Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER 101 :sho itlii 5* win mat is, I i 811 licol ons taken at random will explain this point. 'hey are both from 'Coriolanus'. The first: They all shout and wave their words; take him up in their arms, and cast up icir caps-. The second : 'Titus Lartius, having set a guard pon Corioli, going with drum and trumpet toard Cominius and Cains Marcius enters with a eutenant, a part) of soldiers, and a scout.' Now it is perfectly true that you can get away 'ith this sort of thing lavishly or shabbily — CCOrding to resources — in the theatre. But there ; no doubt whatever that the scenes in question 'ould benefit dramatically, and with Shakes-, eare's full approval, if the) were presented with le realism, and the scale of action, which can be 0 easily and vividl) achieved on the screen. Pursuing this thought a little further, let US ake Macbeth, Act V, from Scene II onwards. n 279 lines the scene changes five times (one cenc is only ten lines long), and the action inolves the approach of the English army to iunsinane, the death of Lady Macbeth, and the mal issue between the two armies and between .lacbeth and Macduff. This act is always the >ugbear of the stage producer — but gives the film roducer a wonderful opportunity to keep the low of action going, and to present it on a scale .hich, because convincing, would throw the rama of Macbeth's fall into proper relief. One I night even be bold enough to sa> that only on he cinema screen would it be possible to carry •ut the intention of Act V of Macbeth. And I hink similar examples will readily occur to all f us. Hitherto there has not been enough filming of 'hakespeare to provide sufficient experimental lalerial by which theory and practice can be, as he examination papers say, compared and ontrasted. As far as I know , the only Shakespeare plays o b • filmed have been these: The Taming of the yirew — a very early talkie, with Mary Pickford nd Douglas Fairbanks. This I onl) recollect jther vaguely, but I remember enjoying it very luch. And in any case The Shrew, with The ferry Wives of Windsor, is likely, by its own ature. to be a wholly unrepresentative example, hen there was A Midsummer Night's Dream, roduced by Max Reinhardt. Although it had any faults — not least its preoccupation with all he trickeries of film technique for the fairies, had some lovely things in it — including a very oung Mickey Rooney as Puck, played, not as so ften on the stage as an extra-effeminate Peter ;'an, but as an earthy, dirty urchin. Then again 'here was the I nglish production of As You Like t, with Elizabeth Bergner, of which one can only ay, with Regan, 'Good sir, no more; these are insightlv tricks'. There was Romeo and Juliet, Vith Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard, drowned in an inconceivable elaboration and emiroidery of crowds and superscttings. Of this [ emember as good only John Barrymore's vlercutioand he played it as a straight stage 'art with no concessions to camera. And finally, Laurence Olivier's production of V. This remarkable work does in itself provide a termon on the filming ol Shakespeare. I his film vas most carefully thought out —obviously in new of the challenge of the Prologue: 'can this cockpit hold The v. isi-. fields oil ranee? or ma) we cram Within this wooden O the vciv casques That did affright the air at Agmcourt?' Shakespeare's answer was lo ask his audience mug hat ilk refo He, ill! Bdi 10: lore L to use their imagination and that, with Ins help, is not always too difficult as witness the great Prologue to Act III describing the I oglisfa fleet holding course for Harfleur. Now Olivier and his colleagues realized that there must be a middle course between the limits Of the Stage of Shakespeare's dav and the almost limitless powers of the film camera. Thev saw, too. that the play could be translated to the screen through achieving a perfect symmetry of shape in space and time rather like a water lily which Opens at dawn and at evening closes 'all us sweetness up'. So they began and ended the film by reconstructing a performance of the play in the Elizabethan theatre. In between they modulated, as it were, from a stylized approach into absolute realism — the night before Agincourt and the battle itself — and then back, through stylization, to the theatre. There is no time to analyse further the many great qualities, and the faults (not a few i of this remarkable film. But f think that it is a revelation of what can be done in screening Shakespeare by artists of intelligence and integrity. But note that it does not prov ide a cast-iron formula. The shape and six lc adopted for Henry V arose from the internal qualities of the play itself. They should not, necessarily, be imposed on other Shakespeare films — each play must be recreated in screen terms according to its own special soul. What the film of Henry V has proved is that this can he done to the benefit, and not the detriment, of Shakespeare's supreme art. Olivier's new venture — a film of Hamlet — is of the bravest — an Everest climb after a trial scramble up Snowdon. But of that, no more until it is shown. To sum up> — the essential problem of filming Shakespeare is to use