Writing in the cinema is more important for the director and his editor and cameraman than it is for the actor. Persons doing these first three jobs have an overall responsibility to work with a singleness of style which will give the film unity. It may be desirable for the movie actor to know the scenario, and he must have a homogeneous style for his performance, but his acting is so piecemeal that its consistency and quality grow from what the director wants. His "performance, " if it can be called that, is given without continuity. Economic considerations, scheduling of studio space and location shooting, and the availability of other actors with whom an actor is to play, provide the "continuity" of his working days. Parts of

28 / Cinema Journal the shooting script intended for the cameraman, editor, and composer may not even make sense to the actor. Usually, he works from sides and his The excellence of a film script is deterperformance is given in snippets. mined by its potentiality for the greatest visualization of an event, person, or place. and intimate than that in Acting in films can be more naturalistic most plays. Frequently, a director gets a more believable performance from the nonprofessional actor, the one who does little on his own but reSometimes the actor is dosponds with ease to the director's suggestions. ing nothing but letting himself be photographed in the right place with the The editor has much to do with putting his performance right expression. so the ability to sustain a characterization may go to waste in together, When matching action is needed, the script girl or assistant direcfilms. tor is there to remind an actor of what he did and how he did it previously. We have come some distance from the time when imbeciles could become stars whose "acting" was manufactured by a director and editor, but still, and perhaps always, the demands for technique, training, and inspiration are 'ess in films than in the theatre. If the actor's voice or singing are no for the The dubbing in of that is no character, good death-dealing obstacle. another voice, even though it is a regrettable device, can be done by the director and sound engineer. As long as a star system reigns, films will be handled more like plays, but as films become better, the star system will wane. The acting profession is more satisfying in the theatre than in films. The impact of a play is more dependent upon the quality of a performance and the actor's "magnetic" personality than is now the case in films. A he or fine a This is in theatre is actor. the because may person employed His having resemblance to the character he may not be the case in films. The rest of what is to portray and his being malleable are of importance. is needed depends upon the virtuosity and imagination of the director. If the director of a film writes his own shooting script from the scenario, then because the visualization of the subject matter or story is his, he is the most important person in the creation of a film. Unlike the director in the theatre, he may surpass the importance of the writer. The film's He not only conceives success or failure falls upon him almost exclusively. what will be shown but supervises the work of the director of cinematograIt doesn't matter if a director never looks through phy and the cameramen. or a view-finder, the shots may have on them the stamp of an Eisenstein what to co-workers clear made so Fellini. Some great directors have they on film of their visual wanted or else have so dominated the realization styles that there is not a dull shot in the whole film. It is the director's business to stack every shot with a vitality that keeps it so alive you cannot take your eyes from it. The director is pivotal to what happens in the theatre, but he is relatHis primary concern is to ed to the writer and actors in different ways. in order to present the author's body give the text of the play a vocal-visual

Cinema Journal / 29 conception. He works inside the theatre building and creates in terms of what is to be seen through the proscenium arch. By and large, he works from the point of view of a member of the audience. His business is to see as a member of the audience. He has a chance of more accurately placing himself in the position of audience than the director of a film. His work is more intense and concentrated than that which is required in most film work. Probably he lives the play himself more sensually than most film directors live in their films. Masterful human relations are needed by both kinds of directors, but the theatre director works and lives more intimately with actors than the film director. He has to keep a team at work, harmoniously if possible, but has less freedom to hire and fire and make big, last-minute changes than the film director. While a fine film may result despite the persons in it not being actors, let alone good actors, it is mistaken to believe that acting ability goes to waste in films. If it happens that one is a fine actor, the director's work will be easier. Film history is filled with anecdotes about stars -- Hedy LaMarr is an example -- who were without acting sense and ability. Personalities have oftentimes displaced acting ability. Does anyone know or care if Bob Hope can act or not? We have at least three kinds of film actors: (1) those who could never act but become favorites because of their personalities; (2) those who have personality but can act; (3) those actors who may or may not be personalities -- we don't know, because invariably they are such fine actors they always create characters. My devotion to Franpoise Rosay, who is the second kind of actor I have described, argues in favor of acting in the cinema rather than on the stage. When she was in New York, appearing in The Aspern Papers, she was not happy. The play could have run longer, and probably would have, had she and Wendy Hiller not refused to extend their contracts. Both wished to return to Europe. Particularly, Mme. Rosay seemed to miss her acting in movies. The times when she seemed to light up and be most like herself (or at least the actress I fell for when she starred in Carnival in Flanders) About film acting she has said, "Most was when we talked about films. other actors seem to think I'm mad, but I prefer acting for the screen I don't like acting in plays, especially for long rather than on the stage. runs. The part of a stage play I like best is the rehearsing -- when you get the real actors' acting, without the distraction of an audience. As soon as you have an audience there, the play and performances become progressively distorted. If an actor gets a laugh one night, he plays for it the next, naturally, and soon everything is changed and spoiled. In the cinema it is just between you, with your conception of the role, and the noncommittal You are not distracted by the probably irrelevant deeye of the camera. mands of a live audience, and you can concentrate on producing, as nearly as you can, an ideal performance which is then fixed and immutable."3 A friend has told me of his seeing John van Druten throw his arms around an actress and say, "Dearie, you'll never give a performance like

