Cinema- Concept & Practice

by Edward Dmytryk

  pain, the metaphor can eliminate the director’s struggle to pictorialize some cliché situations. It is difficult to describe the advantages to be gained from the creation of a few well-placed metaphors, but two rather simple scenes from Mirage will elaborate the point.

  At the film’s opening, a man (Walter Abel) falls from a twenty-seventh story window of a New York skyscraper. Gregory Peck witnesses the fall from the same window, but the shock of the incident induces temporary amnesia, and he loses all memory of the fall and the events leading to it. Throughout the rest of the film occasional short flashbacks help Peck regain his memory and reconstruct the tragic situation.

  A few minutes after the fall, Peck enters a local bar where the patrons are discussing the “accident.” As he passes a group of imbibers he hears one say that he had once dropped a watermelon from a fourteenth floor window to hear how it sounded when it hit the ground. “All right, how did it sound?” asks his drinking companion. “About the way he did,” is the answer.

  The viewer, along with Peck, hears only the dialogue, since the speakers are not shown. The line is laughed off as a tasteless comment and forgotten. But a few minutes later, the sight of a “flash” headline concerning the victim’s apparent suicide triggers a brief flashback in which Peck “sees” Abel fall some distance toward the street. A direct cut then shows the street some 15 or 20 feet below the camera, and a large watermelon plummets into the shot and splatters on the sidewalk.

  Certainly no stunt man could effectively duplicate the scene, and a dummy in such a situation is completely inadequate. But the watermelon really shatters, dramatizing the effects of a human body hitting the pavement without the negative aspects of gruesomeness. For most viewers it was superior to any possible “real thing,” since it was surprising and shocking, but not repelling. They could see, hear, and accept without “turning off.” In other words, they could remain involved in the film.

  A short time later, Peck is confronted in his apartment by a gunman. During the ensuing conversation Peck surprises the intruder and, in a short fight, renders him unconscious. But we “see” this without seeing it. The scene presented two problems. First, Peck had a chronic back injury which prevented him from undertaking such action, and doubles, in the close quarters imposed by the small apartment, would have been an inadequate substitute. Second, shooting a fight is one of the most troublesome tasks in filming; the lode has been overworked. But another metaphor solved the problem while adding positive values to the scene.

  Early in the sequence, the gunman had switched the TV on to a wrestling match since, as he put it, in this deeply “psycho” era it was the only game remaining where “you can tell who the good guys and the bad guys are.” Now, at the moment that Peck throws himself at the gunman, a cut to the TV set shows the violent climax of the match, culminating in a fall. As the loser is counted out, a cut back shows Peck picking up the unconscious gunman’s legs and dragging him out of the room. The metaphor was a complete surprise, but amusing and welcome, evoking a laugh from viewers and showing some violent action which, where most people are concerned, speaks no more of reality than did the smashed watermelon. And at this point in the film it supplied the obligatory story development.

  There are, of course, opportunities to develop more profound and sophisticated metaphors, but that will never happen unless the writer and the director always keep the possibility of their aesthetic and practical usefulness in mind.

  13

  Time and Illusion

  Albert Einstein wrote, “For us convinced physicists the distinction between past, present, and future is an illusion, although a persistent one.” Mathematically speaking, time can move forward or backward with equal ease and propriety. In our “real” world, however, time plunges ahead relentlessly, and practical men have invented a vast assortment of timekeepers, from sundials and hourglasses to the most precise atomic chronometers, to record time’s metronomic progress. But the more accurate they are as machines the less they accord with human experience, and human experience is the main ingredient of good films, which is why “temporal realism” is such a meaningless phrase.

  Shakespeare wrote, “Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I’ll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.”*

  In reality time is always experienced subjectively. For the fallen fighter the referee’s ten count “gallops withal,” while it seems to stand still for his anxiously hovering opponent. Next Christmas is a quarter of a lifetime in the future for a child of four, while it bears down with indecent haste on the septuagenarian. A prisoner “builds time” with Sundays, laundry changes, and full moons—clocks mean nothing to him. But even in jail, time runs an erratic course; the last week before freedom moves at a somnambulistic snail’s pace, which on occasion is literally too long to take.

  A thousand examples crowd the mind, but the point is that time’s pace varies with the person and, to go behind Shakespeare’s words, with the situation. The filmmaker who ignores this fact is not dealing fully with his story or with his characters, for he should be aware that no other medium can approach his in analyzing and dramatizing the capriciousness of time. To further complicate the problem there is also the viewer factor. Since this is the easiest knot to unravel it will be addressed first, and a bit of film history will serve to simplify the explanation.

  During the “quiet” era, film was exposed at the rate of 60 feet per minute (FPM), but few people knew then, or know now, that it was projected at about 72 FPM.* (In the last few years before sound both speeds were upped a little.) The viewers were quite unaware of the increase in the actors’ speed of movement and accepted it as normal; as far as is known no director attempted to discover why this was so. The question became moot with the advent of sound, which required a fixed projection speed. Picture and sound track, each occupying a separate portion of the same strip of film, were shot and projected at the rate of 90 FPM. They still are.

