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This, perhaps, interprets three different sorts of movement better than if they were analysed into twenty cross cut shots.
But there is a further major difficulty, one that may prove to stump us entirely in the end. Imagine a shot of a wineglass held in a hand, which revolves it slowly until it dissolves or " turns " into a pool of water ringed by a dropped stone. The images only hold the screen for perhaps three seconds, vet even from that simple shot the eve had received many varied, complex and rich stimuli, which, if catalogued in words, would take half an hour to read. The eve, for instance, has assimilated immediately the changing flecks of light on the finger nails, the way in which thev progress in an opposite direction tO' the high light on the rim of the glass — and so on and so on. Words, in fact, are really not much good in describing cinema. But thev are some good, the attempt is still valuable, and particularly if the words are used with poetic compression and suggestion. For that we must cut away our stage directions of scene numbers, and try and give duration, tempo, colour, etc., intrinsically .
The following passage from Few Are Chosen, by Oswell Blakeston, describes a scene in a bar. This style of highly sensitive reporting is, in one direction at least, essentiallv cinema.
Music works through Charlie's body, to tapping fingers. Let's sit on the dangerous sofa. Do you know when the show ends? Don't think, gents, that I ask from any ulterior motive ; I am an old player at the Abbey Theatre. Winding up an oblong wrist-watch, eyes doing those things. Music works through Charlie's body, orchestrating the sounds and dialogue. A loud march (Japanese acrobats) dissolves into the drink in bubbles. Scowls, vendettas, stilettoes. Collegiate bar, my sweet, in the Kurfiirstendam ; cocktail shakers with half the hair sleeked, the other half puffed, one takes one's choice, evidently. Can you open this cigarette case? (Heavv refulgence). Exactly what I wanted. Henri brings an extra suit-case for presents. Sense of plush, music from the cymbals, feverish combat ; tide over Charlie.
This was not written, of course, with an eye to the camera : it is literary. It suggests, however, a writer whose natural view point and attitude to life is " cinema " : an acceptance that becomes a moralitv because of its completeness. Nor is it bv chance that the cinema is a natural mode of expression in this age.
Without being doctrinaire I suggest, to return to our point, that the best way to tackle this problem of translating cinema into words is as follows : first, conceive the subject in camera angles and shots : write, in fact, a scenario. Then, translate the technical score into words chosen so that their rhythm, proportion and colour intrinsically (that is the keynote) recreate the movement, duration and general effect — smoothness, hardness, recession and so forth — of the shifting scenes. According to the subject the result would vary from something that approximates to a scenario to a complete dissolution, an evocative word pattern, merelv.
Roger Burford.