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

Film Technique: 1. Analysis absence of speech was sometimes overcome by fading in, on top of some part of the existing shot, a sort of medallion of a young woman pining for release from her captors, or a young man riding gallantly to a rescue. This device was universally disapproved by the intelligent critics, but its recent reappearance in The Constant Nymph shows that it is not yet dead 5 it merits examination, but as it raises the large issues of the pictorial propagation of thought, this treatment must be deferred to the next chapter. A few structural comments are in place here. The object, if any, which has given rise to the reflection must not intrude itself on the inserted shot. In one instance in The Constant Nymph , a letter was to be seen apparently racing across the surface of a hockey field 5 in Pacific 231 the clash of ’cellos and railway engines, though intentional, was little better than absurd. A quite distinct application of superimposition proposes to take advantage of this melee. Emotional or physical disturbances are often represented by a multiplicity of simultaneous shots, containing movements in constant conflict with one another, while the shots themselves loom out of the distance and, before they are clearly seen, disappear into it again. (Cf. the war sequence in Cavalcade , Lloyd, 1933.) This device is based on a fallacy. Just as it is not permissible for the novelist to convey boredom by boring his readers, so the director must not convey con 170