  But something had changed. “Temporal realism” had asserted itself. The images on the screen now moved at the same pace that the actors had moved on the set—and it was too slow! Leaving the viewer aside for the moment, the first to suffer were the theatrical directors who had been imported to Hollywood on the not unreasonable assumption that they knew a great deal more about dialogue than did the movie directors. What they didn’t know was film pace and screen acting, and in a remarkably short time the stage directors, with a few notable exceptions, were back in New York and most of the film directors were back in the saddle.

  It seems that what plays perfectly on the set is often less than perfect when transferred to the screen. But why? The question has stumped many a filmmaker, and continues to do so. Why is a satisfactory “real” pace often slow and boring on film? Is it because the viewer is more intimately involved with the film’s characters and therefore more concerned with being than with observing; that it is psychologically easier to entertain the actions and ideas of nonthreatening images than those of unpredictable real people, thus

  Shortening time. A series from Greystoke, The Legend of Tarzan depicting the growth of the title character. Photograph courtesy of Warner Brothers, Inc.

  reducing the time needed for understanding and acceptance? Is it simply that the ever-searching camera enables the viewer to see, instantaneously and thoroughly, the full scope of the players’ reactions? Or is it a combination of these and any number of other considerations that alters his perception of the scene’s movement through time? Whatever. The empirical truth is that as a collaborator with shadows the viewer senses meanings more intuitively, understands dialogue more easily, and reacts to both more quickly.

  This difference in sensibility which in the “silents” was accommodated by manipulation of the delivery system must now be managed by delivery, period. Creative film directors have found subtle and indirect ways of eliciting a livelier and more vital pace from their actors while avoiding
the undesirable appearance of “rushing,” though theatrical scripts and method techniques sometimes make their work in this area very difficult.

  A single example will serve to illustrate this particular aspect of subjective time.*

  We were “looping” a scene from The Young Lions. Monty Clift listened to a tape of himself speaking some lines. He looked puzzled and turned to me.

  “That’s not me,” he said, ungrammatically and inaccurately.

  “Of course it is,” I assured him.

  “It can’t be,” he protested. “I’ve never spoken that swiftly in my life.”

  I asked the projectionist to run the tape in sync with the matching picture. He did so, and Clift was finally convinced, though he continued to shake his head throughout the looping session.

  A further refinement of this adjustment in pace is dictated by the development of the story. The film’s opening, for instance, would naturally be presented at normal or near normal speed even if it is an action sequence since the viewer has not yet shed the effects of the real world. He is not yet acquainted with the film’s characters nor is he aware of possible story trends or situations. But as the film progresses so does the viewer’s familiarity with its style, its message, and its people. This growing engagement enhances his ability to think with the film’s characters, even to second-guess them if the filmmaker does not successively speed up his pace to match the viewer’s increased awareness.

  The freedom to manipulate time was recognized during the earliest filming experiments; awareness of the need to manipulate time followed soon after. The Keystone comedies are full of examples of obvious undercranking. Most of these are seen in comic chases. But a close examination discloses instances of very sophisticated time management which are subtle enough to escape notice in casual viewing.

  The desirability of approximating widely varying aspects of subjective time has been recognized by workers in all fields of film and television, including commercials, sports broadcasting, and a host of other genre. The instant replay of an exceptional bit of football action is nothing more than an instant “flashback,” a much maligned but indispensable story device long employed on the screen, and the use of slow motion or stop-frame (which freezes time) to clarify a complex move or play is also common. But there is a world of difference between fiddling with time to satisfy a viewer’s desire to “see it again,” and the manipulation of the rhythm, pace, and direction of time’s passage to effect a vital dramatic design.

  Undercranking to achieve speed is common in almost every kind of action or chase picture and, with the exception of “worst case” examples, it is rarely obvious. When “real” time and talent permit, there will even be planned variations (usually in increase of speed) as excitement builds and the viewer is pulled deeper into the film. And lest a sudden return from “fast” to “normal” result in visual confusion, the finish of such a sequence requires special treatment in bringing the viewer back to earth. The most common ploy is the use of a frozen reaction of shock—to a crash, for instance—which brings both action and time to a dead stop. When movement picks up again, time can resume a neutral pace while the viewer unconsciously re-enters the more or less normal world, both chronologically and emotionally. (It should be mentioned that the proper choice of lens and camera position is an indispensable concomitant of every time-managing technique.)

  Another stratagem for imperceptibly boosting a film’s pace is to curtail the time normally taken to accomplish some familiar action. This does not refer to the so-called “time lapse,” a frequently used editing technique which eliminates minutes, days, weeks, or even years of irrelevant material; what is referred to here is the truncation of time to bring about agreement between an action as it will appear on the screen and the viewer’s routine perception of that action. An example will clarify the concept.

