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STYLE-CONSCIOUS FILMS 117
unconsciously by the ideologies, tastes and life-rhythm of epochs and societies — such great historical styles appear of one piece and logical only from the distance of a historical perspective, never in their own day. The Italian artists of the quattrocento had no idea that they were initiating a great new style, that of the Renaissance — they simply and modestly strove to imitate ancient Greek and Roman art. Consciousness of style develops slower than style itself and is mostly a retrospective recognition only.
One can often hear complaints nowadays that our age has no such well-defined style as for instance Gothic or Biedermeier. There are many reasons for this. But we know that the creators of these styles in their own time knew only fashions and not styles. Style was not consciously recognized as such in its own time. There is no doubt that our own epoch also has its own distinctive style which manifests itself in our tastes, way of life, clothes and manners, a style the visual unity and consistence of which we cannot see in real life, though we may see it in a film if we make a point of doing so. For the film, in reproducing with photographic fidelity the visual appearance of our life, concentrates its many forms into one picture in which the common traits that constitute a style can become manifest if angle and set-up stress them sufficiently. If the cameraman feels the style of our time, his films will tend to render us conscious of it and will thus contribute essentially to the emergence of such a style.
If the spirit of the times is reflected in the visual forms of our life and art, the film will reflect that. The film creates no primary forms, but by means of angle and set-up gives a live interpretation of the given forms of reality. It is for this reason that it can render visible their common traits and the laws that govern them. Films date very quickly. Five-year-old films already have a faintly historical tang — probably because they are more topical and time-bound than any other art.