No title

WINTER 1967-68

CINEMA

JOURNAL

Lewis Jacobs: World War II and the American Film Paul Falkenberg: The Editor's Role in Film Making Gerald Noxon: The Bayeux Tapestry.... Book Reviews

CINEMA JOURNAL

Volume VII, Winter, 1967-68. Journal of the Society of Cinematologists.

Contents: World War II and the American Film, by Lewis Jacobs

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The Editor's Role in Film Making, by Paul Falkenberg

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The Bayeux Tapestry, by Gerald Noxon

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Book Reviews

36

Cinema Journal Notes: Annual Meeting

39

Contributors

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Staff: Editor: Richard Dyer MacCann, University of Kansas. Associate Editors: Arthur Knight, University of Southern California. Jack C. Ellis, Northwestern University. William Sloan, New York Public Library.

Printed at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66044. Editorial office: 217 Flint Hall. Additional copies, $2.00, from Gerald Noxon, 21 Maple Avenue, Bridgewater, Mass. 02324.

WorldWarII and the AmericanFilm Lewis Jacobs

In the late 1930's, the challenge of totalitarianism, followed by America's involvement in World War II, altered the aims and purposes of the American film and provided it with new subjects and themes. Until 1942, most Hollywood movies were escapist entertainment, which aimed to distract a spellbound public from agonizing radio and newspaper reports about the Axis partners' expansion in Europe. But in response to President Roosevelt's growing concern with foreign policy and his determined efforts in 1938 and 1939 to break the bonds of American isolationism, the screen began cautiously to report on fascism at home and abroad. In 1940 and 1941, as military events in Europe moved swiftly, bringing war closer to the United States, Hollywood stepped up its own belligerency and military spirit and became impatient for intervention. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which catapulted the United States into a global conflict, the motion picture industry became totally engaged in the obligations and demands of a government at war. From 1942 until the end of the war three years later, the American film served as a potent instrument of national policy. With sweeping obeisance to military necessity, the screen helped to transform the social, political and military attitudes of an embattled nation, while promoting the aims and goals of the war effort. Before the outbreak of war in Europe in September, 1939, the bulk of American movies consisted of musicals in various hybrid forms. The country was deluged with comedy and humor, with sophisticated romances, deft melodramas, adventure tales and Westerns, and only occasionally was there a glance at some serious domestic problem touching the lives of most Americans. The dangers of encroaching fascism as a dramatic subject for films was avoided as non-existent. Even when the fanatical dictatorships came to be recognized and labeled for what they were, American film-makerswere reluctant to deal with the growing threat to the United States. Isolationist sentiment and potent pacifist groups, added to the government's pledges of neutrality, proved powerful restraining forces. No major film company, without the sanction of national policy, was bold enough to treat the subject of dictatorships and their aggressive atrocities, or the growing expansion of their ideological adherents.1 1. During this same period however, a number of independent documentary film makers were reporting on the rising threat of fascism abroad. Joris Ivens and Ernest Hemingway made The Spanish Earth (1937), behind the Loyalist lines during the Spanish Civil War. Herbert Kline and Alexander Hammid in Crisis (1938), reported the disintegration of Czechoslovakia after the Munich pact. The same team documented the hostilities in Poland and their effect on London in Lights Out in Europe (1939-40).

