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Fragment of An Empire 65
not falter as does Pudovkin in Storm Over Asia in the balance between the personal problems of the hero and the broader ideological message. Avoiding the "mass-hero" of Eisenstein, Ermler has concentrated on the drama of a shell-shocked man who regains his memory to find himself suddenly in a vastly changed Russia. The excellent acting of Fyodor Nikitin does not dominate the image, but is subordinated to stringent, yet sympathetic editing procedures. The hero becomes a cantos firmus in a visual fugue as Emler wholly succeeds in combining dramatic truthfulness with a highly developed sense of form.
Although many of Eisenstein's editing methods have been adopted, the overall effect is not derivative but essentially original. In fact, Ermler's ingenious handling of film is in its deeper psychological, humanitarian, and technical procedures superior in many ways to Eisenstein. Scenes are carefully broken down into their basic elements, facilitating cutting which is firm, occasionally rhythmical, and complex. The pyrotechnics are meaningful and organic, and not self-consciously imposed as are some of Abram Room's experiments in The Ghost That Never Returns.
Perhaps the finest sequence of the film occurs when the Sergeant begins to regain his memory after having just seen his -wife in the window of a train. Although the cutting is complex and varied, each of the shots belongs, for Ermler has carefully thought out his methods of linking shot to shot. There is cutting for "sound," for image, for psychological truth, and for narrative. Each of these has been used before by other directors, but few have tried to combine all four so richly. We have some experiments by Eisenstein in The Old and New. After establishing long shots (for narrative), grasshoppers are intercut with the sickle blade of a tractor. Here there is a unification of the visual (teeth), sound (buzzing), and "psychological truth" (both devour). But this use by Eisenstein, because of its brevity, and its lack of psychological complexity, does not really affect an audience; it is clever rather than emotionally stirring (which of course was just Eisenstein's intention.) But Ermler, in this regaining of the memory sequence, touches a number of responses in an audience because of the drama of the situation. The editing of the scene, as the following breakdown and analysis shows, is complexly, yet simply ordered around these four links which were just mentioned. First, shots which are connected because of their visual similarity, second, shots which are used for their "sound," third, situations which reveal psychological truth, fourth, shots which further the narrative. (See frame enlargements at end of book.)
1. M.L.S. Sgt, thinking, stands be 1. sound: recalls train bell
hind a table. He rings a bell. narralive link: bell connects
In the left foreground is a sew previous train scene with Sgt.
ing machine. at home.
psychological link: memory activated by bell, visual: bell/bell
2. C.U. of box of cigarettes which, 2. narr./psych.: strengthens link he thinks, the woman (his wife) with wife at train station.