A grammar of the film : an analysis of film technique (1950)

The Temporal Close-up in close-up. What is wanted is guidance not only in space but in time; the arresting of movements on which the eye wishes to linger, the accelerating of those which depend on their flashing speed. A single example, the simplest, from Pudovkin can be given here. ‘I tried to shoot and edit the rain in the same way. . . . The slow striking of the first heavy drops against dry dust. They fall, scattering into separate dark globules. The falling of rain on a surface of water: the swift impact, a transparent column leaps up, slowly subsides, and passes away in equally slow circles. An increase of speed proceeds parallel with the strengthening of the rain and the widening of the set-up. The huge, wide expanse of a steadily pouring network of heavy rain, and then, suddenly, the sharp introduction of a close-up of a single stream smashing against a stone balustrade. As the glittering drops leap up — their movements are exceptionally slow — can be seen all the complex, wondrous play of their intersecting paths through the air. Once more the movement speeds, but already the rain is lessening. Closing, come shots of wet grass beneath the sun. The wind waves it, it slowly sways, the raindrops slide away, and fall.’ There is no doubt that this principle has exceptional powers. In moments of heightened artistic sensibility, the structure of movements becomes plain, together with the precise relation between their 165