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226 DIALOGUE
But in the sound film, if no talking is to be heard, no talking may be seen either. For it is of course impossible that the public should hear every noise save only human speech; it is equally impossible to render audible only two 'important' sentences and let the public merely see the rest as soundless mouthing, the way it was in the days of the silent film. Hence if in a sound film no speaking is to be heard, then the characters must in fact not talk.
But the silence of human beings is not merely a passive negative. The act of keeping silent is often an intentional, dramatically expressive act, and always an indication of some quite definite state of mind.
In the silent film every shot is silent but it very rarely depicts silence. Silence is either a characteristic trait of a character or must have some dramaturgical motivation. In the film no more than on the stage can characters fall silent simply 'in order that there may be less talking'; if it is done without inner motivation, a meaningless void is created.
Talking much or little is not merely a matter of quantity. Here quantity very soon turns into quality and the formal acoustic effect grows beyond itself into a dramaturgical factor. Speaking much or little is a difference in characterization.
In Ostrovski's famous play Storm, the heroine, Catherine, is a chatterbox, who never stops babbling. This restless, unceasing talking outlines her undecided, unstable, volatile character, recalling the fluttering of a bird. Only such a chattering, silly child could be the victim of such a tragedy as the one which overtakes Catherine. But when a producer, Petrov, in his aversion to much talking presented Catherine as a taciturn woman, he changed her character; she was now a sober, quiet and resolute woman who could not have possibly experienced the fate which was natural and necessary in the case of Ostrovski's original Catherine.
The speech of human beings is not a progress report given to some audience — it is an instinctive expression of their emotions and is just as independent of rational intentions as is laughing or weeping. Live men and women don't say only things that have reason or purpose and it is not their rational utterings that are most characteristic of them. We must not