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the natural sound of traffic and cakes its place; of a total cessation of sound in a period of tension; and, in general, he makes a great ado of the difference between objective fact and its subjective interpretation by his characters. This, of course, is a sufficient gambit for an elementary dissertation on sound, and it is proper in Bolsheviks to regard us as imbeciles. But the interplay of subjectiveobjective is not a sufficient theoretical platform for sound film if we for a moment imagine the orchestrational possibilities of a complementary Bach or Beethoven. There is only passing excitement in the notion of a sound film "made correspondent to the objective world and man's perception of it together, where the image retains the image of the world, while the sound strip follows the changing rhythm of the course of man's perceptions; or vice versa' . . . only passing excitement when the two might so easily go off the earth together.
Such subjective-objective distinction may be real from the characters' point of view, but it is unreal from the artist's point of view. For him all elements of sound or mute are materials which together — together orchestrated — create his transfigured reality. They do not interpret as across a barrier, but are images together — give a meaning together — in a common recreated world. Mute and sound may swell together in a single symphony; silent images may join with sound images in a single poetry; a Greek chorus in sound, whether in formalised vers litres or in documentary bits and pieces, may join with narrative mute in a single recital. It is only misleading to make one a special interpretation of the other; sound film is thereby reduced to the wheezy psychological mechanics of people like Ibsen.
One should not puncture a man's theory by his own creative example, but Deserter is a better account of Pudovkin on sound than these chapters under review. The trouble with Pudovkin is that he performs like a poet and theorises like an elementary school teacher. As a theoretician, indeed, he very successfully makes inexplicable the very mature beauties he, as a creator, represents. How on a subjective-objective theory can he explain (a) the chorus of steamer whistles which attends his procession of ships (they are both orchestrations of perception) ; (b) his waltz-time accompaniment of waltz-timed traffic cops (they are both fancifications of perceived reality); (c) the triumphant march which accompanies his defeated street demonstration (they are both mounted in processional); (d) his cutting of rivetting machines into workers' applause (they are both rhetorical) ? These are the high lights of sound accompaniment as he uses it, and it would be false analysis to say that the accompaniment in any one of these cases is an interpretation of the mood or meaning of the mute (or vice
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