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It wasn't until after Hitler had seized Czechoslovakia; Japan had taken over the Spratly Islands in the Pacific; Mussolini had snatched up Albania; Franco had captured Madrid; and Roosevelt had reacted by arousing the government to reexamine its neutrality legislation that the American screen broke its complacency about political events. In the spring of 1939, Confessions of a Nazi Spy struck out sharply against fascism. It was the first response to the political tensions of the time. It documented the spread of Nazi ideology in the United States and bluntly warned against a Fascist Fifth Column raising a direct challenge to democracy. The real dangers of the German-American Bund and the undercover activities of the German steamship lines were both underlined. So incendiary were the film's revelations that many people attacked it as propaganda and war-mongering, while others regarded its shocking disclosures as long overdue. What made Confessions of a Nazi Spy so disturbing was its timing. American nerves were taut, and feeling was running high over Hitler's ruthless aggression in Europe. The F.B.I. had arrested a number of Nazi agents operating in the United States. Fritz Kuhn, head of the American Bund, threatened a $5,000,000 libel suit against the producers of the film. "We are loyal Americans," he claimed, "organized to uphold the Constitution of the United States." The German Consulate called the picture part of an American conspiracy. Many South American countries favorable to fascism immediately banned the movie. Its producers, the Warner Brothers, were said to have received murder threats for making it. The film's depiction of Nazi groups draping together the American flag and the swastika and saluting them with "Heil Hitler" at a time when the Third Reich's contempt for democracy was common knowledge came as a shocking provocation to that public which abhorred totalitarianism. Despite this early attempt to deal firmly with material that was uppermost in the minds of millions of Americans glued to daily radio reports of fascist successes abroad, it was almost a year before Hollywood's neutrality finally began to fall apart. In the spring of 1940, Germany invaded Denmark, overran Norway, swarmed through the Low Countries, drove the British armies out of France, outflanked the Maginot Line and forced the Third French Republic to surrender. America was stunned. President Roosevelt called for a vast increase in armaments and a crisis-government of national unity. All illusions about pacifism, neutrality, and America's impregnability were shattered. Alarmed by the increasing signs of the coming showdown, Walter Lippman warned the nation: "Our duty is to begin acting at once on the basic assumption that ... before the snow flies again we may stand alone and isolated, the last great Democracy on earth."2 Thereafter, fascism would be attacked more and more on the American screen. FROM NONFICTION TO DRAMA

In a mild way, newsreels had already taken tentative steps toward revealing the Third Reich's ideology of assault. Throughout the late thirties, cameramen filmed first-hand reports of Hitler's take-over of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Po2. New York Herald Tribune, June 23, 1940.

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land; the British and French declarations of war; the German conquest of Norway, Holland, Belgium, France; and finally the beginning of the Battle of Britain. As events abroad brought the conflict closer to the United States, the early objectivity and neutrality which newsreel producers had maintained, collapsed. With the increasingly martial tone of the administration, they directed their cameras toward documenting the growing program of collective security and aid to Britain-toward informing, guiding and encouraging public sentiment to "defend America by aiding the allies." Every phase of United States preparedness began to be magnified with praise: military training, army and navy maneuvers, the air force's dive-bombing tactics. Nor was the labor front neglected, the production of tanks, guns and planes; civilian defense; USO activities. The fighting spirit of Roosevelt was praised as well as the High Command and the Allied prosecution of the war. This was a period of "inspirational" and morale-building journalism which featured scenes of patriotic parades, town meetings, recruits leaving for camp, destroyers being launched, pilots receiving commissions, graduation exercises at West Point and Annapolis. Defense preparations were made to seem glamorous, fun, sporting, a kind of "national frolic." By contrast, British activities were reported to make a more pathetic appeal to the emotions. Prominent personalities, including Churchill, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and others, were shown calling for our "unstinting help." Historic places of interest, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, 10 Downing Street, various cathedrals were photographed accompanied by sad music. Pathetic shots showed London's populace crowded into subway shelters to escape German bombing, while the sound track pointed out the urgency of "all-out" aid to Britain. Newsreels showing what the war overseas was really like, or the emotions of the man doing the actual fighting were understandably absent. Instead there were pictures of troops and material in transport, "atmosphere" glimpses of the various fronts, political and military leaders addressing their people-tangible evidence of the urgency of the situation. Battle views and scenes of violence and death were scanty. The lack of such material was due less to the shortcomings of combat cameramen than to the various governments' control of what should be released and what should not. A few white-heat documentaries did manage to break through the restrictions imposed on newsreel reporting to capture the human depravities and wreckage of war. The Scuttling of the Graf Spee, The Siege of Narvik and the Retreat from Dunkirk were vivid examples of superior camera journalism and gave American movie-goers sobering insights into war's grim reality and the course the conflict was taking. Despite the fact that America was evidently backing the Allies, official neutrality was indicated by the showing of foreign documentaries based on current events, both those made by the Allies and those by the enemy. Four of the most impressive, two made by England and two by Germany, were given wide distribution in the United States. The British The Lion Has Wings (1940), showed the determination and courage of the R.A.F. to carry on with confidence despite the perilous situation; London Can Take It (1940), reported on the human fortitude

