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

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150 EXPRESSIVE TECHNIQUE OF CAMERA which greatly increases the non-material character of the film. This technique also stimulates the spectator's curiosity; he waits eagerly for the next surprise in store for him when the scene — in which he already knows the hero to be — opens to view; he can even see the reflection of the new surroundings in the hero's face, while the narrowed diaphragm still conceals it from him, the spectator. In sound films, as already mentioned, this effect can be increased by letting the sounds connected with the new scene encroach upon the unchanged close-up of the old. We thus hear the new surroundings before we see them. DISSOLVE AND MENTAL PICTURE The technique of dissolve, which can change the scene and make time and space illusory, is eminently suitable for the presentation of the association of ideas and mental pictures in memory, in dreams or in imagination. In Narcosis, the life of a girl is shown as seen by her in a dream under an anaesthetic. The reason for this device was to give the scenes and shots only the emotional reality they acquired in the experience of the girl herself, without having to show the many indifferent and unimportant details of life without which it is impossible to present everyday reality so as to be readily understood. The heroine of Narcosis is a schoolgirl. One day she leaves the class. (All this she dreams under an anaesthetic.) She gets to her feet, leaves the form, the camera following. We see her all the time and behold, now she is in the street, although we did not see her open a door or walk down stairs. These passages could not be left out of a presentation of reality, although they are of no importance whatsoever. In Narcosis the surroundings change without interrupting the flow of action. We are in the street. The street is indicated only by a row of street lamps. A light is approaching from afar. The girl does not move. A brilliantly lit shop-window, that of a bookshop. The girl dissolves through the window and is inside the bookshop. The surroundings change without the girl changing her position — because in reality she does not change it, she is