Celluloid : the film to-day (1931)

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I48 CELLULOID is played greatly amplifies the more exciting moods. This is especially noticeable during the first reel, when, after the long, leisured sequence in which old Peter lies dying, Dovjenko abruptly switches to the heads of the laughing women. It is such modulation of mood that goes to the making of a great film. The artist's mind of Dovjenko, thinking in terms of lovely pictorial compositions with the material on the screen at rest, is apparent in the entire length of Earth. He has a strong tendency towards building up mood with a series of static shots — approaching the crescendo of a sequence by increasing the grouping value of the screen material — that establishes his painter's outlook. I have referred earlier to the powerful effect of this method of assembling, in the scene in which the peasants and the animals are awaiting the arrival of the tractor, and we find it employed again in other parts of the picture. In the same manner, the beautiful sequence of the falling of dusk and the gradual creation of the peace and quiet of the hot evening in the village is achieved almost entirely by a slow procession of static shots, each matched perfectly with the other in grouping and intensity of light. From this description, it may perhaps seem that the artist's oudook of Dovjenko would tend to isolate the images, as in Dreyer's La Passion de Jeanne d? Arc. But happily Dovjenko is able to think also in terms of cinema, that is to say, in terms of constant movement of the celluloid as well as movement of the material being photographed, with the consequence that his work is doubly effective. As I think correct, his shots rely equally on their compositional value and their time