30 / Cinema Journal this again. " Of course, Van Druten was giving the highest praise he knew, but it was touched with sadness. Had the performance been on film, it would have been preserved -- "the ideal performance" of which Mme. Rosay speaks. Names need not be mentioned of fine actors in the theatre who have gone on years too long and who have appeared when they were acting badly If we judge this actor by what we see of him after he has or even drunk. had a comedown, we may risk closing our minds to what we have heard and read about him in his prime. Many times we hear persons say, "I must have seen that actor on the wrong night. Frankly, he gave a poor performof the ance." Acting in the theatre is dependent upon the well-beingness for him always to manage to give his top peractor, and it is impossible We know that the night after an opening night we usually get formance. that have let down. The critics get the better ones. And, it performances is possible for a performance to be truly great during one of the rehearsals and never afterwards to climb quite so high. Actors may be in their stride for the final dress rehearsal and fluff the opening night. There is thus a special kind of freedom in film acting as compared to If the film actor doesn't feel well, his scene can be acting on the stage. be Takes can postponed. repeated as long as the persons involved are willto Reed directed Fay Compton, the well-known and sucwork. Carol ing cessful English theatre actress, through forty-two takes of the moment she discovers the gun in Johnny's pocket in Odd Man Out. After shooting, the director, actor, and editor may study the rushes to select the best take. The preferred takes from hundreds of takes are culled in order to make the best sequence possible. Acting without reaction from an audience can become a dismantling and terrifying experience for the novice in film who comes from the theaAn actor's sense of getting across to an audience, his radar which tre. tells him just what he did to get a laugh when he did not want a laugh or how to build a laugh, or just how long he may maintain a pause -- these things come to him from his empathic communication with the audience. Acting without this audience-tuning fork leaves an actor at the "mercy" of a director. His judgment and taste may make or ruin the actor. Hollywood directors have ruined more theatre actors than they have made into successful film actors. Dependence upon a director would not be such a risk if the actor's but the director may be bludgeoned performance hung only on the director, of the mogul whose money makes the thumb a who is under the by producer on the these restraints film possible. In the last few years, occasionally, When director and the checks on the producer by owners have slackened. directors are given as much freedom as Richard Lester had in making The Knack or Help!, Irvin Kershner had in making The Luck of Ginger Coffee, Shirley Clarke had in making The Connection and The Cool World, the actor will be in less danger of being a pawn. in the theatre is more of a silent partner waitThe producer-investor are over and the play has opened; between ing in the foyer until rehearsals

Cinema Journal / 31 him and the actor is the audience, which serves as a buffer. The theatrical If the audience likes the mogul takes his cues from the audience response. An play and keeps coming, his wishing to make changes will be checked. audience response may prove the actor to be "right" in an argument he has had with the director or producer over an interpretation. In the cinema, the actor has less of a chance to prove himself right. His performance The production goes out of his hands into those of the editor and director. is over, the film is a failure, it cannot be recouped, and his performance is buried in a can. On the stage he might have saved the play by his performance, but in the case of film he has no chance to win his point by the approval of an audience. On the other hand, since we live only once, it is comforting for the actor to get himself on film. some readers have missed experiPossibly, ences in the theatre which I treasure. Two that come to mind are Laurette Such Taylor in Glass Menagerie and Ethel Waters in Mamba's Daughters. -in one's to be moaned are over experience they are gaps theatre-going case has forever. In someone missed in Camille, gone seeing Greta Garbo the Marx brothers, or Chaplin, a television set or film society will offer these unforgettable and precious experiences. Cinema offers permanence and potential immortality for the actor rather than that fleeting and perishable moment when, in the words of Roy Mitchell, "the miracle of the theatre" happens. Communication can become so deep and moving in the theatre it becomes communion-like. It is filled with mystery which provides the actor and audience with a moment of truth, a tremendous experience. This does not happen for the film actor because there is no audience Deresponse to help carry him to heights that he has not reached before. spite its connotation for some, the best word to describe this phenomenon It has a is communion. Communion is fundamental to all great theatre. spiritual and religious quality because of the extent to which actor and audience belong to each other, live on the stage with each other, and have their better selves touched. In our deeply experiencing life on the stage, that is we in the audat least temporarily, beyond and outside of our usual selves, ience become unselfish and identify deeply with and belong to the characters created on the stage. Thus cinema and theatre have much in common and much that sepaBoth are dramaticrates them. Each has different rewards and pitfalls. and art forms that provide the entertainment, revelation, communication, Both may be worked in intelligently and exaltation which we get from art. successfully by the same individual if he understands and masters the difof their realities. nature fering Footnotes: 1 Tyrone Guthrie, "The Case for 'Live' Theater," and Carl Foreman, "The Case for 'Canned' Theater," New York Times Magazine, April 29, 1962, p. 10ff.

32 / Cinema Journal 2 Gerald Noxon, "The Anatomy of the Closeup; Some Literary Origins in the Works of Flaubert, Huysmans and Proust, " The Journal of the SociVol. I, 1961, p. 1. ety of Cinematologists, 3 Conversation with the author.

The Council of the Society of Cinematologists notes with deepest sorrow the passing of Siegfried Kracauer, one of its most eminent members. Besides many articles and reviews on cultural and cinematic subjects, Dr. Kracauer will always be remembered for three outstanding achievements: his analysis of Nazi war propaganda in 1942 for the Museum of Modern Art, his pathbreaking social study of German films in the period between the wars, From Caligari to Hitler, and his monumental work in film aesthetics, Theory of Film (1960). Like Theodore Huff and Harold Leonard, he responded to the challenge of film scholarsupship before there was group organization or governmental port, and his pioneering work stands as an inspiration for those who came after him.

Studies in Past and DeceleratedTime Robert Gessner

Continuous time, being the most dominant rhythm in cinema, is interrupted by various other faces of time. These act to accelerate the flow like a river going into white water, or divide it into parallel channels, or turn it about, or decelerate it. The momentary reverse of the flow may be characterized often in terms of sentiment. Memory, being one of the most powerful determinants of present conduct, hovers constantly in our conscious and subconscious backgrounds. There is in everyone a latent love of time remembered, of places in the past. Past and parallel times are the only two types of variations of continuous time which are achieved solely through editing, and in a way parallel is a two-or-more-faced version of continuous. Accelerated time may be created not only through editing, but also by accelerating the shutter speed of the camera and by exaggerating the frame movement in pans, trucks, and zooms. However, once the past has been evoked through the flashback time becomes once again continuous. The unfolding of movements -- through action, acting, editing, or frame motions -- is time present even though the setting might be in a previous period. This realization reiterates the basic nature of cinema, its predominant occupation with the on-going moments. The flashback to a previous continuous time might be concluded, ironically, with an accelerated time leap back to the present. The nostalgic D. W. Griffith exploited the sentimental values inherent in the flashback. Remembrance of previous actions could be established by having a fade-out on a character, say Elsie Stoneman (Lillian Gish) in The Birth of a Nation (1915), and a fade-in on Elsie and the Little Colonel in a tender embrace, a vignette by itself; then back to Elsie recovering from her reverie. The flashback pattern has precedence in the novel, the form which inspired Griffith to adapt the technique to cinema. It is a popular technique

