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DOCl MF.NTARY FILM NKWS
71
integrating their able and experienced cameramen with production planning.
In any discussion of the Toland style, the question of forced focus is hound to rise. At the time of Citizen Kane, it was quite extreme id, to see objects 18 inches and 200 feet from the camera simultaneously in focus. Now. of course, we take such shorts for granted. Carrying focus is obtained by use of fast film, stop ping the lens down to a very small aperture. and it lighting key much hotter than that used conventionally. 'Forced focus.' Gregg explained, 'is not a trick, and should not be considered as such. It is an aid to directors, since it gives them more freedom in staging scenes As Willy pointed out in his article in last February's Screen Writer, "I can have action and reaction in the same shot, without having . tc cut back and forth from individual shots ot the characters. This makes for smooth continuity, an almost effortless How of the scene, I for much more interesting composition in each shot, and lets the spectator look from one to the other character at his own will, do his own cutting".'
'Beyond that.' Gregg said, it helps the audience see more, and consequently sec more story.'
'What about your photography in the Navy? Do you think it had any effect on your style?'
'This is an odd thing to admit.' Gregg said, 'but I found many times when I didn't have all the Hollywood equipment at my elbow, that the results were superior. Why? They looked . real. No haloes of back-lighting, and no soft flattering modelling. For example, in Honolulu I used to go into homes or business houses to do a short sequence. Through the windows I'd have an /.22 exposure. Inside, an f.3.5 exposure. I would go ahead, photograph for interior. and get an extremely over-exposed exterior. But it looked real. I suppose some place in between the extreme of such candid photography
and the extreme commercial front-office stsle there must be a compromise point where we can make pictures with realism I think there is i noticeable trend in that direction.'
(to be concluded)
K«-print<<l l>\ kind permission of the 'Screen Writer'
No nn a n dy Dm ry second instalment
/ uesday
To Tilly via Caen. It was not too had a road, provided we slowed down every time a car came the other way as the edge of the road is covered with frozen snow. Whenever a lorry comes in the opposite direction we slow down and stop. They are absolute brutes, these big lorry drivers.
Caen seems just as much in ruins as it did last year. We stopped for petrol-and a coffee with run. a typical Normandy drink, which is most acceptable in this filthy weather.
When I asked the way to Tilly-sur-Seulles I was told Tilly did not exist any more! When I explained to a peasant that we were supposed to show films there, he suggested we should try St Pierre, the neighbouring village.
Tilly is indeed destroyed. The cross-road marks the place where Tilly once stood.
M. C— — received us and took us to lunch at the only hotel. Conversation with the different people we meet is always interesting and can be divided into two or three subjects^food. reconstruction (or the lack thereof), rising
prices, anil conditions in the UK. 1 felt I should base taken last year's lecture on Post-wai Problems with me. as everyone asked me about our problems and the solutions we proposed It is surprisinghow little the average Frenchman knows about England. No one would believe me when I said England was a very poor country and had spent all her foreign assets during the war.
\iter lunch M. C— took us to the hut where we were to project our films. We pinned up a sheet, tested the equipment, blew the fuses (this invariably happens) and chose the films. The car got stuck in the mud and we had to throw gravel under the wheels \ Bren carrier would have been ideal for this tour or even a light tank.
Tilly was the centre of most bitter fighting. It is said to have been taken and retaken 2}
times, but as M. C explained, local people
had no idea of the campaign as a whole. For this reason I showed West of the Line a narrative of the Normandy campaign. Coastal tillage and V-\ were again shown at the beginning of the programme. Plastics was given last as it is in technicolor. Although the commentary is in English, it is quite easy to follow and was appreciated because few people know how plastics are made and the many uses to which they are put.
There were about 450 people in the hut. The heat was terrific and I had hardly any room to move because the projector was in the centre of the hall. A spot of bother with a print, too. It was old and worn. Shall have to mend it tomorrow.
Dr W — has put me up tonight. Central heating in the house! As I came up the stairs tonight to go to bed, I saw a cat on the stairs and stroked it. Imagine my horror when I found it was a stuffed animal. There is a peculiar smell in the house, must be stuffed cats (to be continued)
NEW BOOKS ON FILM
Composing for the Films. Hans Eisler. (Oxford University Press, New York, 1947.) Three-quarters of this book has a purely regional significance. It is a bitter attack by a sadly disillusioned man on some of the methods of musicmaking in Hollywood an attack which is too often doctrinaire and politically one-sided. A victim of the recent 'witch hunt'. Hans I lslcr, through the interest and intervention of musicians and artists throughout the world, has now been given permission to leave America and breathe the more congenial air of Europe. In Hollywood he was a fish out of water— a fish whose atonal scales glittered defiantly in the clam chowder of Hollywood mass production. A book so bitter is bound to be biased. Eisler makes little reference to the undoubtedly good musical scores | that have appeared from time to time from the American studios and, save tor one or two isolated references to Russian film scores, he ignores entirely the great contribution to the advance of film music that has been made in this country and countries outside the American orbit or rather, outside his own orbit. This is understandable, a man with such strong views and, moreover;
whose musical god is Schonberg will have little patience with the less severe standards of the non-atonal school of thought. Nevertheless, Eisler's indictment of Hollywood musical methods and tastes makes interesting reading and, although it is difficult to believe that what he says is said without prejudice, it makes one rejoice in the freedom of action and thought that is the right of the composer in this country the freedom to compose for films without the surrender of artistic integrity .
The final chapters of the book have a more general application and given an intelligent summary of the technical problems and possibilities facing the composer when dealing with the highly intricate medium of film music. Though many ot I islcr's suggestions have long been the common practice ot the best European film composers, it was important that these should be placed on record, particularly as the best-known book on (he subject (that by Kurt London) has long been out-moded. It is all the more to be regretted that the issue is so frequently contused by the clouds of red dust arising from the resounding thwackings Eisler deals his hobby
horse. To the impartial reader it is not wholly to be wondered at that the hobby-horse irritably assumed the accoutrements of a charger.
w . V Bette Davis. Peter Noble. (Skelton Robinson, $s. 6d.)
.The first half of this book relates the career of one of Hollywood's best actresses and bonniest fighters. Mr Noble's account is interesting, if never very profound, and he manages to avoid the mixture of adulation and personal chit-chat which makes up the usual film star biography The writing, though is unduly repetitive and occasional!) even slipshod Miss Davis's own views of the necessary balance between type-casting and character-acting are worthy of note, while it is a surprise, now that critics are upbraiding British producers for over-working their players, to find that, in hei firsl five yean in Hollywood, Miss
Davis made no fewer than thirty-two films.
The remainder of the book comprises a list of all the star's films, with cast-fists, main credits. and plot-summaries of the more notable ones, and a collection ot thirty-live stills, well cho but not so well reproduced