The cinema as a graphic art : on a theory of representation in the cinema (1959)

INTRODUCTION divisions. To carry out the various requirements of the director, the present-day camera-man must be master of the technique of exterior and interior photography, slow motion and ultra-rapid photography, process work x and cartoon work. To be all-sided he should also be acquainted with the types of filming employed in scientific work,2 for all this comes within the sphere of the representational resources of the cinema. Thus his technical knowledge must embrace a large variety of problems, and demands protracted and systematic study in a large number of sciences. But the camera-man works in a branch of industry whose product consists of ideological values. The story film is first and foremost an art product. The director and camera-man may be separated by their respective roles in the complexity of the technical process of film production, but at the same time they are united by the unity of the content of the film. What is the camera-man's job from this point of view ? For the camera-man the technique of film photography is only the necessary means of realising the film's artistic content. Technique, with such manifold pictorial possibilities at its command, cannot in story film be considered in isolation from the creative process. Every technical device has significance only in so far as it contributes to the expressive language of the film. Dissolves and fades, multiple exposure, optical combined printing, trick processes, sharp and soft focus, long-shot and close-up, tonal gradation of the image — all these are means of expressing content, the means used by cinema. The artistic cinema 3 is a new form of artistic expression, a new art form with its own special technique. Cinema art may be ranked as a special plastic art, but possessing extensions in time (and therefore dynamic) and in sound. It is already apparent that the day is not far distant when it will also incorporate the technique of colour and stereoscopy. The more complete technique becomes, the more possibilities of expression become available, thus enriching the resources available for achieving the creative tasks of cinema art. The creative element is the guiding one in the camera-man's work, and technique is only the means of realising the artistic purpose. And if this be so, if his work involve elements of artistic creation, then it is clear that it will be governed not only by a technical methodology, but also by principles of an art methodology, which in this case may be termed the art of constructing cinematic portrayals. The theatre has its theory of stage expression, the pictorial and sculptural arts have their theoretical basis. The theoretical basis for film direction is slow in developing, and so far such a basis is altogether lacking for the camera-man's art. None the less, during its four decades of existence cinema practice has accumulated a rich empirical material, and the formulation now of certain methodological conclusions is certainly not premature. The precise role played by the camera-man in the creative process of making a film has already been the subject of frequent discussion, both abroad and in the U.S.S.R. In the bourgeois cinema the camera-man's creative tendencies are to some extent inhibited and his work reduced to the narrowly technical process of photographing the film. This exclusion from the creative group is to be attributed 1 i.e. back projection, Schufftan, Dunning, multiple printing, etc. — Ed. 2 As X-ray, microphotography, etc. — Ed. 3 Here the expression implies story film plus subjective documentary, i.e. anything in film not a simple record. — Ed.