34 / Cinema Journal in mystery stories. Here from Ira Levin (a former student) in his suspense novel, A Kiss Before Dying (1953), is the use of the flashback for character information. A handsome young man, aware of his charm and his blue eyes, calculates his moves toward moneyed success via sex and a talent for murder. His girl Dorrie is two months pregnant -- what will he do? Chapter One ends on his words, "You must get dressed. You must get dressed because it is twenty past ten and you must be back at the dorm by eleven." "He was born in Menasset, on the outskirts of Fall Chapter Two begins: the only child of a father who was an oiler . . ." River, Massachusetts; This exposition includes a capacity to kill a wounded Jap soldier in cold "In his sophomore year, he met Dorothy blood, and ends with the sentence: Thus ends the past time. Kingship." Chapter Three continues where Chapter One was interrupted: He got the pills, two grayish-white At ... capsules. he met their o'clock at Dorothy eight regular meeting place, a tree-shrouded bench in the center of the wide stretch of lawn between the Fine Arts and Pharmacy buildings .. The classic value of the flashback is its information to the readerviewer, coming privately to us and unknown to some of the key characters. It serves the role of the Greek Chorus or Oracle, and, as Aristotle points know something about the villain, or hero, out, stimulates our curiosity--we others haven't yet realized, and we watch to see when they will awaken. We feel subtly superior. Knowing through the flashback that Bud Corliss in A Kiss Before Dying is capable of calculated murder, we observe two of his When will the others wake up? killings with increasing impatience. in Lady in the Lake, having been wrecked in his car, Marlowe, and sprinkled with booze, emerges from knocked momentarily unconscious, Now as Robert Montgomery, the narrator, behind the camera (see p. 348). we see and hear: FADE IN INT. MARLOWE'S OFFICE MCU -- Marlowe speaks into camera -Marlowe De Garmot was a nice sweet boy. He left me there, soaked in alcohol, went to a telephone and called the police. Said he was But I got a a citizen who wanted to report a drunk driver. I didn't sleep quite as long as he thought I was going break. to, and what woke me up was a guy who had been overcelebrating Christmas and was carolling a little off key. So I watched him to see what my next move was. He might come in handy. LAP DISSOLVE TO: Having been informed in this odd flash-ahead, back to what was once present time:

we now have a flash-

Cinema Journal / 35 INT. MARLOWE'S CAR CS -- Blurred shot of shattered glass in windshield -- vision clears as CAMERA PANS left to Drunk looking in side window of car -- he sings -- reaches down inside car and picks up wallet -- Marlowe's hand enters and hits Drunk on chin -Drunk falls down o. s. -- shot blurs. Drunk sings Oh, Santa Claus, dear Santa Claus Oh, Santa Claus, dear Santa Claus -As noted on p. 349, the action continues in continuous time. The technique of TV dramas is to open the story with a flashback of an action designed to hook the viewer so that he won't switch channels durIt Then follows the story in regular continuous time. ing the commercial. was primarily a Hollywood technique, and a radio drama hook. The novel Mildred Pierce (1941) opens with Bert Pierce pruning twigs and mowing the lawn. They have a Spanish bungalow with Grand Rapids In this suburbia deadliness Bert leaves Mildred for another furniture. woman, and eventually Mildred goes to work making pies and having a sucMildred's last cessful career. This opening is natural and without shock. husband is Monty Beragon, and the film version (1944) begins by focusing on him in a melodramatic The following three shots are a flashopening. ahead, thus rendering the main story a flashback: FADE IN 1. NIGHT EXT. BERAGON BEACH HOUSE The house is lit by the headlights of a car parked in front. Then there is the We hear the SOUND of the car starter. flat report of a gun . . . followed by a fusilade of five shots in deliberate tempo. The headlights 2.

of the car flick off.

INT. BERAGON BEACH HOUSE The scene is lit from At the foot of the spiral staircase. A man comes down the stairs, above. clutching at his onto the railing with and stomach with one hand hanging himself to hold the other. He attempts rigid, but slowly he the bottom of the as reaches double to over begins staircase. He stumbles against some furniture living room, then goes down.

3.

at the entrance

to the

MAN CLOSEUP His eyes glitter with a highlight as he lies with his cheek He against the deep carpet, and one arm outstretched. hears a SOUND off scene, and his eyes roll in that direction.

36 / Cinema Journal Man

(whisper) Mildred .. The fingers of his outstretched hand clutch into the pile of the rug, and the highlight disappears from his still open eyes. He is dead. DISSOLVE TO: This technique is actually a frame in which the story fits. For a more complete example, including a surprise ending, The Lavender Hill Mob provides a perfect illustration of a narrative use of past time. At the opening twvomen are seated in a cafe in Buenos Aires. Holland (Alec Guiness) is a gay, dapper fellow, passing out money freely. His companion Gregory In the first shot Holland is giving cash appears friendly and appreciative. to Chiquita, an obvious type: Holland Run along and get yourself that little birthday present. Chiquita (joyfully) Oh!

...

Oh, how sweet you are!

She kisses him and hurries off. Gregory (with a twinkle) You seem to have accomplished quite a lot in one year. Holland (with a smile of happy reflection) One superb year -- just when I was beginning to think I'd never achieve it. For twenty years I'd dream of a life like this -- and for nineteen of those years Fate denied me the one contact essential to the success of all my plans. A reminiscent look comes into his eyes. TRACKS SLOWLY BACK.

CAMERA

Holland Still, I never quite lost sight of my goal, inaccessible as it often seemed to me when I was merely one nonentity

.

DISSOLVE: A. 2 EXT. LONDONBRIDGE DAY A dense mass of black-coated workers are streaming across the bridge. Holland (voice) . . . among all those thousands who come flocking every morning into the City . . .

Cinema Journal / 37 A. 3 INT. AN ENORMOUS ROOM INSIDE A BANK Shooting down from the gallery there are interminable rows of desks, with clerks and cashiers surrounded by the machinery of high finance. Holland (voice) . . . and spend their days handling vast wealth belonging to other people . . . A.4

A.5

INT. C.S. SORTING DESK Great stacks of tightly packed currency notes piled up on the desk. Holland . . . in return for a weekly pittance.

are being

INT. BANK COUNTER CAMERA TRACKS past an Shooting through the grille, of endless row of men handling the various processes Several are counting thick wads of notes; others money. hands counting like lightning; pouring out bags of silver; shovels disappearing into piles of money; scales being filled; coins being bagged and slammed into drawers.

