Then there are a number of transitional devices for getting from one shot to another. By far the most common, used for the vast majority of transitions, is the cut. You see an image on the screen, and snap! it's not there; another image is there in its place. It's called a cut because originally when film was edited—and this has only changed in the last few years—the film stock was literally cut and then spliced together with the image that followed.
And, of course, shots are connected into scenes and scenes are developed into sequences. Scenes are unified actions occurring in a single time and place—maybe a single shot, more likely a group of shots. A sequence is a group of scenes comprising a dramatic segment of a film.
These concepts describe not only the inevitable flow of film but also the narrative voice as picture maker. These pictures have a life in time. They begin, they develop, and they end in equivalents of the filmic concepts. As in film, it is the manipulation of these "shots" accumulating into "scenes" and
"sequences" that creates meaning and produces the rhythm of the voice of the narrator.
The narrative voice in fiction is always adjusting our view of the physical world it creates, which is equivalent to another group of film techniques on a continuum from extreme long shot to extreme close-up, and the many stages in between. The long shot, the medium shot, the close-up, the extreme close-up—you can slice that sausage as fine as you wish. The narrative voice always places our reader's consciousness at a certain distance from the images it's creating. It can place us at a far distance or bring us into a position of intimate proximity by its choice of detail, by what it lets through the camera lens.
Not only do fiction and film adjust us in terms of our physical relationship to the image, they are also constantly adjusting our sense of time. Fiction and film both often speed time up or slow it down, operating in slow motion and fast motion. You're familiar with the moment when the lovers are finally reunited and they run to each other in slow motion across the plaza or the meadow. In the late sixties or early seventies Sam Peckinpah invented slow-motion violence—at the end of the Western The Wild Bunch, for example, when a gang of criminals all get blown away in excruciating slow motion. That technique has by now become a filmic clich6: every bullet's impact is in lugubrious slow motion.
Fast motion in film, however, is almost always comic in effect. Some filmmakers have tried to overcome the comic uses of fast motion, but without much success. A wonderful and deadly serious early silent film, Nosferatu, has a sequence in fast motion when Nosferatu's coffin arrives from abroad and is taken
off the ship and carried into the hearse—and it looks comic. I can't think of an example in modern filmmaking where fast motion is used except for comic effect. In fiction, though, fast motion can be used with an infinite variety of emotional nuance.
The last film technique I want to lay on the table for you Is one of the most crucial. It's called montage. Montage is a concept developed by Sergey Eisenstein, a great Russian early film director. Simply put, montage creates meaning by placing two things next to each other, juxtaposing elements. In a work of art everything is laden with affect, and whenever you put two of anything next to each other, a third thing emerges; that's what montage is about. If you see an image on the screen of a grassy slope and a freshly dug and refilled grave, and we cut to a woman in black walking slowly down a gravel path beneath some trees, the montage leads you instantly to understand that this woman has left a loved one in the grave she just visited. In film the juxtaposed elements are most often visual, but in fiction the flexibility is almost infinite.
Let's look at some examples now. I'm going to start with a piece from a short story by Hemingway, "Cat in the Rain." I want you to just listen to the flow here of Hemingway's narrative voice, and then we'll come back to it and examine it in cinematic terms.
The American wife stood at the window looking out. Outside right under their window a cat was crouched under one of the dripping green tables. The cat was trying to make herself so compact that she would not be dripped on.
"I'm going down and get that kitty," the American wife said.
"I'll do it," her husband offered from the bed.
"No, I'll get it. The poor kitty out trying to keep dry under a table."
The husband went on reading, lying propped up with the two pillows at the foot of the bed.
"Don't get wet," he said.
"The American wife stood at the window looking out." Hemingway here evokes the full figure of the wife standing at the window. In interior terms, it's a kind of medium long shot. We see her fully from across the room.
"Outside right under their window a cat was crouched under one of the dripping green tables." What has happened here? We have now cut to what she is seeing. You understand this same technique when you're watching a movie: in Out of Africa, you see Robert Redford's face on the screen. He looks. Cut. We now see a lion bounding toward the camera. We understand that this is what he is seeing because of that montage: Robert Redford's face, a Hon coming this way; and the third thing emerges. The most deprived, illiterate youngster understands this.
