Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1930)

;»io^'MC :«i^KCEi&s detail into the human activity and provides an effective motif for the whole. Vertov, in his Man with a Camera, has produced, upon the objective principle of Berlin, a film of amazing fluidity with successive images which do not always connect directly with each other. He has, in the typical Russian way, sought to make the images symbolic of the land and has endeavored to include in the film all the various contrasts of the city's life, of human existence — work and pleasure, birth and death. In films of no single continuous narrative the piling up of diversified scenes may increasingly obscure the underlying movement of the picture. Amateurs frequently attempt to include too much in their films, too many images of too many different categories. Not only does this prolixity work against the memory of the spectator and, thereby, defeat the intention of the film itself but it is also very fatiguing. Mile. Lucile Derain blundered thus in Harmonies of Paris. The very title indicates a too ambitious intention. Mile. Derain attempted not one harmony but several, succeeding finally in getting less of harmony than of wearisomeness. Had she limited the film to one phase of Paris, the beautiful opening with the Montmartre byways, she would have produced a lyric of the cinema. Similarly the work of Lodz and Kauffmann defeats its expert photography and rhythmic reiterations by going in for too many sequences. The final caption of the film, Etc., neatly characterizes its interminable succession of scenes. For the amateur's first attempt in the film of montage, it would be wise for him to select a simple theme, a document. It might be a romantic document in which the details tell the story of the life of a particular people. Such is George Lacombe's film of the ragpickers of the Flea Market, the locale of The Innocents of Paris. In this film, SUICIDE A Startling Moment In The Montage Film, Berlin, Of Walter Ruttman And Karl Freund The Zone, Lacombe follows the ragpickers from the early hours, when they hunt their wares, to the Sunday, when they sell them at the Clignancourt gate, recording as he goes the rare personalities of the quarter, the unusual sign-boards, the amusements, the incidents of family life, etc. It is a unified document in which the regjlar sequence of the actual details of the ragpickers' lives forms a tale. This film, which will be shown in America, is a fine example of simple, sincere, direct documentation, an excellent model for the amateurs. The American movie maker can find splendid ideas for films of documentation in the exceptional instances of American life or, better, in typical instances— an American lunch hour, American markets, an American Sunday. Every amateur ought to attempt to film his city or a part of it. It would be interesting to compare the data. Humor is possible in the documentary film. Andre Sauvage in his Studies of Paris couples his scenes so that the second comments on the first. A layfigure in a shop window comments upon a preceding scene of a girl in the street. Often these are obvious but the principle is worth consulting. The film of montage and document offers fundamental, manifold and independent opportunities. One need not trouble with human beings at all; there is subject matter in the natural elements. Franken and Ivens found such material in the oily rains of Holland; Blum in Europe and Steiner in America found it in the qualities of water, while Silka in France found it in the barnyard. The movement of clouds, grasses, grain and treetops in the wind and the motion of machinery are all open to this treatment. There are many untried possibilities in the simplest relations of motion in familiar subjects. \ our reel might not have any other purpose than the presentation of the beauty of motion as portrayed in varied patterns. ENVIRONS OF THE FLEA MARKET A Paris Slum Was Epitomised By GeorgeLacombe In The Zone 89