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THE AIM OF THE FILM IN GENERAL
ment in the creation of visual images, and mentally by psychology in the creation of mental images. Music and synchronised sound, used in counterpoint and contrapuntally, heighten the emotions of the spectator aurally and subconsciously. This dynamic mental pictorialism is, I claim, the most powerful form of expression available to-day to a creative artist.
In this theoretical portion of the survey we shall be concerned primarily with two comparatively simple aspects of film creation, to wit: the choice of a theme, which is to be a film's argument, its raison d'etre; and the two steps in the expression of that theme, firstly, by scenario representation in literary form, and secondly, by the numerous orthodox technical methods peculiar to the cinema for the transference of the matter contained in the scenario on to the screen. This last step m*j be called the grammar of the film, arising out of its self-developed properties, and will be the subject of the two succeeding chapters. Investigation has already been made of a great number of films and their individual directors, but admittedly we have examined little more than the themes (or thematic narrative interest) of the films in question and the methods adopted for realisation by their directors. We have, as yet, to understand that there lies something beyond a theme and its technical expression, namely, the conception, attitude of mind, or creative impulse of the director himself.
It is fairly apparent that differentiation can be made between the methods of expression employed by separate directors. For example, it would not be difficult to distinguish between a film made by Lubitsch and a film made by Pabst, although the theme in both films was identical. It would simply be the matter of a distinction between temperaments. Further, we know that Eisenstein constructs his films by a process of impulsive editing (based on complex forethought), according to his judgment of the material as being expressive of his principles of tonal and over-tonal montage. That is to say, we acknowledge that he selects his shots and determines their screenlength by the physiological-psychological sensations gained from their visual qualities and not (as does Dziga-Vertov) by a purely metric process of the number of frames to a shot. These are merely niceties of expression which are capable of being appreciated by every intelligent observer who is familiar with the principles of filmic representation.
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