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62 I. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
through a combination of long shots and close shots which provide exactly the kind of random impressions we would receive were we to witness this spectacle in reality. Yet the cinematic impact of the crowd images somewhat suffers from the fact that the scene is laid in architectural surroundings which could not be more stylized.*
THE FORTUITOUS
The fortuitous being a characteristic of camera-reality, film no less than photography is attracted by it. Hence the major role assigned to it in a truly cinematic genre, the American silent film comedy. To be sure, the minor triumphs of Buster Keaton or Chaplin's Tramp over destructive natural forces, hostile objects, and human brutes were sometimes due to feats of acrobatic skill. Yet unlike most circus productions, film comedy did not highlight the performer's proficiency in braving death and surmounting impossible difficulties; rather, it minimized his accomplishments in a constant effort to present successful rescues as the outcome of sheer chance. Accidents superseded destiny; unpredictable circumstances now foreshadowed doom, now jelled into propitious constellations for no visible reason. Take Harold Lloyd on the skyscraper: what protected him from falling to death was not his prowess but a random combination of external and completely incoherent events which, without being intended to come to his help, dovetailed so perfectly that he could not have fallen even had he wanted to. Accidents were the very soul of slapstick.3
The affinity of film for haphazard contingencies is most strikingly demonstrated by its unwavering susceptibility to the "street"— a term designed to cover not only the street, particularly the city street, in the literal sense, but also its various extensions, such as railway stations, dance and assembly halls, bars, hotel lobbies, airports, etc. If the medium's descent from, and kinship with, photography needed additional confirmation, this very specific preference, common to both of them, would supply it. Within the present context the street, which has already been characterized as a center of fleeting impressions, is of interest as a region where the accidental prevails over the providential, and happenings in the nature of unexpected incidents are all but the rule. Startling as it may sound, since the days of Lumiere there have been only few cinematic films that would not include glimpses of a street, not to mention the many films in which some street figures among the protagonists.
It was D. W. Griffith who initiated this tradition. For prototypes of cinematically significant imagery one will always have to revert to him. He
* Cf. pp. 36-7.