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

Record Details:

Title:
A grammar of the film : an analysis of film technique
Date:
1950
Publisher:
Berkeley : University of California Press
Volume:
A grammar of the film : an analysis of film technique
Leaf #:
000248
Language:
English
Collection:
Books
Format:
Books
Contributor:
Media History Digital Library
Sponsor:
Media History Digital Library
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
Date Added:
March 28, 2024
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Film Technique : 2. Synthesis is incommunicable by direct visual means; ‘humble’ can only be exemplified by an instance of humility; ‘infinite’ cannot be pictured at all. But the cinema would suffer a sad limitation were it to be restricted to particulars, from which the poet and the dramatist can with the greatest ease adumbrate statements of universal significance. From this dilemma there has hitherto been little escape, at least in so far as the primary elements of the film are concerned. It is true that, in the higher reaches of appreciation, the cinema is already at one with literature and drama, in principle if not in range; for implications have been discoverable in sequences of action and verbal statement, after the manner of those arts. If, however, the cinema is to be transformed along these lines into a finer vehicle of communication, it can only be by closer adherence to stage methods. Better acting, more revealing expression, dialogue which can compass its task by setting aside the reserves of everyday speech; all these, though they might raise the level of the screen-play, could be better applied to plays themselves. 10. There is, however, another method, which has the advantage of leaving clear the sound factor to play an independent though co-ordinated part in the film. This is the method of primary montage; and a clear notion of it will not only facilitate the discovery 224