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

Film Technique: 2. Synthesis complicated series of events which led up to the October revolution was not of a particular interest to a foreigner, when presented with the bias of a Soviet propagandist. On the other hand, The Wandering Jew (Elvey, 1933), running for less than two hours, soon became heavy and dull. Both films had to lead up to a sequence which must be very slow and very impressive; the one, the terrible suspense during the negotiations in the Winter Palace between the Soviets and the provisional government; the other, the burning of the Jew at the stake. Eisenstein, however, had prepared his audience by stirring and deeply interesting them; mainly, of course, by the progress of his material on the screen, but still to a large degree by varying speeds and rhythms of cutting. His slow sequence was a complete success. Elvey, on the other hand, with every advantage in story of a personal rather than a historically distorted theme, contrived to dull his audience’s attention from the start. His film moved in slow, irregular fits, so that the last sequence, though impressive by itself, fell on a numbed and unresponsive mind. 8. There is, however, another field of experiment in rhythmical montage, which may eventually prove even more fruitful than the first. The rhythm of cutting is used not to reinforce, but to contrast with the content, and to carry a separate strand of meaning. Much of James Joyce’s recent prose de 222