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

Record Details:

Title:
Film technique and film acting : the cinema writings of V. I. Pudovkin
Date:
1954
Publisher:
London : Vision Press Limited
Volume:
Film technique and film acting : the cinema writings of V. I. Pudovkin
Leaf #:
00054
Language:
English
Collection:
Books
Format:
Books
Contributor:
Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum
Sponsor:
Media History Digital Library
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
Date Added:
March 21, 2024
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30 PUDOVKIN with an enormous number of cigarette ends. The spectator immediately visualises the great space of time the man has been waiting and, no less, the degree of excitement that has made him smoke nearly a hundred cigarettes. From the examples quoted above it will be clear what is to be understood by the term : expressive plastic material. We have found here a kitten, a tramp, a stone, a flint-lock, some cigarette ends, and not one of these objects or persons yas introduced by chance ; each constitutes a visual image, requiring no explanation and yet carrying a clear and definite meaning. Hence an important rule for the scenarist : in working out each incident he must carefully consider and select each visual image ; he must remember that for each concept, each idea, there may be tens and hundreds of possible means of plastic expression, and that it is his task to select from amongst them the clearest and most vivid. Special attention, however, must be paid to the special part played in pictures by objects. Relationships between human beings are, for the most part, illuminated by conversations, by words ; no one carries on conversation with objects, and that is why work with them, being expressed by visual action, is of special interest to the film technician, as we have just seen in these examples. Try to imagine to yourself anger, joy, confusion, sorrow, and so forth expressed not in words and the gestures accompanying them, but in action connected with objects, and you will see how