Holland is one of the drones, but a clever clerk who devises a system for getting gold bullion out of the country -- cast as heavy, souvenir replicas of the Eiffel Tower. Leaving the first sequence for the concluding sixth, we flash-ahead (The flashback above occurred (Shot F.42) to present and continuous time. between A. 1 and A. 2.) First, Holland is being pursued by the police: F.40

DAY BANK OF ENGLAND EXT. ALLEY. HOLLAND comes dashing along the alley towards CAMhas A Second Policeman, ERA. blowing his whistle, started in pursuit.

F.41

BANK OF ENGLAND DAY EXT. MAIN ENTRANCE. of the are Bank streaming out after the day's Employees out of breath, sees his big almost work. HOLLAND, chance. He pulls up to a walk and mixes in with them. A THIRD CITY POHis pursuer appears from the alley. LICEMAN dashes up. The two policemen frantically scrutinize the crowd. Almost every other man is dressed like The policemen HOLLAND, and is carrying a small case. stand helplessly baffled while HOLLAND, in the middle of the crowd, walks calmly into the entrance of the Bank Unfrom view down the derground Station and disappears steps. Holland's Voice And instead of changing as usual at Charing Cross ... DISSOLVE:

38 / Cinema Journal F. 42 INT. CAFE. BUENOS AIRES DAY HOLLAND concludes his story. Holland . . I came straight to Buenos Aires. Gregory Plus six Eiffel Towers. How much did they fetch? Holland Twenty-five thousand pounds. We now see that there is only one note left on the plate in front of him. Holland (with a satisfied smile) Enough to keep me for one year in the style to which I was unaccustomed. An imposing figure, the BRITISH AMBASSADOR, stops to greet Holland as he passes the table. British Ambassador Hullo, there! By jove, that was a good party of Wish we could give a few like it at the Emyours! bassy. Holland Your Excellency is very kind. British Ambassador Done a lot for our prestige out here. Worth a batJolly good show. tleship. He passes on. HOLLAND finishes his drink, glowing with GREGORY looks at him, raising his eyebrows. pride. HOLLAND nods. GREGORY rises. HOLLAND automatithe room towards rises down with him. move cally They the door. We see that they are handcuffed together. FADE OUT: END OF PICTURE The total impact of The Lavender Hill Mob, as well as the concluding touch, depends on past time for its narrative power. Similarly, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962) is structured repeatedly on the flashback. Whenever the young thief (Tom Courtenay) in the reformatory runs crosscountry for sport -- alone through the woods and fields -- his mind flashes back to previous episodes: the sordid family life with an una father faithful, unfeeling mother, dying after a hard life of labor, the barrenness of existence compelling the boy to defy the deadly patterns by stealing a car, spending an overcast weekend at the shore with a girl, and stealing a cash box. The flashbacks, in other words, provide the means for presenting the main narrative, which, in turn, becomes an explanation for -- a parallel structure -- crime and punishment on an obhis incarceration vious level, and boredom and running on a philosophical plane. The running of the Borstal boy becomes an expression of freedom sought and felt in his Thus when the pompous chief warbody, a joyous and hopeful expression.

Cinema Journal / 39 den (Michael Redgrave) robs our runner of this free flavor by insisting that the Borstal boy win in competition against a private school team of wealthy young gentlemen, he balks, deliberately and subconsciously, upon nearing the finish line. The series of flashbacks at this finale serve a thematic aim. They summarize the social system, the barren life, the artificial values. It is a Tony Richardson attack on The Establishment, the director assisted by novelist-screenplaywright Alan Sillitoe. Narrative and thematic flashbacks characterize The Pawnbroker A German-Jewish (1964), ranging from split seconds to entire scenes. refugee from a Nazi concentration camp, Sol Nazerman (Rod Steiger), operates a pawnshop in Harlem. He sees the hell of his present life in previous terms, so sensitized internally is he to self-torment and self-pity while externally he wears a turtle-shell of indifference. Seeing a jammed subway car of New Yorkers, tired, silent, dispirited, his mind flashes back to a shot of a railroad car packed with victims heading for the concentration camp. The sight of a nude prostitute offering herself to him in his pawnshop evokes a flash back to his witnessing of his wife stripped nude and forced into a brothel for Nazi officers. Too frequently, however, these interruptions are heavy handed and arbitrary, so that their editorial flavor overburdens the narrative. Time remembered, as a series of nostalgic and self-recriminative recollections of an old man's past, gives the flashback a thematic significance in Wild Strawberries (1957). On the day Professor Emeritus Isak Borg (Victor Sjbstrtm) is to be made a Jubilee Doctor at Lund University he has dreams, remembrances, and nightmares. Within this one-day frame Ingmar Bergman as writer-director employs the flashback as counterpoint to contrast the rigid, self-centered state-of-mind of Isak Borg today. The first of the series has a Scrooge-like premonition of Time Future and is, in effect, a flash-ahead. The 76-year-old professor dreams of a funeral. The hearse is wrecked, the coffin partly smashed: . . . When I leaned forward, the dead hand clutched my arm and pulled me down toward the casket with enormous force. I struggled helplessly against it as the corpse slowly rose from the coffin. It was a man dressed in a frock coat. To my horror, I saw that the corpse was myself. I tried to free my arm, but he held it in a powerful grip. All this time he stared at me without emotion and seemed to be smiling scornfully. In this moment of senseless horror, I awakened and sat up in my bed ....

