iniracle of expressive apiness as it passes
through the frame of the screen either fast
or slow, toward or away from the cb-
server or across his vision, in tremulous
filminess or harsh reality and in his aware-
ness of the full concept of moving visual
poetry he knows the director is speaking
to him in FILM LANGUAGE.

If the director can keep the spectator on
the receiving end of whatever action is
going on he is creating for him an active
experience. To do this he must visualize
the camera always as the eyes of the spec-
tator keeping him on the alert to identify
himself at any moment with one or another
of the actors (or even objects) to whom the
event is happening. It is this process of
identification that causes the spectator to
share with the actors the reality of the
experience. Their feelings are his feel-
ings because he has suffered with them
and he can rejoice with them. He is
never aware of the camera merely as the
dispassionate onlooker but as the partici-
pator involved in the situation, the mean-
ing of which for him is always so pre-
dominant as to swallow up its photograph-
ic technique. He is too busy ducking
when the blow is aimed at the camera be-
cause the camera is himself.

The true director's aim is to keep the
spectator involved: He will move the
camera ahead anticipating the next phase
of events in order to promote speculation
concerning the actor’s reaction. The camera
sets the stage, as it were, so that when
the image appears the spectator has the
acute sensation of its compelling rightness
or its sharp surprise. The tension is held.
This is the creative use of the camera,
that you are unaware of its presence ex-
cept in the recognition of its iechnique as
the plot is re-lived in the memory.

The film is not a play embellished by
photography. To appreciate the nature of
the medium one must ask oneself, does
this film convey its meaning throgh the
visual impact of informative and expres-
sive imagery, in movement, with a mini-
mum reliance on words? The mobility of
the cine-camera is such that it can con-
stantly change its position in relation to the
plot, receiving action, observing detail,
anticipating the next image, dreaming in
montage, dwelling on an image till its full
weight sinks in, racing into fast action
movement. Such flexible use of the
camera, combined with a skilful compos-
jng and editing of the sequences on the
cutting table makes the story largely self-
explanatory; and when this visual story
takes on a fruitful interaction with the
sound score there is created that all-essen-
tial essence of art, a meaning of structurai
thythm, a tempo, a dramatic flow.

The average entertainment film will fail
;to convince us with a sense of elapsed

time—note merely the time it takes a char-
acter to go about the business of the plot
but of having lived through that experi-
ence with him and come to know his
world. In the first place the world created
will often be recognizably false—construc-
ted stage sets on a Hollywood lot, artificial
snow and so on. We don't experience
the wear of time — a worn chair, old
clothes, weathered surfaces, the passing of
a storm. True, we get skilful make-up to
look like old age, but it fools no one. The
real reasons lie deeper, and the economic
causes are all too evident. The pace is
tco fast. Literally, we don't get time to
realize an image, to explore it and get
io know it; and even if we did, it is not
an image of reality, because there has
been no reality but the cash return and
the Hays’ office in its whole artificial con-
ception.

A just pace is important to our realiz-
ation. The director can use time like a
concertina, stretching it out by retarding
the image on the screen for our prolonged
inspection or condensing it by rapid
sequences. The popular technique often
will be so streamlined to romantic general-
ity that we are not bumped and jerked
into sharing the action with the actors.
We observe them from our comfortable
seat, undisturbed by any abrupt variations
in the sound score which seldom leaves
us alone with the image but insinuates it-
self perpetually into the background.

The reality, then, is no stronger for us
than it was for the director who was
forced to rush through a standardized pro-
duction with every facility at his disposal
to seduce him from head-on contact with
his material and time always at his elbow.
Now, to experience reality is almost
synonymous, in camera terms, with ex-
periencing realism; for realism is the factor
which gives the enlarged camera image
the intensity to make it impinge on our
consciousness. As long as the camera
shoots a phony world or fails to explore
tellingly the detail of a real world, the
results will not ring true. The same ap-
plies to the real and false emotions of
actors. How often do we remember, for
years after, a single image of reality in a
news-reel, when a whole pretentious film
will yield no sharp recollection.

To achieve or to enjoy the King’s Eng-
lish of film language demands a scrupu-
lous attitude. The chief aspects of this
film language are by now implicit. First,
MOVEMENT: the physical speed and na-
ture of the image’s approach to the field
of vision, determined by the camera's
mobility in relation to the spectator, and
the rhythm of internal movement or tempo
which dramatizes the sequence by which
images unfold the plot. Second, the
PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPRESSIVENESS of
the image itself as it remains within the

frame of the screen, the nature of its com-
postion and the length of time it remains
suspended. Third, its CONTROL OVER
TIME. Like the novel, the film can range
forward or back from the immediate mo-
ment or it can expand that moment by
suspended image or surrealist montage to
produce a sense of elapsed time.

