‘THE EVOLUTION OF THE LANGUAGE OF CINEMA ay 1928 the sien on had ceached is artistic pea. The despa of ie elite a8 they witnessed the dismantling of th teal «ity, whe t may ot have been justified, is at last understandable As they followed theic choten aesthetic path it seemed to them that the sinema had developed into an act most pertecly accommodated to the “exquisite embarrassment” of slowest hat tbe Teal thek sound would bring could ony meaa a surrender to chaos, {mn point of fact, now that sound has given proot that it came aot to destroy but fo full the Old Testament of the cinema, we may most propery atk ifthe technical revolution created by the sound teack was in any sense an aesthetic revolution. ta ober word, dd the years (rom 1928 10 1930 actually witness the bch of @ sew Sinema? Cortsnly, as regards edling, history does not actually show as wide a breach as might be expected between the set and the sound film. On the contary there is discernible evidence of 9 lose relationship between certsin directors of 1925 and 1935 and ‘speciatly of the 1940% through the 1950s, Compare for example Erich vow Stohsim and Jeau Renole of Orion Welle, Of again Coal Uheodoce Dreyer and Rober Beeston, These more of lest leae-cet ‘fakes demonstrate fs ofall thatthe gap separating the 1900, 2What ls Cinema? ad the 1930 can be beidged, and secondly that centaia cinematic valves actully carry over Goa the slat tthe sound fm and, ove al, what i isles mater of seting aleace over aginst sound than of conuasing cenain families of styles, cerain basicaly diferent conceps of cinematographic expression. ‘Aware as Tam that te limitations imposed onthe rudy rere, ime to a simpied and to that exten enecbed presetation of my srgument, and holding it to be less an objecve satement than 2 working hypothesis, I wil disuoguis, ia the cinema between 1920 aod 1940, Bereees two broad and opposing teode: those deta who put ther faith in tbe Image and hose who put ther faith i sealiy, By “image” I here mean, very roaly speaking, everything shat the representation oo the sereen add to the objet there repre sented. This a complex inheritance but it can be reduced exe Ualy to two categories: ose that cela to the plaice ofthe image and thse tht eelate 1 the resources of montage, which alter al, is simply the oderng of images ia ime, Under the heading “plasies” must be lcded the style of the seis, ofthe make-up, and, up fo pat, eves of the performace, 10 which we naturally add the lighting and, Sally, the framing of the shot which gives us is composiion. As reparés montage, derived inlly as we all Know (fom the mastepoces of Grif, we have the statement of Malraux in his Paychologie du cima that i wa ‘montge that gave bit to Ge a an at, setng apart from mete animated photography, in shor, creating langage. ‘The use of montage ean be “invisible” and this was geerally the cae in the prewar classics of the American screen, Seeees were broken down just for one purpose, namely, to analyze an episode according to the mateil of dramate log of the seme, Is Bis loge whied conceal the fact of the analyst, the and of the spec lator quite maturally accepting the Wewpoiats of the director which ae jsifed by the geography of the acon othe stfing emphasis of dramatic interest. ‘But the seuiral quality of ths “Snvisbe™ eding (sits to make eof the ful potential of montage. On the oer band these poea- 2 The Evoluion of the Lonyuage of Cinema Uialies are clearly evideat ftom the thee processes generally Keown as parallel montage, acelerted moouge, moauage by al tracon In ereang parallel montage, Grifith succeeded in convey- ing a sense of the simullanety of two acuons taking plas at a teosraphieal Gitance by means of alteratiog shots ftom each. In {Le Rowe Abel Gance created the illusion of the steady increasing speed of a locomodve witout acally wing any images of speed (indeed the wheel could have been turing 08 one spot) simply by a mulplisy of shou of ever decreasing gt ally there is “montage by auractin," the creation of S.M. Eenscn, and no so easly described a the other, but which may be oughly defined as the reafocing of the meaaing of ove image by association with enor image not necessarily part of the same epitode—for example the freworks daplay in The General Line folowing the image ofthe bull. Ia Wis exueme form, montage by sturacion ws rarely used even by is creator but ove may consider 5 very eat 10 it ia prncple he more commonly used elip, empanso, of metaphor, examples of which ae the duowing of ockingsoato a chat atthe foo of & ed, ofthe milk overow ing {HG Couzot's Quai des orfevres. Thte ae of couse 4 vanity of possible combinations of these tte proce ‘Whatever these may be, one can ay tat they share that tit a oman which coasutues the very definition of montage, samy, the