Borg's sour nature is revealed in his relations with his housekeeper, his son and daughter-in-law, and his 96-year-old cynical mother. That he seeks affection and sentiment is portrayed in his visit to the wildstrawberry patch he knew near the family summer home. After a series of contrasting episodes during the long day, including flashbacks to his family when he was a boy, to his wife when she was unfaithful, and in a flash-ahead

40 / Cinema Journal to a catechismal examination into his incompetence as a doctor, and film conclude with a flashback to Isak's father and mother:

the script

. . . I looked for a long time at the pair on the other side of the water. I tried to shout to them but not a word came from my mouth. Then my father raised his head and caught sight of me. He lifted his hand and waved, laughing. My mother looked up from her book. She also laughed and nodded .... I dreamed that I stood by the water and shouted toward the bay, but the warm summer breeze carried away my cries and they did not reach their destination. Yet I wasn't sorry about that; I felt, on the contrary, rather lighthearted. There is a feeling of catharsis and resignation in this ending with the old professor lying "lighthearted" in his bed. and audaciously presented Thematic uses of past time are sensitively in Hiroshima Mon Amour. The universality of the theme -- man's inhumanity to man -- is illustrated in flashbacks to Nevers in Occupied France while the Frenchwoman SHE (Emmanuelle Riva) and the Japanese HE (Eiji Okada) are together; her spirit crosses national boundaries in the following passage from the Marguerite Duras scenario: Later. After The light is already different. (At Hiroshima. they have made love.) HE: Was he French, the man you loved during the war? A German crosses a square at dusk.) (At Nevers. SHE: No . . . he wasn't French. tired. She is lying on the bed, pleasantly (At Hiroshima. Darker now. ) SHE: Yes. It was at Nevers. The A shot of love at Nevers. Bicycles racing. (Nevers. forest, etc. ) Then among the ruins. SHE: At first we met in barns. And then in rooms. Like anywhere else. (Hiroshima. In the room, the light has faded even more. Their bodies in a peaceful embrace.) SHE: And then he was dead. The two flashbacks to Nevers link SHE as the universal woman of humanity, loving at eighteen a young German soldier; the flash-ups to HiroAt Hiroshima she wishes to see everything of shima make the connection. the destruction and to make love to a Japanese man. HE understands her HE asks of necessity to expiate her guilt, atone for the evil in the world. her time when she lived in a cellar in Nevers after the affair with the German: HE: When you are in the cellar, am I dead? SHE: You are dead . . . and . . . The German is dying very slowly on the quay.) (Nevers.

Cinema Journal / 41 Her head is shaved for having loved the German, nights in the cellar, even the night of the Liberation:

so she spends her

(She goes on, desperately against him at Hiroshima.) SHE: Oh! What pain. What pain in my heart. It's unbelievable. Everywhere in the city they're singing the Marseillaise. Night falls. My dead love is an eneof Someone says she should be made to France. my walk through the city. My father's drug store is closed because of the disgrace. Some I'm alone. of them laugh. At night I return home. She screams, not words, but (Scene of the square at Nevers. a formless scream understandable in any language as the cry of a child for its mother. He is still against her, holding her hands.) that time is timeTurning the clock back repeatedly to demonstrate as humanity is brotherhood, Resnais pushes out the frontiers of cineIn his subsequent Marienbad the familiar landscape of time dissolves altogether. Though past, present, and future imperfect are often incomprehensible on the surface, is emotionally comMarienbad as an experience The --the of human relations -timelessness prehensible. hypnotic appeal lies in its schizophrenia. sensitive Sophisticated, persons are likely to live on more than one time level, their awareness often split or fragmented, disassociated. Primitives prefer the present as romantics seek the future and cynics recall the past. By fusing the three, Resnais demonstrates that one is not more essential than the other two, nor can one exist without the others. Curiously, he achieves this blurring of the clock in the beginning of the film by utilizing past time. At first girl X is dressed in black during continuous time. During For a while we can keep she wears white. previous times, via flashbacks, an adventurous experience. track through costumes, Resnais' orchestration is fragmented into surface textures of rare depth, precision, and beauty. The camera travels in trucks and pans to deorgan music summons pict a static existence within a massive mausoleum; The Life is baroque and stationary. memories of departed encounters. chess game, and first half hour has the stylized grace of an aristocratic takes over, and we are confused gradually the illogic of the schizophrenia We lose conscious track of shifts. The girl X becomes the sum observers. of her past, present, and future. Resnais is pioneering -- not unlike Joyce and Picasso -- in his particular style by utilizing the face of time most taken for granted: past time. less, ma.

The final and least common of the cinematic rhythms, which interrupt continuous time, slows the clock to 70-80-90 seconds to the minute, and The moment is stretched. time. Holding back may be called decelerated the clock is opposite to jumping it forward in a cut for accelerated action. Since this technique disturbs our normal rhythm, it can be aesthetically

42 / Cinema Journal like having our heartbeat retarded while our eye is being enrevolutionary, livened. The means of prolonging the experience of a certain moment is usudone ally by altering the normal shutter speed of the camera so that the characters move in slow motion. Dream scenes and sports events are popular examples of velocity reduced by mechanical means within the camera or the video playback. Decelerated time may be created also by exaggeratso that with slow pans, ing the pace of frame movement below normal, trucks, or zooms we may follow a character in his ambulations with greater This is an unnatural retardation of frame motion (cinematic) for emphasis. the dramatic requirement of that moment. Fragmenting a moment into many parts, by repeating a portion of a time through editing. The Sioux, previous shot, is to achieve decelerated and other tribes, have a Bunny Dance, performed by jogging two steps forward, followed by one backward -- a decelerated action. Pare Lorentz's The River (1937) has such a moment depicting the descent of a tall fir tree crashing into a river. Nature lovers would wish to hold back time and the tree, and for a few precious seconds Lorentz grants our romantic urge. The fall is interrupted and repeated through editing. the crash of the Finally, giant tree into the water is doubly painful. A superb example in contemporary cinema is the climax in the French version, directed by Robert Enrico, of An Occurrence at Owl Creek The Bridge (1962), based on the Civil War short story by Ambrose Bierce. Bierce tale begins: A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, The looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord .... The man, Peyton Farquhar (Roget Jacquet), is about to be hanged by Union soldiers. Is it that we would wish him a last-minute reprieve? What is flashing through his tormented mind? As written and directed by Enrico we see the rope break and Farquhar submerged under the waters of Owl He frees himself miraculously from his bonds, eludes drowning, Creek. eludes the bullets of the soldiers and their cannon, and survives the swirling waters of the creek. Gasping for breath, exhausted almost beyond endurance, he escapes through the woods toward his home and his wife, Abby The moment he beholds her emerge from the Farquhar (Anne Cornally). plantation house in her hoop skirt and dotted crinoline dress with lace trimmings, long tresses over her right shoulder, locket around her neck--that moment becomes decelerated. Four times he repeats his emergence from the woods and his crossthe lawn. In an accompanying mood of decleration within the frame, ing Abby gracefully descends the garden stone steps and moves toward her husband in a slight but distinct slow motion (velocity). The camera travels her tearful grace in with her in a combined pan and truck to underscore juxtaposition (parallel time) to the shots of Farquhar rushing -- repeatedly