Hemingway has just used the same technique. "The American wife stood at the window looking out," and "Outside right under their window a cat was crouched under one of the dripping green tables." We see that cat, again in a kind of medium long shot, the table and the rain and the cat underneath. How many inexperienced writers, having written "The American wife stood at the window looking out," and now wanting us to understand what she's seeing, are going to put her back into the next sentence? "The American wife stood at the window looking out. She watched a cat crouching under one of the dripping green tables." Right? You now have a slack, awkward run of prose. It is as if, in the film, we see Robert Redford's face on the screen. Cut. Now we see the lion bounding this way, but in the foreground is the back of Robert Redford's head. Can you imagine the awkwardness of that shot? Yet we all write sentences with that kind of built-in awkwardness, when we don't need "her" in the sentence; montage takes care of it much more elegantly and powerfully.
"Outside right under their window a cat was crouched under one of the dripping green tables. The cat was trying to make herself so compact that she would not be dripped on." What just happened? We zoom in for a close-up on the cat.
" 'I'm going down and get that kitty,' the American wife said." How many times in film have you seen an image, and then a line of dialogue, somebody's voice coming in over that image, and then an image of the speaker? Images linger and other images come in on top. This is all happening very fast, but I promise you it's happening as you read, and it's exactly what Hemingway does here. The dialogue tag doesn't come until the end; first it's a voice, then we know who speaks. There's an after-image of the cat until Hemingway puts in the character.
" 'I'll do it,' her husband offered from the bed." Notice that we don't have any equivalent to "The American wife stood at the window." We know he's on the bed but don't know what his physical position is; we do not see him fully, and so for the moment it's a close up of him as he speaks.
" 'No, I'll get it. The poor kitty out trying to keep dry under a table.'" No dialogue tag this time. So we stay with him as her voice floats through. We know it's her because of the conventions of paragraphing in dialogue. But our attention is not brought back to her. We stay with him, and we're still close on him. And then, the husband "went on reading, lying propped up with the two pillows at the foot of the bed." The camera pulls back slowly, revealing him finally in full figure, reading and lying propped up at the foot of the bed." 'Don't get wet,' he said."
When I read that, a number of you smiled. Why? Because he has not moved a muscle. You do not have to say, "I'll do it," her husband offered insincerely from the bed. You do not need to abstract that, because all of the affect is embedded in the cin-ematically sensual way Hemingway directs the scene. The revelation comes through montage. The husband says "I'll do it," we see him lying there doing nothing, and next comes, "
Don't get wet." It's raining out; of course she's going to get wet.
So much is said about the relationship in so few words!— because Hemingway was a brilliant filmmaker.
Fast action, slow motion: what I want to show you now is how these venerable film techniques have always worked for us writers of narrative. This passage is from the Book of Judges, twenty-five hundred years old. The Old Testament— King James Version, of course. The passage is self-explanatory except for the character of Sisera—a bad guy who's bringing his armies to face Israel.
Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be; blessed shall she be above women in the tent.
He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish.
She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen's hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.
At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet, he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead.
The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming?
This is utterly cinematic: ". .. he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet, he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead." That is slow-motion violence a la Sam Peckinpah. He is falling forever. And then that wonderful cut, that wonderful bit of montage, sans transitional device: ". .. he fell down dead"; "The mother of Sisera looked out at a window ..." You can see the latticework, the shadow of it on her face. "Why is his chariot so long in coming?" He should be finished raping and pillaging by now. Time for dinner.
Next I want to read you a little bit of Henry James with some ellipses in it. I want to give you a cheek-by-jowl example of three speeds in a brief section of "The Siege of London." Here is an example of appropriate summary—I've used summary as an epithet in these lectures, but the summary that's destructive races through what needs to be done in the moment; it is summary that has no sensual impact on the reader. Sensual, carefully and judiciously used summary can be effective and, indeed, is how you mostly achieve fast motion—fast action—in fiction.
The "glass" referred to here is an opera glass; that is, a little pair of binoculars.
That solemn piece of upholstery, the curtain of the Comedie Francaise, had fallen upon the first act of the piece, and our two Americans had taken advantage of the interval to pass out of the huge, hot theatre, in company with the other occupants of the stalls . . .
She turned . . . and presented her face to the public—a fair, well-drawn face, with smiling eyes, smiling lips, ornamented over the brow with delicate rings of black hair and, in each ear, with the sparkle of a diamond sufficiently large to be seen across the Theatre Francais . ..
Littlemore looked at her, then abruptly he gave an exclamation. "Give me the glass!"