Apart, however, from these construction-
al aspects, a film, like the novel, must
habe some fundamental social content. Be-
cause of its mobility, its nature demands
that it explore both physically and pyscho-
logically the subject of its creation. Its
inclusive range of aspects and the com-
prehensive nature of its construction and
projection impose on the film a respon-
sibility for communal statement. It is a
means of speech for society and as such
it must examine the locale of society and
embody forth experiences which, whether
in light or serious vein, are true to hu-
manity.

On this latter consideration it is easy to
be sidetracked. One is tempted often tc
believe that because a film is trying to
say something of a worth-while nature,
with possibly a timely significance (such,
for example, as ‘Mrs. Minniver’’) that it
is a good film in itself. It would be un-
duly pedantic to suggest that such a film
had not some merits as mere narrative or
expositional communication. Yet it is
highly improbable that the rock-bottom
content of an indifferent film, no matter
what the pretensions of its subject, has
any permanent significance. It cannot har-
poon the emotions with those intrinsic
qualities of rightness and beauty which
make the image, and therefore the content,
vivid in memory, to become for us a
symbol for social action.

It is notoriously true that where there
is a compromise on the director's part
with his filmic means, that is, with the
force of his imagery, this is synonymous
with a compromise in what he has to say.
The way a film says what it has to say
IS its content.

What has made ‘‘Battleship Potemkin” a
banned film for so many years? Surely
not merely its statement about social revo-
lution. Hyde Park orators say ten times
as much and more violently. Is it noi
because the genius Eisenstein has taken
a social incident and by successive calcu-
lated images has built up such a provo-
cative sequence of impacts of magnificent
vigor that he can rouse an audience to
the actual pitch of rebellion? We say the
film is dangerous as propaganda. It is
dangerous only because, as art, it could
achieve sufficient intensity to be so. As
art it makes no compromise with reality.
Eisenstein’s essential honesty, his refusal
to disavow the social consequence of a
social medium, caused him to invent a
creat and new language of the film—
anirecle cf expressive apjncss as it passes
through the frame of the screen either fest
or slow, toward cr away from the cb-
server or across his vision, in tremulous
filminess or harsh reality and in his eware-
ness of the full concept of moving visual
poetry he knows the director is speaking
to him in FILM LANGUAGE.

Hf the director can keep the spectator on
the receiving end of whatever action is
going on he is creating for him an active
experience. To do this he must visualize
the camera always as the eyes of the spec-
tator keeping him on the alert to identify
himself at any moment with one or another
of the actors (or even objects) to whom the
event is happening. It is this process of
‘identification that causes the spectator to
share with the actors the reality of the
experience. Their feelings are his feel:
ings because he has suffered with them
and he can rejoice with them. He is
never aware of the camera merely as the
dispassionate onlocker but as the pattici-
petor involved in the situation, the mean:
ing of which for him is always so pre:
dominant as to swallow up its photograph-
ic technique. He is too busy ducking
when the blow is aimed at the camera be
cause the camera is himself.

The true director's aim fs to keep the
spectator involved. He will move the
cemere ahead anticipating the next phase
of events in order to promote speculation
concerning the actor's reaction. The camera
sets the slage, as it were, so that when
the image appears the spectator has the
acute sensation of its compelling rightness
cr its sharp surprise. The tension is held.
This is the creative use of the camera,
that you are unaware of its presence ex-
cept in the recognition of its technique as
the plot is relived in the memory.

‘The film is not a play embellished by
Photography. To appreciate the nature of
the medium one must ask oneself, does
this film convey its meaning throgh the
visual impact of informative and expres-

sive imagery, in movement, with a mini.
mum reliance on words? The mobility of
the cine-camera is such that it can con:
stantly change its position in relation to the
Flot, receiving action, observing detail,
anticipating the next image, dreaming in
‘montage, dwelling on an image till its full
‘weight sinks in, racing into fast action
movement. Such flexible use of the
‘camera, combined with a skilful compos-
Ing and editing of the sequences on the
cutting table makes the story largely self
explanatory; and when this visual story
takes on @ fruitful interaction with the
sound score there is created that all-essen.
tial essence of art, a meaning of structural
thythm, a tempo, a dramatic flow.

