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

CREATIVE PROBLEMS OF THE ART OF THE CAMERA-MAN nerging texture all conduced to an unreal, mystical perception of the object, correspondence with the entire character of this film of ' terror and delirium '. i certain places Wagner exploits a negative image, including it in the film instead ' a positive. The shot in which the vampire Count passes by in his carriage is really terrible spectacle, for the negative image creates a completely distorted sual effect, almost void of all suggestion of reality. We give several shots (Figs. 83, 84) and compositional sketches (Figs. 85, >) from the picture " The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari ". Highly characteristic e the sketches for the lighting ; in certain shots the lighting is reduced to pure ysticism. The broken, non-natural perspective, the distribution of the light >ots without any logical motivation, the lighting treatment of the actor's face he medium Caesar) as a dead chalk mask, are all reflections of expressionist ndencies in the camera-man's art. We must also consider in more detail the work of Guido Zeber, as his films tost clearly reveal the pictorial and especially the expressionistic influences of :cent years. The thirty years' cinematic practice of Guido Zeber, the oldest camera-man the German cinema, embraces almost every stage of development of the bour;ois cinema. Working mainly on technical problems, Zeber not only created ick technique in its modern form, but also showed the ways to its creative cploitation. Yet his work is not a simple demonstration of the technical possibities of the cinema. In his films we see that high degree of perfection to which tistic photography in its true sense can be brought. Unfortunately, owing to lie conditions of development of the bourgeois cinema, these results mark the knit for Zeber, for he has never had an organic unity of creative outlook with his irectors. The one exception to this is perhaps " The Joyless Street ", in which abst and Zeber worked as equal creators in their craft. But even in this film le camera-man's isolation is apparent : we can see that in the choice of expressive sources he does not always see eye to eye with the director. Zeber 's shot, considered apart from its editing context, is always irreproach}le in formalistic compositional regards. One is struck by the perfection of lie composition, the softness and plasticity of the lighting, the clear outline and le irreproachable treatment of texture. Even where he wanders off into expresjonist treatment of the subject, he always remains faithful to the finest formal aditions of German artistic photography. Yet in expressive regards his perfect raftsmanship far from always serves the functional task of the shot to reveal its Dntent, and so, not infrequently, superficial, abstract, showy effect dominates lis work. This is particularly noticeable in " Secrets of the Soul ", in which he emonstrates a remarkable technique of multiple exposure. Yet in this very distance, where there would seem to be ample room for the camera-man to solve is compositional tasks on the basis of the film material, the absence of unity in le creative attitudes of Pabst and Zeber leads to the camera-man's craftsmanship :quiring the quality of a self-sufficing element, having no connection with the leological content, and in places conflicting with the dramaturgic efficacy of the lm. Thus we get an overloading with ornate pictorial effects, the imagery of hich is frequently alien to the expressiveness of the shot as a unit in the editing. The creative influx of expressionist elements into the work of such cameralen as Zeber, Hoffman and Wagner cannot be explained away as solely a iperficial imitation of contemporary expressionist pictorial art, or as due to irectorial influence. Although the expressionist tendencies in camera-man's rt frequently take the form of a superficial mannerism, the representational 161