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70 THEFACEOFMAN
AN EXAMPLE FROM RUSSIA
Most instructive is the case of Michael Romm and his film of Maupassant's Boule de Suif. Romm made this film as a silent film although the sound film was already fully developed at the time. The silence of this film and everything resulting from it was thus no technical necessity, but intentional and deliberately accepted style — rather like the etcher's renunciation of colour. In this silent film Romm did in fact achieve many pictorial and dramatic effects which would have been impossible in a sound film.
The story is well-known, but will bear repetition: a little Parisian tart, escaping in a bus from the Prussians with a number of other passengers, is demonstratively treated with contempt by her fellow-travellers, who, while quite willing to eat generously proffered food, keep her at arm's length in all other respects. The bus is held up by a Prussian patrol and the officer commanding it refuses to allow the fugitives to proceed unless the little cocotte spends the night with him. Two nuns who form part of the strictly virtuous company are the most zealous in trying to persuade the reluctant prostitute to comply with the Prussian officer's demands. Under the pelting rain of their words the little street-walker bows her head. We see the nuns' mouths move with hysterical rapidity. A few minutes before, when they were praying in the immobile poses of statues, no one would have believed that they were capable of such violent passions. The arguments the nuns use to persuade the girl are presented to the audience in two short titles and their essence is that as she is a whore anyway one man more or less would make no difference to her; on the other hand she would be acting in a way to please God if she slept with the German. Much more convincing and effective than their words, however, is their manner of speaking and this can be shown only visually. The incessant, irresistible cataract of words, their cruel, determined, unbearably violent insistence is much more convincingly shown by the visible, rapid ceaseless motion of the lips than could ever be conveyed by making audible the same, or slightly varied, argu