4 / CINEMAJOURNAL and dignity of English people during a day and night raid on the British capital. The German Baptism of Fire (1940) presented a terrifying account of the blitzkrieg into Poland; Victory in the West (1941) dramatized the collapse of France and the triumph and march of fascism. Special versions of both these Nazi pictures were used by the Third Reich to celebrate German victories, emphasize Nazi invincibility, and impress foreign governments with the futility of resistance. Nearly a year passed after the appearance of Confessions of a Nazi Spy before Hollywood finally found the courage to dramatize some of the "dreadful commonplaces" of the newsreels, printed pages and radio. The Mortal Storm (1940), adapted from a best-selling novel by Phyllis Bottome, threw a harsh light "upon matters of which most informed people had long since been painfully aware"3 namely, the ruthless wave of barbarism set in motion by Hitler's legions. The plot dealt with a celebrated Jewish professor in a German university who, in the face of the rising tide of National Socialism, refuses to retract his scientific explanation that the composition of human blood is the same for all races. He is sent to a concentration camp and his own son turns against him. His daughter attempts to escape across the border to freedom, with the help of a friend who is in love with her. They are intercepted by a Nazi patrol led by the girl's former suitor, who has become a fanatic party officer. The girl is shot. This was the first American feature with a story that took place inside Nazi Germany itself, calling Hitler by name, and showing the growing belligerency of National Socialism, the onset of oppressive measures against real or potential antiNazis, and the terror tactics and persecutions of the innocent by Storm Troopers during the early years of the Nazi regime. The prevailing temper of public opinion of that day was defined by Bosley Crowther, who asked: "Where was Hollywood when the lights in Germany went out? ... The most distressing thing about this heart rending picture is that it reaches the screen so late, so unfortunately late . .. The Mortal Storm is the sort of picture we should have seen five years ago."4 Once a start had been made, however, other belated efforts to expose Nazi malevolence and speak out against German atrocities soon followed. Four Sons (1940) was an anguished account of the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Storm Troopers, pitting brother against brother with the swastika dividing them. The Man I Married (1940) stressed, through the eyes of an American woman, the difference between the old Germany and the evils of the Third Reich. Escape (1940), based on Ethel Vance's novel of Nazi Germany, indicted the authoritarian system by dramatizing the escape of a famous actress from a Nazi prison. So Ends Our Night (1941) was a compassionate drama of refugees fleeing from Hitler's persecution, forced out of one country after another for lack of passports, living in constant fear and suppression. Manhunt (1941), directed by Fritz Lang, exposed the international network set in motion against a man who had tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler, and thus showed the long reach of Nazi conspirators. President Roosevelt's decision to "scrape the bottom of the barrel," in order to 3. Bosley Crowther, New York Times, June 23, 1940. 4. Ibid.

CINEMA JOURNAL/ 5 help England after the shattered retreat of the remnants of her army from Dunkirk, removed the last vestiges of strict American neutrality. The growing belligerency gave rise to movies that focused more and more on the need for readiness. From the pictorial rendering of the cruelties of the growing Nazi challenge, the screen moved to a more forthright demand for American preparedness. A strong plea to get ready to go to war again against the old enemy was made The Ramparts We Watch (1940), whose producers, The March of Time, beby lieved "that the war shadow darkens America in 1940 just as ominously as it did in 1914." A foreword read: "The war we so thankfully consigned to history-the World War we wrapped in old newspapers and laid away for posterity to look back on-has suddenly become very much alive." The picture itself was a reconstructed journalistic film-study of people in a typical American community (New London, Connecticut) during the World War I years, 1914-1918. It was composed of old newsreels and film from army archives, interspersed with shots of prominent personalities of the first world war-many from private collections-and scenes staged with non-actors from various occupations and social spheres. The film made a studious effort to be factual and informative. Its tone of objectivity, intended to give viewers "a clearer understanding of where America's foot belongs in the world today," was supported by a narration that described imperial Germany's overbearing arrogance until America's patience was exhausted and we were forced into the war to make the world safe for democracy. A final section made the point that Manchuria's invasion by Japan in 1931 sowed the seeds of World War II, for that led to Mussolini's grab of Ethiopia and Germany's rearming. There was no mention of the war in Spain, the Munich Pact, or other significant political developments that influenced the course of events leading to the current conflict. The focus was on military preparedness against a former foe. Reinforcement of the same theme appeared in The World in Flames (1940), a "super-newsreel" made by Paramount and presented as "a documentation of events which set the stage for the present struggle." The political, economic, and sociological highlights of the past decades leading up to the war in Europe were reported. But like its journalistic predecessor, the past was arranged in a perspective that intended to give the public a "visual conception of the war's background" and make clear the urgent necessity to arm in defense of a democratic way of life. The production of such "informative" pictures reflected the gradual shift in national temper toward intervention and belligerency. By the fall of 1940 events in Europe had moved so swiftly that the Burke-Wadsworth bill was passed, bringing in the first peacetime draft in American history. HITCHCOCK AND CHAPLIN