Cinema Journal / 43 rushing -- towards her. The moment they come together in one shot and she places her outstretched hands to his bruised neck, decelerated time He drops out of her arms, leaving her alone, hands empty .... ceases. Peyton Farquahr, tied at ankles, knees, and wrists, is swinging stiffly at the end of a rope. The shock achieved by writer-director Enrico is unusual in cinema, and opens psychic possibilities not heretofore seen. Fragmenting subject movement into disjointed bits or snatches of shots -- a Griffith-Eisenstein

technique

-- may extend time by actual count

while extracting every drop of emotional or intellectual meaning. The prolongation of the experience, however, may give an opposite impression, an aesthetic effect of contracting time. That is, the time it takes for an irate sailor, washing dishes in Potemkin (1925), to smash the plate with its lettering, "Give us this day our daily bread, " is a matter of two seconds in normal subject movement. By editing this action into nine shots, Eisenstein prolongs the actual motion, but the total impact so stimulates the eye that the doubled lapsed time of four seconds seems less than two. By deceleration the movement appears enlarged, not an unusual psychic phenomenon. Repetition of an action can have the effect not only of extending time, but of prolonging an idea. This is done in The Knack, for example, when the young leading man (Michael Crawford) discovers his bathroom is jammed full with beautiful young ladies clothed only in towels. He flees across the hall and down a flight of stairs three times. Though this a'ction is accelerated through camera shutter speed, the total impact of the repeat editing is a prolongation. Time is momentarily arrested while the fantastic idea is relished. Laboratory printing may create an illusion of retarded time by slowly dissolving cuts between shots. Though slow motion has been the decision of director and editor, ignorance of the tool should not prevent a writer from including it in his craftsman kit. Francois Truffaut in his script of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 (1966) indicates a scene is to be shot in slow motion, so that the cruelty and insanity of book-burning by firemen of the state will be more fully felt. A fire engine, with siren going, arrives at a "middle-income housing development" on a raid for books (all books are subversive). THE CAPTAIN sits majestically on the fire engine, children gathering around in natural curiosity, while MONTAG leads the raiding party of firemen. Books were discovered in a chandelier and inside a TV set. Now comes the time for burning: (Filmed in slow motion.) The firemen open the sack and throw the books in a pile. One book escapes from the pile and bounces to the side, lies open, its pages exposed. A child squats down to gaze curiously at it. A look at him from the silent CAPTAIN, still seated in the front of the fire engine.

44 / Cinema Journal THE CAPTAIN's look is noticed by the child's quickly kicks the book away from the boy. sends it into the pile.

father who very A second kick

Another look from the father to THE CAPTAIN. THE CAPTAIN almost smiles. At this moment, we see MONTAG and his men leaving the Two men surround MONTAG and busy themselves building. with him, passing him a helmet protector for his head and eventually asbestos overalls not unlike those worn by deep sea . . . it divers. Finally, MONTAG is given the flame-thrower is a much smaller, more casual weapon than its World War II prototype. MONTAG, armed with the flame-thrower, CLOSEUP on him. We easily recognize CLOSEUP on end of flame-thrower. TRAVEL stops.

goes to the books. him under his helmet.

FORWARD toward the pile of books.

TRAVELLING

GROUPING -- the pile of books and MONTAG. Again CLOSEUP view of MONTAG who lowers his eyes to the apparatus. CLOSEUP of the cocked flame-thrower very strong flame.

out of which streams

a

GROUP VIEW--MONTAG adjusts the flame and directs it onto the books. We stay for a moment on this view in order to watch MONTAG burning the books, going around the pile, etc., MONTAG stops the flameuntil all are thoroughly on fire. thrower, then goes back to the two men who help him take off He then goes to the fire engine to stand at attenhis helmet. tion beside THE CAPTAIN. Around them, the firemen set MONTAG salutes with style. The books are all but consumed. about arranging equipment. The books crumbling in ashes. The flames are lower. The scene, done in normal tempo, would not have this impact of deliberate, methodical burning. Truffaut and his assistant writers, Jay Presson Allen and Jean Louis Richard, have fitted the proper form to such improper subject matter. So much slow-motion velocity has appeared in films (as well as fast, and editors have monoporeverse, frozen, or stop motion) that directors lized its uses. Nor is it often possible to credit the writer with the original such as Lafcadio In the case of known literary sources, inspiration. became a film later Hearn's Kwaidan (Ghost Stories), which sixty years

Cinema Journal / 45 (1964), it was the director Kobayashi who created several stunning decelerated times. One was when the child emperor Antoko was drowned in the arms of his nurse when she leaped -- in slow motion -- into the sea to avoid

capture by the victorious enemy. Nor was it Lafcadio Hearn who wrote of that moment in the third episode of the film, Chawan No Naka (Inside a Tea Cup), when time is arrested in a stop motion at the instant the bedevilled Kamnio believes he kills two ghostly assassins -- the frame holds like a still picture. Also, when Kamnio proceeds to attack in decelerated time, legs moving in slow motion, the three ghostly emissaries from their lord whose face Kamnio had swallowed in a tea cup. Here in Fahrenheit 451 we do have decelerated time noted in the script. Fresh experiments should begin with the writer, with whom all beginnings commence.

