Film and TV Technician (1957)

June/July 1957 FILM & TV TECHNICIAN 89 colour and in black-and-white; in the old standard proportions, in wide-screen, in wider-screen, and in CinemaScope, with and without stereophonic sound. But whatever the format, one characteristic was common to films from almost everywhere : a high percentage of location shooting, realism of sets and use of authentic exteriors, are no longer considered particularly adventurous. Films today are expected to look lifelike. To give a few examples. The American Bachelor Party (widescreen blackand-white : like Marty directed by Delbert Mann from a Paddy Chayevsky script) drew a large part of its strength from the authentic New York atmosphere of its shooting. The Russian Don Quixote (colour and CinemaScope) gained enormously from its lavish use of exteriors, its wide, rocky landscapes, as well as its fine sets. Jules Dassin's Celui Qui Doit Mourir (black-and-white CinemaScope) could not have carried anything like such a dramatic impact without its extensive use of harsh Cretan landscape. Nor is this true of large-scale productions only. Take Rekava, for instance {The Line of Destiny : black-and-white standard screen). This is the first film from Ceylon to capture a truly national flavour, made on a tiny budget and with primitive facilities. Nevertheless, Lester Peries, its young director, has had the courage to break away from the studio-bound conventions of the Singhalese cinema, and so has produced a picture which conveys charmingly the feel of life in the fields and villages of this country. PEOPLE OF THE RICE LANDS "... JAPAN Artificial and Enclosed It is by comparison with films like these that our own contributions seemed sadly artificial and enclosed. A story like High Tide at Noon cries out for a lyrical, open-air treatment : yet even its documentary sequences seemed tame, and at every possible opportunity we cut back into studio. Outside a gale was blowing, but the backing through the window remained solidly static. Even Yang-tse Incident, seen abroad, has the same timid, conventional feel to it. That final sequence, with the ships racing joyfully towards each other, did my eyes deceive me, or was there really no corresponding movement on the backing as we jolted back to the studio insert of Richard Todd on the bridge of the "Amethyst " ? Technique is finally secondary. Agreed. But it is even more dis turbing to see how cut off our cinema remains from the movement of thought and feeling in the world outside. This was not so with most of the films shown on the screen at Cannes. Problems of life in the big modern cities (Bachelor Party); problems of adolescence and snobbery (The House of the Angel); conflicts of emotion and conscience (the Russian The Forty-First); the problem of violence and exploitation ( Celui Qui Doit Mourir); the problem of war ... Of course we make war films in Britain, plenty of them. But how often do they get above the level of a boy's adventure yarn? One of the most powerful films at Cannes this year was the Polish Kanal, a tragic recons1 ruction of the last days of the Warsaw Rising in 1944, grim, pitiless and magnificent. " We do not present this film," said the Poles, " as an exciting entertainment. We present it as a reminder. So that such things may never happen again." Surely it is only such a basic attitude that can justify continued production of films about the war. Eager to Learn The most encouraging thing about Cannes this year was its revelation of the amount of daring, searching work being done by film makers all over the world — and of the rapidity with which the younger industries are developing. The Poles are eager to see films from abroad, eager to learn techniques from Hollywood. Yet if you see their films, you wonder what they have to learn — beyond commercial gloss. Far more important is the fact that they, and many others, have the courage and the capacity to tackle the problems of today in a really con (Continued on page 90)