the special qualities o\' the film medium to point the essential qualities of Shakespeare's poetry and Shakespeare's sense of theatre. His own qualities being universal, it is the film-maker's job to control and limit the more obvious possibilities of the medium in order that the real stuff of Shakespeare is not confused or smothered by the elaborate, the spectacular, the finicky, or the falsely pretentious. It is his job, too, to try, in interpreting Shakespeare to cinema audiences, to match his exuberant imagination in kind. Here are some tentative examples — merely designed to indicate how the special, the unique medium of cinema can be legitimately used to enhance and not to hinder Shakespeare's work. I list the speech I have already referred to — the description of Cleopatra's barge. Here the problem, in film terms, is for the picture to enhance the descriptive poetry of the sound track We have already suggested that to film what is described would be ludicrous. Other than that there are two possibilities. The first would involve an absolutely static and continuous shot of Enobarbus speaking the lines. His gestures would he cut to a minimum, and the effect would 1 e ol i uned by the beauty of his voice land no background music please) and by the powei ol his eves and his facial expression. I he second method would he the method of abstraction. That is. one would evolve shapes m motion which would match, rather th ie the words, and which, perhaps, would help to distil the words. (I assume, of course, that the film would he in colour.) I el I noharhus start his speech with the camera named on him. But almost immediate!) it would move away on to some object of ornament. The scene, we must remember, is a room in I epidus's house, and ii ma) he presumed to be richly furnished. As the camera reaches this object a piece of rich material, oi a fl tgon, or something of the sort, the focus would he altered so that it became a coloured blur a shape and no more. I hen, item hv item of i nol irbus's description, the camera, always moving, would weave patterns relevant in an abstract, not a tactual way, lo what was being spoken of, out of the blurred, soil outlines of the furnishings of the room. Well, it might work, it might not. Unless it is one dav done we shall never know. Two more ideas— both from Macbeth: I irst the representation oi the witches. I take Act f, Scene L Fade in. A desert place. A thunderstorm raging on a bleak moor. Rain lashing across the grey tussocks of grass. A sky racing with clouds. \ud what are those — arc they three thorn trees swav ing and bending in the wind? Or three weird sisters dancing fantastically in the storm'.' The latter perhaps — for out of the screech of the wind comes the screech of voices — and now the) are turning widdershins — or is it that we are moving (with the camera) around them'.' Perhaps we shall never be certain — but there is no time to think further, for with a final clap of thunder everything clears and we arc in rain-washed windy sunlight outside Duncan's tent, and the story is beginning . . . Second : Act V, Scene V. A vast stone hall in the castle of Dunsinane. Seyton has just told Macbeth: 'The Queen, m> Lord, is dead'. Macbeth sits down slowly — on a stool near the huge fireplace. The camera is close to him, looking down on him from a little above him. He begins to speak in a low voice — 'She should have died hereafter . . .' and so on. When he gets to 'Tomorrow and tomorrow' the camera starts to move slowly and steadily backwards and upwards, though the sound of his voice remains at constant volume, and by the time he comes to 'told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing', he is a tiny figure, seen from a great height, alone in the vast cavern o\' his castle. Thus, T think, we can point the universality of his speech by a withdrawal, rather thanb) a searching out in close-up of the expression on his face, Then — as he says 'signifying nothing', a second tiny figure appears running across the great hall. It is the Messenger. At this moment the camera dives down again with inconceivable rapidity, SO that by the time he is kneeling at Macbeth's feet we are close to both of them, can see the sweat on ihc Messenger's face, the quick rise and fall of his breast, can hear his breathless words we are haek in the world of grim action — so that when Macbeth strikes him it is like a blow in our own faces . . . These examples I have given are perhaps unfair— they are extracts from films ol Shakespeare, and not plans for entire productions of his work. Much has been left unsaid in this article. No mention, for instance, of the British Council films of excerpts from Shakespeare's plavs. which have been special!) designed for students overseas. Nor of the academic possibilities of the idea of filming performances of all the plavs in the most exact possible replica of the theatres o\ Shakespeare's dav ilns enormous scheme would be designed, ol course, for the Shakespeare addict, not lust for the general public, though many of the plavs might serve both purposes, it we remember how vividlv the camera could, ic veal the close, intimate relation between player and audience in Shakcspcaie's dav. Basil W richl