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

THE CINEMA AS A GRAPHIC ART in conscious and collective co-operation with the camera-man artist will he succeed in resolving this task. Orientation in the problems of linear, lighting, and tonal composition demands that the creative group shall together possess an enormous visual-representational culture. And this demand is made first and foremost of the camera-man, since on him is laid the task of plastically realising the compositional intention. And these considerations, primarily, are the basis on which we must make any analysis and estimate of the camera-man's craftsmanship, which once for all has outlived the idiotic formulation of such estimates summed up in the traditional phrase of purblind criticism : clear photography. . . . We maintain that, in this definition of the camera-man's role, Eisenstein shows the fullest and soundest appreciation of the creative relationships between the director and the camera-man. Wherever the problem of the expressiveness of a film as an artistic production is raised to the height of a principle, wherever the problems of composition are resolved on the basis of a recognised creative approach, there the role of the camera-man as an artist increases incommensurably. But whenever the director does not rise above the level of an educated craftsman, the camera-man is compelled either to take the course of a self-sufficient formalistic resolution of the representational treatment of the film, or to confine himself to the role of passive technical photographer. But if we are concerned with ensuring that a film shall be of the highest cinematographic art value; then we must regard the camera-man as a close creative collaborator with the director, as a master with full rights in his own sphere, who with the aid of his specific representational resources realises the single artistic function and content of the film. 214