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

THE CINEMA AS A GRAPHIC ART which differentiate creative cinema construction from an informative ' news exposition. In selecting the camera viewpoint the basic principle for the camera-m is the motivation of such a viewpoint, its task as laid down by the scenario. I general form this motivation may be determined by the narrative developme of the scene being filmed. In the course of the narrative the actor passes fror spot to spot in accordance with the scheme drawn up by the director. Thes successive movements force the camera-man to change the viewpoint. Th camera shifts accordingly, and so we can build up a scheme of camera movemen parallel to those of the actor, and revealing the consequential, logical charact of the changes from one camera viewpoint to another. Supposing that in one shot of a scene the actor glances at a building outsid which he is standing. He sees the building from below, so in the followin shot a view of the building taken from a viewpoint below it will be a logical sue cession to the actor's glance. We put the camera in the actor's place and shov the building as he sees it. In other words, we place the spectator in the positior of the actor. Like the logical distribution of the continuous action into camera-angles the employment of transitions from one viewpoint to another, logically motivatec by the narrative, only came into cinematic practice as an elementary form o:i scenario construction when the cinema abandoned the stage traditions of its earl} period, and created those primary elements specific to it. In the early days of the cinema, scenes were filmed entirely from one viewpoint, the camera remained ir one spot throughout the process, and this single viewpoint of the object corresponded to the fixed viewpoint of the spectator in a theatrical auditorium. As soon as the first distribution of shots into camera-angles occurred, the earners viewpoint gained more freedom. But the old principle of a ' single ' viewpoinl i still held sway, as is shown by the fact that the viewpoint was changed only along the optical axis of the lens. Technical progress in optics enabled us to shift the object nearer or farther along the line of the optical axis without moving the camera itself. Cameras were constructed with lenses swiftly changed by means of a revolving attachment. By merely changing the lenses, the camera-man could alternate long-shot, mid-shot and close-up. But the viewpoint always remained outside the scene, and so the entire picture retained a merely illustrative quality. The creation of an elementary editing theory led to further freedom of viewpoint, and thus developed the method of determining the viewpoint we have described above, constructed on a logical, narrative motivation for every transition to a new point. In addition to the logical narrative development, the formal representational features of the object filmed can also motivate one or another viewpoint. In certain instances the correct choice of viewpoint consists in fixing a view of the object in which the specific features of its construction are most fully and expressively revealed. And for this an important factor is the discovery of the true geometrical projection of the three-dimensional object in the two-dimensional plane of the shot. Consider the sketches of a building given in Fig. 13. They are based on photographs taken from various viewpoints. In Fig. 13A we have a frontal view of the building in symmetrical plan. A central viewpoint from average height has been chosen. If we preserve the symmetrical plan, but lower the viewpoint somewhat, we get Fig. 13B. Here the predominant feature becomes the statue, which is sharply defined against a back 38