The Prophet Louis DucosDu Hauron and His MarvelousMoving Picture Machine Walter Stainton

Ducos du Hauron was a remarkable man by any standard: photographer; inventor in the field of color reproduction, 3-D photography, and motion pictures; pianist of concert level. He was born December 8, 1837, in Langon, Department of Gironde, France. His father, being a low-level career officer of the government, had to move his family about a good deal. These uprootings and the fact that Louis had poor health (something which handicapped him throughout life) did little to help his formal education. Much of this was, indeed, private instruction at home. He did not take a university degree. He died at Agen Perigord (109 kilometers from Toulouse) on August 31, 1920, at the age of 83. Ducos wrote many papers, most on 3-color reproduction, including one on reducing 3-color to 2-color. During his lifetime, he was granted seventeen French patents. Most of these are related to color reproduction, but the list includes one for a windmill, one on stereoscopy, several on anamorphic optical devices, and two related to motion pictures. The second, #259,399, applied for August 29, 1896, was titled "New optical combinations, which eliminate entirely all intermittance of lighting in photographic moving pictures (tableaux)." Many medals and prizes came to him, among them: Paris exposition silver medal (1878); Paris exposition diploma of the Golden Book (1889); Janssen medal of the French Photographic Society (1897); and Officer of the Academy (1899). In 1912 he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor on the occasion of the Expositions of Rome, Dresden, and Turin. Now to the matter in hand: the patent of 1864. Five references to Ducos, at least three of which are likely to be seen by anyone interested in the early history of the motion picture, are what set me to the task of finding out more about him: Gordon Hendricks,

46 / Cinema Journal

48 / Cinema Journal The Edison Motion Picture Myth (1961); Martin Quigley, Magic Shadows (1948); Georges Sadoul, L'Invention du Cinema (1945); Terry Ramsaye, A Million and One Nights (1925); Henry Hopwood, Living Pictures (1898). Hendricks (p. 168) says: "Ducos (French #61976, March, 1864; Certificate of Addition December, 1896) [sic -- correct date, December 3, 1864] took pictures instantaneously at short intervals; proposed the use of the camera as a projector; suggested the use of his camera from a travelling carriage or vehicle; mounted photos on a continuous band of paper or fabric; used magnified images viewed through a slit in a band and reflected in a concave mirror; used, as an alternate, lenses moving along with the band; suggested time lapse photography; slow motion; reversal; astronomical photography. " Hendricks does not say where he obtained his information. Quigley (p. 172) notes in his chronology: "1864 -- Louis Ducos du Hauron patents a motion picture photography-projection system, but there are no adequate materials available to make it practical. " Sadoul (p. 37) quotes from the patent. I shall use some of this material later. Ramsaye (p. 18) quotes (and puts into one paragraph) material from He also pages 1, 7, and 13 of the patent and does not state the source. the does mention the date as the not acceptance important gives filing date, addition to the patent (filed December 3, 1864) and states that Ducos never got beyond the idea on paper. From page 1 of the patent: "My invention consists in substituting rapidly and without confusion to the eye, not only of an individual but when desired a whole assemblage, the enlarged images of a great number of pictures when taken instantaneously and successively at very short intervals." From page 7: "The observer will believe that he sees only one image, which changes gradually by reason of the successive changes of form and Even supposition of the objects which occur from one picture to another. posing that there be a slight interval of time during which the same object was not shown, the persistence of the luminous impression upon the eye will fill this gap. of naThere will be, as it were, a living representation ture ... ." Their History, Photo-production Henry Hopwood ("Living Pictures: and Practical Working, " 1899, The Optician and Photographic Trades Review, 123-5, Fleet Street, London, E. C., pp. 45, 46) is the earliest reference I have come upon (though Ramsaye was probably the first) and is "Ducos du Hauron took a French patent (No. certainly the most interesting: for in 1864 'an 61,976) apparatus for the photographic reproduction of any scene whatever, with all the changes which it has undergone during a specified time.' This patent, though issued, was not printed, owing to nonpayment of fees; but if the manuscript still exists in Paris, it would be of great interest to ascertain the methods proposed. " Through the kindness of the scientific attache of the French embassy, I have a photocopy of the patent and of the addition of December 3, 1864. Both appear to be complete except for the pages at the end of the original

Cinema Journal / 49

patent. These carried figures 7-12, but the written descriptions make the loss unimportant. The scheme of the original patent would hardly be called practical but I think it could be made to work today if one wanted to go to the trouble and expense of building a camera and a projector each using 270 objective lenses, twice that number for continuous showing, and four times that number for stereoscopic continuous showing. (I suggest that this scheme is no more ridiculous than some fairly recent schemes for television transmission and reproduction. Repetition of similar elements is a requirement of today's computers.) The whole problem revolved around the fact that Ducos wanted to use wet process glass plates for their speed, put 270 small images on one plate, and change plates about every 18-30 seconds. The 270 lenses were scanned in series by a pair of slotted roller blinds in making the negative and again in projecting the positive. His camera crew would number at least 12 persons for one unit to 48 or more if he happened to be making a continuous stereo picture. He would have needed operators to turn the cranks, change plates, spread collodion on the glasses, and immediately after exposure, develop, fix, and wash the The scheme, basically simple, is complicated only because the negatives. of problem repetitiousness could be solved only by using many human hands (cf. Muybridge's problem and solution). By contrast the scheme of the addition of December 3, 1864, is so much farther advanced that I shall go at once to that. Essentially it consists of a series of photographic, or drawn, or painted configurations, opaque or transparent, fixed on a flexible band which is moved at uniform

50 / Cinema Journal Fastened between pictures of the band and speed between spools or drums. projecting from the band is a tooth. Successive teeth engage similar teeth on an endless band on two cylinders rotating on axes perpendicular to the direction of movement of the band. Attached to the endless band and parallel to the picture band and placed to appear in front of the viewing aperture or apertures) is a viewing screen with several convex lenses. The band The convex with the lenses moves continuously with the picture band. lenses moving in the same direction as the pictures provide, for the brief glimpse of each picture, a degree of optical compensation to make the picture stand still. (Optical compensation for movement is used in various applications today, e.g., 16 mm. viewers and some high-speed cameras.) Ducos suggested that fixed concave lenses might be used in the opening(s) of the viewing screen if the pictures on the band are small, and it is not desired to enlarge the view. movement of the picture band Ducos, you note, shows horizontal he vertical (elsewhere suggested movement). Do not regard this as strange. Edison started the same way. More recently there were in use, in Radio City Music Hall, Century projectors for Vista-Vision using double frame with the film at feet 180 minute. film, per moving horizontally because the available Quigley says (p. 117), "It was not successful were materials not sensitive ." Ducos de... photographic sufficiently clares (p. 3 of the patent addition): . . . here is what constitutes the perfected apparatus which I have constructed and which works very well. " He goes on to describe in detail the apparatus shown in figures 1-7 of the addition: "By means of various modifications my apparatus will be capable of two important applications: 1st, projection of enlarged images upon a curtain [une toile]; 2nd, reproductions of the pictures themselves." Following are some details of (1) projection before an audience, (2) use as a printer. He mentions double objectives (i. e., more than a single glass in each objective). He also says this improved apparatus may be used as a camera. for stereoscopic Details for several arrangements viewing follow. Ducos' last major heading of the addition, covers "Applications," about one page of handwriting. Under this heading he refers first to pages 13 and 14 of the original patent. Part of the following is used by Ramsaye. Here he says: By means of my apparatus I am especially confident of being able to reproduce a processional march, a review of military events of a the maneuvers, battle, a public celebration, a theatrical scene, the movements or dances of one or several persons, the play of the features and, if one wishes, the grimaces of a human face, etc., a maritime scene, the movement of waves, eddy of the tides, the movement of clouds in a stormy sky, particularly in mountain country, the eruption of a volcano, etc., etc., or the scene that unrolls before the eye of an observer going about in a town, in a historic building or in an interesting country.

