Film technique and film acting : the cinema writings of V. I. Pudovkin (1954)

io PUDOVKIN to limit the scale of the theme is perhaps only a temporary one, but, having regard to our actual store of means of filmic representation, it is unavoidable. Meanwhile, the other requirement, conditioned by the basic character itself of filmic spectacle, will probably exist for ever — the necessity for clarity. I have already mentioned above the necessity for absolute clarity in the resolution of every problem met with in the process of working on the film ; this holds true, of course, for the work on the theme. If the basic idea that is to serve as backbone to the scenario be vague and indefinite, the scenario is condemned to miscarry.2 True that in the examination of the written representation, it is possible, by careful study, to disentangle one's way among the hints and unclarities, but, transposed upon the screen, such a scenario becomes irritatingly confusing. I give an example ; a scenario-writer sent us an already completed scenario on the life of a factory workman in the days before the Russian revolution. The scenario was written round a given hero, a workman. In the course of the action he came into contact with a series of persons — hostile and friendly : the enemies harmed him, the friends helped him. At the beginning of the scenario the hero was depicted as a rough, ungoverned man ; at the end he became an honest, class-conscious workman. The scenario was written in well-drawn, naturalistic environmental colours, it undoubtedly contained interesting, live material witnessing to the powers of observation and the knowledge of its author, yet none the less it was