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

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i4 PUDOVKIN always occur if some important stage in the development of the scenario be treated carelessly and abstractly. Neglect of this element in the work of final filmic polishing may occasion inexpressive material, unsuitable for plastic treatment, and thus may destroy the whole construction. The novelist expresses his key-stones in written descriptions, the dramatist by rough dialogue, but the scenarist must think in plastic (externally expressive) images. He must train his imagination, he must develop the habit of representing to himself whatever comes into his head in the form of a sequence of images upon the screen. Yet more, he must learn to command these images and to select from those he visualises the clearest and most vivid ; he must know how to command them as the writer commands his words and the playwright his spoken phrases.4 The clarity and vividness of the action-treatment directly depends on the clear formulation of the theme. Let us take as an example an American film, naive, certainly, and not especially valuable, issued under the name Saturday Night. Though its content is slight, it affords an excellent model of a theme clearly outlined and action simply and vividly treated. The theme is as follows : " Persons of different social class will never be happy when intermarried." The construction of the action runs so. A chauffeur spurns the favours of a laundress, for he falls in love with a capitalist's daughter whom he drives every day in his car. The son of another capitalist, chancing to see the young laundress in his