Plan for cinema (1936)

ON THE NATURE OF CINEMA 49 photographed gun makes (which, of course, it will be, for the sound of a similar gun to that in the picture will be used) on the screen, the picture and the sound will appear simultaneous. Both the photographing of the gun, and the recording of its sound, we must appreciate, are done in reality in separate time and in separate space, yet on the screen, by virtue of editing, their time and space will appear one. Thus, the sound-track, in pure montage terms, is as editable as the picture. Such possibilities open up an immense vista aesthetically for use of significant sound in relation to picture — a kind of visual and aural counterpoint.. Or so it seemed. The Russians were quick to theorize. Having denounced, together with the avant-garde critics, the synchronous use of speech as futile, they then defined sound-montage . It was, they said, c contrast between frame and track.5 By this they meant presumably such things as a shot of a timid little girl accompanied by the sound of a deep-throated ship's siren (pointing thereby the frailty of the girl by contrast with the majesty of the ship), or a shot of a big, heavy man accompanied by the gentle miauing of a cat (pointing thereby the power of the man by contrast with the insignificance of the cat) . Obviously, such devices in a suitable context could be very effective. But it was found upon more mature consideration that the use of them is extremely limited, that it is wellnigh impossible to build a whole film using them as a principle of construction. Resort to speech, either as commentary to picture or synchronously