Within months of each other, two films appeared clearly aimed at making the United States aware of the perils of isolation and the need to come to the aid of a nearly exhausted England in a common cause. Foreign Correspondent (1940), set in Europe immediately before the war and after England's declaration of war on Germany, had all the notable suspense ingredients that had won a reputation for

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Alfred Hitchcock's direction in his earlier British thrillers. The story was of an American newspaperman reporting on the impending war in Europe. At a public ceremony, he witnesses what he thinks is the assassination of a famous Dutch statesman and peace crusader, who has information of a secret treaty which the Nazis are after. When the reporter tries to learn the truth of the killing, he becomes involved in a net of Nazi espionage. His life is endangered and he narrowly escapes being murdered several times. Finally he uncovers a Nazi spy-ring hiding behind a peace crusade. The film concludes with a fervent radio broadcast by the reporter in which he appeals to the United States to arm herself. "The lights are going out in Europe," he warns from a blacked-out London during a raid. "Ring yourself around with steel, Americal" The film's release coincided with the air-blitz on London, giving it added urgency and authenticity. Another forthright and more brilliant picture, with the similar purpose of arousing American public opinion against the fascist enemy, was Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940). Through a comic approach, using mockery, irony and satire, the film attempted to dissect the Axis partners, Hitler and Mussolini, and their political ideology. Although the picture cost more than $2,000,000 and was financed by himself, Chaplin's motivation for making it, he declared, was not commercial but out of a sense of mission. "If I lose on this picture it won't matter," he told the reporter Ella Winter. "What have I worked for all my life ... if not to gain the independence to make my own picture as I like ... ?"5 Both people sympathetic to Hitler and well-meaning pacifists tried to exert pressure to stop the film's production. Friends and admirers of Chaplin wrote letters and made telephone calls saying it would be unwise "to hurt Hitler's feelings." Crank notes and threats to throw stink bombs in any theater where the film played, to shoot up the screen and create riots, were other common annoyances. There were also frantic entreaties from Chaplin's business office in New York to abandon the project because it was bad business and because the film would never be shown in America and England. But Chaplin ignored all endeavors to keep him from carrying through the picture's completion. "If they won't give theaters to show my picture," he said, "I'll show it myself. In tents. I'll charge 10 cents straight. I'd like to do that anyway, so that everyone can go and see it."6 Whether its making was an act of courage or not, The Great Dictator finally emerged from the welter of gossip and secrecy to be premiered simultaneously at two Broadway theaters on October 15th, 1940. No other film Chaplin ever made had roused greater expectations. The prospect of the little tramp with the small mustache-the most universally loved character in the world-using his talent to mock the abnormality of "the most dangerous man in the world"7 loomed as a savage joke, a superb paradox. But Chaplin brought it off triumphantly. For the first time in his career, Chaplin no longer played the wistful jaunty figure who hopes for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. On the contrary, the dual role of barber and dictator was a new character, and tragically realistic. The subject, which many thought "too grim for jesting," expressed Chaplin's commitments in 5. Friday Magazine, August 30, 1940. 6. Ibid. 7. New York Times, October 20, 1940.