ereaoa of «sense of meaning not objectively contained 12 the images thecselves but derived exclusively from tet juxtaposition ‘The welhknown experiment of Kuleshov with the shat of Mos ‘ie in which a seule was seen wo change its sgaicance ascordiog to the image that preceded it, sums up prfelly the propenies of montage. ‘Menage as used by Kulesov, Eisenstein, or Gance di not show us tbe event it alluded to it Undoubtedly they derived atleast he [pester part of he consent clement (om the realy they were de seribing but he Gal sinicance ofthe fl was found to retde im he ordering ofthese eemests mack more than in thir jective content “The sustance of the saratve, whatever the realsm of the iividual 2sWhat tx Cinema? mage, is bora extntally (om these relaionhips—Moshubhin pls dead shld equal piy—that is to say an abstract result, none of {Be concrete elements of which are to be found in the premier; ‘maidens plus appletress ia bloom equal hope. The combinations aft Infinite. But the only thing they have in common is the fac that they suggest an idea by means of a metaphor or by aa association of ideas. Thus berween the sceaato properly soled, he ultimate bie of the recital, andthe image pure and simple, hee ie ray Staion, a som of acstetic “uansformer” The measiog is at la the fags, it isin Uh shadow ofthe image projected by mostage outa eld of consciousness ofthe spectator. Let us sum up. Through the content of the image and the esoures of montage, the cinema has at is disposal ¢ whole aseoal of means whereby to impose it inerpetaon of an eves ou the spectator. By the end ofthe slet fim we ean consider tis srcoel to have been (ul. On the one side the Sovit cinema carried to ldmate consequences the theory and practice of mooiage while he German school did every Lind of vislence to the pases of the linage by way of seis and lighing. Other cinemas covet foo besides the Russian and German, but whether ia France or Swedea or the Usted States, it does not appear Ut the language of cinema was a oss for ways of saying what it wanted to say, the art of cinema consists in everything tht plastics and ‘montage caa add wo a given reality, the silent film was an arto ke ‘own, Sound could only play at best a subordinate and suppleneer tary role: a counterpoint to the vise image. Bat tis posible fhancement—at best oaly 2 minor one—i lily pot to weigh ‘much i comparison with the addtional bargaineate tealty inuoe ‘duced ut the same une by sound ‘Thus far we have put forwatd the view thst expresiois of ‘montage and image constiwe the exience of cacma, Aad i recisely on this generally accepted notion that deco from seat ‘days, such as Erich von Strohsia, F.W, Murnau, and. Robert Flaeny, have by implication cast a doubt, Tn ther me, moatnge 26 The Evolaion of the Language of Cinema ‘lays no part, uals it be te meatve one of inevitable elimination where rely superabounds. The camera canot see everthing at once but it make sre otto lose any par of what it chooses to Se What matters to Faber, confronted with Nazook huntog the seal, isthe relaion berween Nanook and the animal; the actual length of the waiting peiod. Montage could suggest the une in vwlved. Flaherty however conines himsel{ to showing the actual alin pesiod; the length ofthe hut is the very substance of the mage, is true object. Ths in the fl this epeaderequites cme set- vp. Will anyone deay tat it i Uereby much more moving than & ‘montage by auracon? Marna is interested no so ouch ia time asia the ceaiy of ramatic space. Moatage plays no mote of & deciive pan ia Nowferau haa in Survse. One might be icine 40 ink thatthe plaics of his image are expetsionisic. But ths would be a aupet= ial view. The composition of his image i in no sense petra 1 Addo nothing to he tealiy, it does not deform iit forse it to eveal i structural depth, 10 bring out the precksing, relations wich become consicuive ofthe dram. For example, ia Tb se iva ofa ship fom left screen gves an immediate sease of der tiny at work 30 that Murnau has no aged to chest in any way on the ‘ocompromising realism of a fl whose setings are completly sural But ic is most of all Suohcim who reject photographic exe resionim and the wicks of montage. In his lms realy lays uel bate tke a suspect confessing under the reeaess examination of the commissioner of potice. He has one simple rule for ditecuon Take a close look at the word, Keep on dong 40, and in the ead i wil lay bare fr you alts ervey andi upines. One could aay lnagine as a mater of fact alm by Stobeim composed of a single shot as longlasting and as closeup at you like. These thee weer 106s do aot exhaust the possbilies. We would undovtiedly fing seaured among the works of thers cements of nonexpteioniane Sinema in which monaye plye no part—even including Griih n Ls kone angen tna