The average entertainment film will fail
Mo convince us with a sense of elapsed

time—note merely the time it takes @ cher-
acter to go about the business of the plot
but of having lived through that experi-
ence with him and come to know his
‘world. In the first place the world created
‘will often be recognizably feise—construc-
fed stage sets on a Hollywood lot, artificial
snew and so on, We don't experience
the wear of time — a wom chair, old
clothes, weathered surfaces, the passing of
a storm, True, we get skilful makeup to
lock like old age, but it fools no one. The
real reasons lie deeper, and the economic
causes are all too evident. The pace is
too fast. Literally, we don't get time to
realize an image, to explore it and get
to know it; and even if we did, it is not
an image of reality, because there hes
been no reality but the cash return and
the Hays’ office in its whole artificial con-
ception.

A just pace is important to our reali
ation. The director can use time like a
concertina, stretching it out by retarding
the image on the screen for our prolonged
inspection or condensing it by rapid
sequences. The popular technique often
‘will be so streamlined to romantic general:
ity that we are not bumped and jerked
info sharing the action with the actors.
We observe them from our comfortable
seat, undisturbed by any abrupt variations
in the sound score which seldom leaves
us alone with the image but insinuates it-
self perpetually into the background.

The reality, then, is no stronger for. us
than it was for the director who was
forced to rush through a standardized pro-
duction with every facility at his disposal
to seduce him from head-on contact with
his material and time always at his elbow.
Now, to experience reality is almost
synonymous, in camera terms, with ex:
pperiencing realism; for realism is the factor
which gives the enlarged camera image
the intensity to make it impinge on our
consciousness. As long as the camera
shoots a phony world or fails to explo
tellingly the detail of @ real world, the
results will not ring true. The same ap-
plies to the real and false emotions of
actors. How often do we remember, for

years after, a single image of reality in a
news-reel, when a whole pretentious film
will yield no sharp recollection.

To achieve or to enjoy the King’s Eng-
lish of film language demands a scrupu-
lous altitude. The chief aspects of this
film language are by now implicit. First,
MOVEMENT: the physical speed and na-
ture of the image's approach 1o the field
‘of vision, determined by the camera’
‘mobility in relation to the spectator, and
the rhythm of internal movement or tempo
which dramatizes the sequence by which
images unfold the plot. Second, the
PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPRESSIVENESS of
the imace itself as it remains within the

frame of the screen, the nature of its com-
postion and the lencth of time it remains
suspended, Third, its CONTROL OVER
TIME. Like the novel, the film can range
forward or back from the immediate mo-
ment or it can expand that moment by
suspended image or surrealist montage to
produce a sense of elapsed time.

Apart, however, from these construction-
‘al aspects, a film, like the novel, must
habe some fundamental social content. Be-
cause of its mobility, its nature demands
that it explore both physically and pyscho-
logically the subject of its creation. Its
inclusive range of aspects and the com-
prehensive nature of its construction and
projection impose on the film a respon:
sibility for communal statement, It is a
means of speech for society and as such
it must examine the locale of society and
embody forth experiences which, whether
in light or serious vein, are true to hu
manity.

On this latter consideration it is easy 10
be sidetracked. One is tempted offen te
believe that because a film is trying to
say something of a worthwhile nature,
with possibly a timely significance (such,
for example, as “Mrs. Minniver") that it
is @ good film in itself. It would be un-
duly pedantic to suggest that such a film
hhad not some merits as mere narrative or
expositional communication. Yet it is
highly improbable that the rock-bottom
content of an indifferent film, no matter
what the pretensions of its subject, has
‘any permanent significance. It cannot har-
poon the emotions with those intrinsic
qualities of rightness and beauty which
make the image, and therefore the content,
vivid in memory, to become for us a
symbol fer social action.

It is notoriously true that where there
is a compromise on the director's part
‘with his filmic means, that is, with the
force of his imagery, this is synonymous
with @ compromise in what he has to say.
The way a film says what it has to say
IS its content.

What has made “Battleship Potemkin”
banned film for so many years? Surely
not merely its statement about social revo-
lution. Hyde Park orators say ten times
as much and more violently. Is it not
because the genius Eisenstein has taken
‘2 social incident and by successive calcu-
lated images has built up such a provo-
tative sequence of impacts of magnificent
vigor that he can rouse an audience to
the actual pitch of rebellion? We sey the
film i dangerous as propaganda. It is
dangerous only because, as art, it could
achieve sufficient intensity to be so. As
art it makes no compromise with reality.
Eisenstein’s essential honesty, his refusal
to disavow the social consequence of @
social medium, caused him to invent a
great and new language of the film—