  It has long been known that the normal man or woman is incapable of estimating the passing or duration of time with any accuracy, and the longer the time span guessed at, the greater the degree of error. The filmmaker must learn to use such human inconsistencies to his advantage. Having had occasion to shoot a number of fight sequences—ring battles consisting of a number of precisely measured three minute rounds—I have found it nearly impossible to dramatically sustain more than ninety seconds of action unless a good deal of stalling (resting while clinching, or pointless footwork) was included. Certainly, stalling, clinching, and fancy “dancing” is largely what most fights consist of, but such action, though acceptable in comedy, is not exactly spellbinding. The viewer expects a constant flow of meaningful action, and about ninety seconds of choreographed boxing, with the real but boring stalling eliminated, will usually be accepted by the viewer as a full three minute round. That much playing time will satisfy the viewer, who has no idea he is being short-changed, and will avoid depressing those who find no special delight in the sight of two men pummelling each other into insensibility, even if the plot demands such action.

  Whether achieved by mechanical means or by increased speed of playing, the imposition of an accelerated pace is, or should be, quite common in filmmaking. The opposite effect, an extension of time, is much more difficult to realize and is not often at home on the screen. Slow motion is accomplished only by overcranking and is immediately recognized as an aberration of reality. A further drawback is that it plays against the viewer’s increasing alertness which accompanies the film’s development. But, as usual, there are interesting and valuable exceptions in which obvious aberration of reality is apropos.

  There are at least two situations in which slow motion can be used, sometimes to brilliant effect. The first, and by far the most common, is some variation of the dream or nightmare sequence, usually seen as a montage. The viewer instinctively accepts dreams as upheavals of the subconscious mind, eruptions of suppressed material in which there seems to be no logic and little, if any, continuity in action, personnel, costumes, locations, or time. But he knows that the filmmaker does have a rational resolution in mind, and he

  The author rehearsing a fight scene with Robert Ryan for Behind the Rising Sun. Photograph courtesy of R.K.O. Radio Pictures, Inc.

  accepts the dream’s pictorial realization as a metaphor which applies to some aspect of the ongoing “real” situation and, as all metaphors should, helps to clarify it.

  The problem with this aspect of filmmaking is the extreme difficulty of capturing the sudden and subtle changes which shape most dreams with an instrument devised, as Kracauer put it, for the “redemption of reality.” But when that instrument is properly mastered and bent to the task such montages are pure cinema, pure imagery, which serve not only to illuminate a character’s hidden motivations or misconstrued emotions, but also to greatly shorten the time which would otherwise be needed if the job were done in more pedestrian, and certainly more verbal, terms.

  One of the finest examples of this technique is seen in a short film of Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” made by Enrico in the early 1960s. The dream, which in reality would last no more than a few seconds, takes up the greater part of Bierce’s story and of the 26 minute film version. In it the protagonist, who is being hanged as a spy, imagines (or dreams) that he escapes the noose and, eluding his pursuers, he makes his way toward the safety of his home. As he comes within sight of his haven and his anxious but overjoyed sweetheart, his dream approaches its end; he runs the last hundred yards hopefully, but the length of his strides diminish and become more labored with each step, until he is literally and frantically running in place. Here the telescopic lens, which shows almost no forward progress, and slow motion, which accentuates the laboriousness of his frenzied efforts, are masterfully employed to dramatize the failing mental struggle of the man who, in reality, is in the last seconds of death by hanging.

  As far as I am aware, the second example of slow motion use is a one-of-a-kind examination of a shopworn action situation. The two final segments of a routine TV series, Hugh O’Brian
’s “Wyatt Earp,” were devoted to scrutinizing the 1881 gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. This notorious incident, in which Wyatt Earp, his two brothers and his friend, “Doc” Holliday, faced a group of trouble-making cowboys (usually but erroneously called “The Clantons”) has been either factually or fictionally used in dozens of Westerns. But the sequence generally plays for the suspense leading up to the confrontation. Like most climaxes, the fight itself does not build emotion—it releases it. The historic gunfight lasted perhaps 20 or 30 seconds. Between 40 and 50 shots were fired at extremely close range. Three cowboys were killed, and Earp’s two brothers were wounded.

  The actual fight, in any version, is over so quickly that nothing but the sound of the barrage, and a few quick clips of barely recognizable men, firing, falling, or fleeing, culminate the sequence. But someone in O’Brian’s company decided that a frame by frame depiction of the gun battle might be more interesting than a confusing fire fight—and so it was.

  During the course of some 20 to 30 minutes every move of every man, every shot from every gun, every hit and every fall, every attempt to escape, was carefully recorded. And since it is a dictum of Western folklore that a fast draw is too rapid for the human eye to follow (and it really is*) all the action was shot in slow motion. Because the treatment of the sequence was an examination rather than a dramatization, this escape from “temporal reality” was accepted as a necessary part of the presentation, and obviously meant for the viewer’s enlightenment. And enlightenment, when skillfully presented, can also be entertainment.

  A still different kind of time delay is sometimes needed to maintain the clarity of action or plot. All viewers are acquainted with the “in-the-meantime” convention, but a related and more complex situation requires an arbitrary postponement of one action sequence, which in real time takes place in concurrence with another, in order to maintain continuity of both. An ideal example of this technique is seen in that very fine production, Witness.