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Rotha's plan is no doubt the best for the documentary films he now directs. In them he deals with the problems of masses of people. But if a film is to be concentrated upon the behaviour of one or two individuals, it seems to me that the employment of type actors cannot be considered adequate. Rotha thinks that "the inner reality of the characters, their thoughts, desires, lusts, and emotions, is revealed by their outward actions. . . . The camera itself is unable to penetrate the world before it, but the creative mind of the director can reveal in his selection of the visual images this intrinsic essence of life by using the basic resources of the cinema, viz., editing, angle, pictorial composition, suggestion, symbolism, etc. " (vide "The Film till Now," p. 270). It will be seen that Rotha thinks that it is the relationship of images, and not so much the images themselves, which carries the content of a filmic theme, and I agree. But the fact of relationship does not depend wholly upon the juxtaposition of images; it surely lies somewhat in the meaning of the images themselves? If, then, the director presents an image whose meaning is conveyed by the gesture, movement, or facial expression of a character, is it not necessary that these be reproduced by an actor whose technical training and creative ability have taught him to understand the expression of human personality? No, says Rotha, for ' 'the so-called symptomatic actions of Freud, the small, almost unnoticed and insignificant actions of behaviour on the part of a person, are highly indicative of the state of his mind, and are of the utmost value, when magnified on the screen, for establishing an understanding of that state of mind in the audience. For this reason alone, it will be seen how essential it is for a film player to be his natural self, and how detrimental theatrical acting is to film purposes. It is the duty of the director to reveal the natural characteristics of his players and to build these, by means of editing, into a filmic exposition of personality . . ." ("The Film till Now," pp. 270271). I think that here Rotha is setting the director a superhuman task. He is saying that human beings reveal themselves by their unconscious actions, and that the director must by editing synthesize them into personality. So he must, but where is he to get the images he is to edit? We are told they cannot be reproduced by acting, so the director must then, in the manner of Dziga-Vertov, wait until a member of his cast happens to betray himself by a ' 'symptomatic action" and quickly photograph it, if the subject happens to be within camera range. With such methods, every film would be as long in production as those of Abel Gance. It seems to me that, unless they are acted, these unconscious actions could never be caught by the camera unless by chance. And why can they not be acted? If they are observable at all they are also capable of being reproduced. Nor is it important that the reproduction is artificial.
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