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METHODS OF EXPRESSION OF DRAMATIC CONTENT
by a further flow of images. Greater stress of meaning, of pictorial rather than of literary value, is gained by this division. A case in point was to be found in the introduction of the workers in the early part of The End of St. Petersburg.
Simple repetition of a title at spaced intervals is also found to be dramatically effective by its very rhythmic insistence. The same title may punctuate a film at given moments, driving home not the meaning of the title, but the meaning of the sequence and the whole meaning of the theme. This was used with much feeling with the title 'Mother,' in the film of that name, and was also a conspicuous part of the construction of October, New Babylon, and Turksib. This fact may be given support in that when I saw for the first time a copy of Battleship 'Potemkin,' the titles were in Russian, a language incomprehensible to me, and yet their pictorial quality added greatly to the drama of the film.
An appreciation of the titling of Victor Turin's Turksib appeared in the Sunday Observer, for 23rd March 1930, and is worth citing: '. . . I have been waiting a great many years to see a film in which the titles would play a definite part in the visual and emotional progress of idea. ... In Turksib the titling is inseparable from the sweep of the film. ... I cannot describe the curious assault on the senses of those moving arrangements of letters, the cumulative effect of the final titles with their massive cadences. The words of Turksib are images; integral, triumphant, menacing. They are symbols of disaster and determination, fear and terrific jubilation. They have no longer sound or aural meaning they are eye-images, mute, rapid, and wrought from the emotional fibre of the film itself.' This criticism is all the more interesting in that it comes from the pen of an advocate of the dialogue film.
Other interesting experiments with the placing of titles have been attempted, notably by Pudovkin, who makes a practice of inserting spoken titles at the moment of utterance but not in conjunction with the visual image of the speaker.
It may be remarked that the design and word lay-out of a title should be as simple as possible. The quietest form of lettering should be used; the wording should be of the briefest and clearest nature; the ground should be dark, with the lettering a dull grey. The customary title is positively sparkling, with white scrawly lettering jumping about on an imitation leather background, which is
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