"Do you know her?" his companion asked, as he directed the little instrument.
Littlemore made no answer; he only looked in silence; then he handed back the glass. "No, she's not respectable," he said. And he dropped into his seat again. As Waterville remained standing, he added, "Please sit down; I think she saw me."
Now this is the great thing about fiction. We can move from fast action to slow motion to real time seamlessly and with great nuance. The first part of that was fast action—"that solemn piece of upholstery"—it's summary but with wonderful sensual impact—that heavy, roughly textured thing. ". . . the curtain of the Comedie Francaise, had fallen upon the first act , . . and our two Americans had taken advantage of the interval to pass out of the huge, hot theatre, in company with the other occupants of the stalls." He never lets go of the image in our minds but we move quickly. Then time stops. We examine her face in very slow motion. "She turned . .. and presented her face to the public," and there's this lovely little bit of close examination: "... a fair, well-drawn face, with smiling eyes, smiling lips, ornamented over the brow with delicate rings of black hair and, in each ear, with the sparkle of a diamond . .." Then we shift into real time, the moment-to-moment time that is your normal speed as fiction writers. The normal speed, I emphasize.
"Littlemore looked at her, then abruptly he gave an exclamation. 'Give me the glass!'" We watch him sit down. We watch the handing of the glass. We hear the words of their exchange. It's all in real time there.
Next I'm going to give an example from the writer who taught D. W. Griffith everything he knew about film. This is the opening of the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Our narrator, Philip Pirrip, is writing in his adulthood, looking back to his childhood as an orphan, and he refers to himself sometimes in the third person, sometimes in the first person. During his childhood he was called Pip. The
people mentioned here are his dead siblings and his parents. Just go to the movies:
Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, Late of the Parish, and Also Georgiana Wife of the Above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry was Pip.
"Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. "Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!"
A fearful man, all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed
by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.
"Oh, don't cut my throat, sir," I pleaded in terror. "Pray don't do it, sir."
"Tell us your name," said the man. "Quick!"
"Pip, sir."
"Once more," said the man, staring at me. "Give it mouth!"
"Pip. Pip, sir."
"Show us where you live," said the man. "Pint out the place!"
I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat inshore, among the alder-trees and pollards, a mile or more from the church.
The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When the church came to itself—for he was so sudden and strong that he made it go head over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my feet—when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high tombstone, trembling, while he ate the bread ravenously.
Dickens begins with what they call the establishing shot. We're at "a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard ..." We get a long shot in the gathering dark of the churchyard. And then, what does Dickens do? He cuts to close-ups and pans one after another along the tombstones—as we can tell from the formal phrasing "Late of the parish":
. . . that Philip Pirrip, Late of the Parish, and Also Georgiana Wife of the Above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried.
These are, in fact, the graves of Pip's dead father, his dead mother, and dead brother, dead brother, dead brother, dead brother, dead brother—one after another.
You see the absolutely essential quality of fiction-as-film when you see
what he does then. We go from that last dead brother to what?
. . . and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes . . .
He lifts his camera from the dead brother and looks off to a long shot out over the mounds and gates and dikes to the marshes, beyond the churchyard, and then where?
. . . and that the low, leaden line beyond was the river. . .
Then we go to an even longer shot:
... and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing was the sea . . .
He takes us to an extreme shot at the farthest horizon. Then what? He cuts from that distant horizon to a close-up of the orphan child, the narrator of our novel, "the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry was Pip."
How many writers would do this, with perfect logic?
My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, Late of the Parish, and Also Georgiana Wife of the Above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry was Pip.
Perfectly logical. Perfectly thoughtful. Dead father, dead mother, dead brother, dead brother, dead brother, dead brother, dead brother, last remaining child of the family.
Montage, of course. But in such a novel, where you went from the last dead brother to the remaining child, you would be in a totally different world from the one that Dickens is creating. You would be in a world where the focus is on the plight of an orphan, a family in trouble—a sociological problem, a sentimental tale of a struggling child.
Dickens's world is about something far greater, and Pip does not yearn for a family; he yearns for his destiny. When you move from that last dead child to the marshes and the river and to the far horizon, and the whole sensual world is bleak and empty and mysterious, and there's a dark wind blowing from that far horizon, and then you cut to the child—that montage creates something utterly different, a world in which the issue is not just, "Gosh, I don't have parents. I'm a kid struggling," but "I am a human soul trying to work out the destiny of my existence."
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