We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
CREATIVE PROBLEMS OF THE ART OF THE CAMERA-MAN
J is was to be observed comparatively rarely, for at that time the close-up was in rteral cut very short on the screen (Fig. 80).
During the early periods of the cinema's existence the screening of theatrical
oductions also conditioned special forms of compositional construction of the
ot. The camera-man's dependence on the character and dimensions of planning
the theatrical set in the studio did not allow him to choose a construction out
le the limits indicated by the art director, who had come to the cinema from
\ theatre. In such conditions the sole possible form of construction proved
be centric composition, corresponding in its symmetry to the frontal construc
>n of scenery. Composition of this kind is highly characteristic of the pictorial
It of the Renaissance, and so it was quite natural for the camera-man, working
thin the limits of the ' scenic box ' of the studio, to assert his ' artiness ' by
i'litating the classic types of Renaissance pictorial art. We reproduce some
lames from certain so-called historical films of German production. In the
rNibelungs ", " Metropolis " and a number of other theatricalised cinema pro
Jictions, these pseudo-classical compositions are predominant. Methods of this
!nd are evident in almost all the ' opera ' films of Richard Oswald, and also in
|e numerous dramatic and operetta productions of European and American
jrectors. In its further development this attitude led to the 'studio set display '
yle, constructed on the eclectic mingling of a theatrical formulation with elements
' pictorial decorativeness, which characterises the culture of the average camera
an of the ' standard ' cinema of Europe and America.
A curious example of the mechanical transference of pictorial compositional :hemes to the cinema is also to be found in the latest historical films of American roduction, in which this similarity to the pictorial original is exploited as an Ivertisement for the ' artiness ' of the film. We give a reproduction of Davis' lgraving of the " Death of Nelson ", and also a shot from an American film on the ime subject. As can be seen from this juxtaposition, the superficial composional features are reproduced quite successfully, although the ' historicity ' and artistry ' of shots of this kind as a whole are open to considerable question pigs. 81, 82).
ig. 80. — Shot •omthe film "The King of Kings ".
155