Cinema Journal / 51 Then in footnotes

to this paragraph

he adds:

If the scene to be reproduced offers only transformations that are difficult to see, or better, transformations which occur slowly and in a very prolonged time lapse -- for example, the changes in a storm sky, the varied effects of light on landis not so necessary and it scape, etc. -- instantaneousness will be useless to take such a large number of pictures in a given time .... In a word, time-lapse photography. With respect to "the scene that unrolls before the eyes of an observer . ." his footnote reads in part: "The black chamber [i.e. the camera] will be installed on a little car [i. e. a dolly] which one can move forward a tiny bit for each new exposure . . . " Then he goes back to the patent addition to say: . . . with my apparatus one may also produce very interesting and diverting results which it will be sufficient to enumerate: 1st. To condense to a few moments a scene which in real the growth of time has a considerable duration. Examples: the pastrees and plants and all the phenomena of vegetation; sage from one season to another, the construction of a building or similarly of an entire city, the successive ages of a single individual, the growth of the beard or hair, etc. . . . My lens apparatus is able, as the poets say, to give wings to the flight of time. it is possible to slow down to make ob2nd. Conversely, which are somewhat servable to the eye those transformations indiscernible. 3rd. It is possible to invert [reverse] the order in which a scene or a phenomenon takes place; that is to say, to begin with the end and end with the beginning. the rotation of heavenly 4th. To reproduce movements, bodies and the changes which occur on their surfaces (the phases of the moon, sun spots, etc.). N. B. In a large number of cases, one could use designs Similarly photoskillfully combined rather than photographs. graphs may be combined with designs -- designing upon a fixed photographic background an animated subject which is changed from picture to picture. Finally, he adds as a footnote to the description of his first apparatus (p. 5 of the patent) a statement which seems to be the most important of all: and the apparatus meant to show them can be The positives reproduced without limit and be spread throughout the world. Let me remind you again that the date of the application 1864!

was March 1,

Contributors

All the articles in this issue are based upon papers read at the annual meeting of the Society in March, 1966. Donald E. Staples has taught film production courses at Southern Illinois University and at Northwestern. He is now teaching film theory and history in the Department of Photography at Ohio State University; his Ph. D. dissertation is an analysis of American films ranked highest by critics, Academy awards, and the boxoffice. He says of his paper that he first wrote it three years ago when the controversywas hottest, but he has cut away the more personal arguments and "some of the most verbally exciting material" in the attempt to get at the essentials. Donald W. McCaffrey teaches drama and film at the University of North Dakota and is completing the manuscript of a book about Chaplin, He says of his interviews with Keaton and Keaton, Lloyd, and Langdon. that were both more Lloyd they "open to suggestions" than Chaplin is known to have been. Lloyd, for example, was willing to consider cutting a song in The Freshman and putting it over the titles instead for the re-release version. Both men agreed with McCaffrey's choices of their three best films for his book. Robert Steele, who teaches film theory, criticism, and history at Boston University, was further stimulated to write his observations about drama and cinema because of (1) a debate in the New York Times magazine section betwNeen Carl Foreman and Tyrone Guthrie "both of whom should have known better" and (2) his own forthcoming book about Federico Fellini's La Strada, which will include the story, the scenario, and the English subtitles for the film. Robert Gessner, professor of dramatic literature and cinema at New York University and first president of the Society, is preparing a book entitled The Moving Image. Walter Stainton is professor emeritus of drama at Cornell University, where he also taught film history for a number of years. He reminds us that Ducos not only foresaw, as Sadoul wrote, "some of the most remarkable applications of the cinema, " but even enumerated "forty years in advance and with stunning accuracy ['stupefiante precision'] the subjects . . . of the films of Edison, of Lumiere, or of Pathe." Cover photographs: Front -Buster Keaton in The General, Harold Lloyd in Safety Last. Back - Lloyd in Why Worry? (from Sam Gill collection). For additional copies of this issue ($2.00 each) and of the combined issue of to order, or order direct, Volumes IV and V ($5.00), ask your bookseller 02324. Massachusetts from Gerald Noxon, 21 Maple Avenue, Bridgewater, ) 1967 Society of Cinematologists.

All rights reserved.

Journal

of the

Society

of Cinematologists

A learned society founded in the spring of 1959, the Society of Cinematologists is composed of college and university film educators, film makers, historians, critics, scholars, and others concerned with the study of the moving image. The Society seeks to serve its members by stimulating an exchange of ideas, by encouraging and publishing research, by providing international relationships whereby likeminded persons may know each other, and by assisting students and young people in their endeavors to engage in research, writing, and film making. Activities of the Society include an annual meeting at which papers are read, films viewed, and business transacted, and the publication of a members' newsletter and the Journal. Officers for 1966-67: President, John B. Kuiper, Library of Congress; Secretary, Richard D. MacCann, University of Kansas; Treasurer, Councilmen: Arthur Knight, Donald Staples, Ohio State University. Gerald Noxon, William J. Sloan, Robert Steele, Amos Vogel.

IN

THIS

ISSUE

The Auteur Theory Reexamined The Mutual Approval of Keaton and Lloyd The Two Faces of Drama Studies in Past and Decelerated

Time

The Prophet Louis Ducos du Hauron

Harold Lloyd: Economy of situation,

inventive skill,

character.