Theory of the film : (character and growth of a new art) (1952)

CHAPTER NINE CHANGING SET-UP Changing set-up is the second great creative method of film art. In this again it differs from the principles and methods of every other art. In the theatre we see everything from the same viewpoint, from the same angle, that is in the same perspective. The photographed theatre could not change this very much. It sometimes changed the angle or perspective from scene to scene but never within the same scene. Different paintings have different perspectives and this is their essential artistic creative element, their artistic characteristic. But the perspective of every single painting is one and immutable; hence the outline of every object shown in the picture is finite, a single definite shape. It may have an expressive physiognomy, but never a changing expression, such as the movement of changing outlines, which changing set-ups can give to things in a film. Only the changing set-up enabled cinematography to develop into an art. No lighting effects could have done it if the camera could not have been moved in relation to the object. Cinematography would have remained mechanical reproduction. SYNTHESIS OF THE PHOTOGRAPHED IMAGE The free, individual possibilities of the set-up bring about in the image the synthesis of subject and object which is the basic condition of all art. Every work of art must present not only objective reality but the subjective personality of the artist, and this personality includes his way of looking at things, his ideology and the limitations of the period. All this is projected into the picture, even unintentionally. Every picture shows not only a piece of reality, but a point of view as 89