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

THE CINEMA AS A GRAPHIC ART ! not infrequently, on attentive study, provide far more valuable material than the scenario itself. We especially note that it is essential that the camera-man should have not only an exact knowledge of the text of the literary source, but also a profound understanding of the actual style of the work, its school, and dramaturgic methods. In Gogol's " Inspector-General ", for instance, the exposition of the actors and the subject situation is conveyed in the course of the very first phrase uttered by1 ] Gorolnitchi : " I've invited you, gentlemen, in order to communicate some unpleasant news. An Inspector-General is coming." Ammos Fedorovitch : " What Inspector-General ? " Artemi Filipovitch : " What Inspector-General ? " And so on. If we were making a film based on the " InspectorGeneral " the retention of Gogol's compositional form would entail very special methods of shooting' the very first close-ups in the picture. There is an enormous difference between a close-up of an acting character, and a portrait close-up which gives merely an exposition of the actor's features. Perhaps Gogol's " InspectorGeneral " is the only work in all drama in which the exposition is given in such a short phrase. The action begins to develop immediately afterwards, and the representational, treatment of the personages must change in the direction of revealing the narrative plot factors. In order to understand such a transition the camera-man must imagine the film not in the form of separate close-ups and mid-shots, but in that of a system of integral images in their complex dramaturgic inter-relationships. This means that he must take an author's part in making the film from the very ' moment that its artistic function is engendered, and this is the guarantee of the creation being of full value and saturated with ideas. Holding this attitude as we do, we are justified in making such demands of the Soviet camera-man as we make of the cinema director in his sphere, for which purpose we must bring the camera-man into the creative period of preparatory WORK ON THE FILM, AND INTO PARTICIPATION IN THE CREATIVE PROCESS OF MAKING THE FILM FROM BEGINNING TO END. This is the sense in which the question of inter-relationships between the director and the camera-man arises. A correct understanding of the camera-' man's functions, his conscious participation in the process of work on a picture, and the unity in the creative attitudes of the entire group, which unity must pass through all the processes of work on the film, force us to regard the camera-man not as a technical executant, but primarily as a co-director. The creative group, welded by the organic unity of the director's and cameraman's creative attitudes, must become the basic production link in the soviet CINEMA SYSTEM. From the position of technical executant the Soviet camera-man has raised himself to the level of a creative worker, fully entitled to claim an author's participation in making the film. Viewed from this angle the present position of the Soviet camera-man is on the road to full recognition, but that of the Western camera-man must be regarded as wholly unsatisfactory. Theoretically called a ' creative worker ', he not infrequently is still placed in the working conditions of a technical photographer, being administratively transferred from picture to picture, from one director to another, without taking into account his creative attitude and desires, and irrespective of whether the 226