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the political arena of the day. The film was his way of saying to the public at large in his own medium what he had been saying in speeches at rallies and to friends in private-commitments which were to bring him much personal abuse and criticism. The story of The Great Dictator tells of an obscure Jewish barber who, as the result of a shock received in the first world war, becomes an amnesia victim. After a prolonged stay in an institution for treatment, he escapes and returns to his barber shop in the ghetto, not knowing that his country is now in the hands of a ruthless dictatorship. When he naively attempts to oppose the raids and persecution of Jews by storm troopers, he is beaten and sent to a concentration camp. Again he escapes and travels toward the border to try and cross into what he thinks is a friendlier land. When he is caught, he's mistaken for Hynkel, the tyrannical dictator whom he closely resembles, and who has just annexed the neighboring state. Pushed upon a platform to deliver the conqueror's speech, he makes instead an impassioned appeal against hate and dictatorship, urging people to unite in the name of democracy and "fight for a new world-a decent world." The picture was a trenchant and grandiloquent satire-daring to lampoon dictatorship, tyranny, and oppression, and to strike a blow at Hitler's image at the very height of his seeming invincibility. At the same time, it was also a tragi-comic fantasy of man's inhumanity to man, with a passionate plea for the return of world sanity and an end to the barriers to universal peace. It tried to pillory the German and Italian dictatorships and their totalitarian philosophy by sheer ridicule. Chaplin, displaying brilliant comic verve, shifts back and forth from barber to dictator with bits of pantomime and withering mimicry, drawing violent contrast between the good little man and the evil tyrant. As the barber, Chaplin has a memorable scene in which he shaves a customer to the rhythms of Lizst's "Hungarian Rhapsody." In another comic conceit, the barber and four friends of the ghetto draw lots to decide who is to be the assassin by eating puddings containing coins in them. But it was as the ranting and petulant dictator that Chaplin created one of his most memorable and devastating caricatures. With almost surgical precision he laid bare all the recognizable traits of Adolf Hitler in a ridiculous Adenoid Hynkel: the affected hand salutes, the ludicrous attitudes, the sudden maniacal fits of rage, the quick starts and jumps of piano-playing, the weeping, the delusions of grandeur, the mesmeric bursts of guttural oratory (a compound of double talk and nonsense). One of the high points of Chaplin's performance was a plaintive dance done with a large balloon representing the globe, mocking Hitler's dream of world conquest. To the accompaniment of ethereal music, Hynkel playfully toys with the balloon, bouncing it into the air, pirouetting beneath it, caressing it with tender affection, until the balloon suddenly explodes in his face. At this, the would-be conqueror of the world bursts into tears, reminding us of the hysterical, slightly deranged malice of an adolescent unable to control his feelings. The sequence forecast what in a few years would in effect happen, even to suggesting Hitler's own demoniacal self-destruction.

8 / CINEMA JOURNAL In sharp contrast to the comic vein of the picture as a whole is the seriousness of the final scene-a four minute speech of Chaplin's credo and his belief in humanity-which aroused the ire of many critics. They called the conclusion "bewildering," outright propaganda," "a shock," or complained that it "spoiled the unity of the picture." An unconventional social and political peroration to come from the screen, it was presumably addressed to the soldiers who were the victims of dictatorships. Yet it also served as a dramatic strategem to strike at the conscience of America. England had been undergoing savage assaults by the Luftwaffe and anticipated an imminent invasion. The speech, delivered by Chaplin with great sincerity and feeling, was his way of articulating his hatred of warmongers and of appealing to America by playing on her sense of compassion and her common heritage with England, for immediate aid to embattled Britain. "... Brutes have risen to power," he says with vehemence. "... Dictators freed themselves but they enslaved the people!" Then, with passionate intensity, he pleads: "Soldiers! In the name of democracy, let us unite!" Chaplin vigorously defended his ending of The Great Dictator. He said it was pretty much what he meant it to be. "I had a story to tell and something I wanted very much to say. I said it.... The picture is two hours and seven minutes in length. If two hours and three minutes of it is comedy, may I not be excused for ending my comedy on a note that reflects honestly and realistically, the world in which we live, and may I not be excused in pleading for a better world?"8 What Chaplin said in The Great Dictator was what he had been saying in his other films. "It is the story of the little fellow that I have told and retold all my life. But it has a viewpoint, as much a viewpoint as Uncle Tom's Cabin or Oliver Twist had in their time ... I didn't pull punches .. nor attempt to temporize with something most of us feel so deeply."9 TRANSITIONTO WAR

As protests for neutrality faded and more of America began to favor all-out aid to England, a large variety of movies mirrored the determined national viewpoint. Melodramas, plots about spies, saboteurs, stories of manhunts, escapes, and also comedies and satires about military training became predominantly warminded. Pictures glorifying our combative deterrents-the new planes, tanks, dive bombers, anti-aircraft weapons-and the men serving in the army, navy, and air force now began to fill the screens. Flight Command (1940) was produced with the "gratefully acknowledged cooperation of the U.S. Navy." The movie, though wrapped around a weak story of an ensign accused by his shipmates of carrying on an affair with the commander's wife, actually described the training of a fighter air squadron-zooming through maneuvers, performing target practice, taking off and landing on carriers, testing fog-landing devices. I Wanted Wings (1941), which depicted the training of army pilots, went into production right after Roosevelt's call for 80,000 planes a year 8. New York Times, October 27, 1940. 9. Ibid.

CINEMA / 9 JOURNAL and was made with the cooperation of the Army Air Force. In it, much of the government's new air equipment, including Flying Fortresses, was photographed for the first time. The story, which dramatized the military virtue of obedience, was plotted around the reckless stunts of three student flyers from three different walks of life-a socialite, a football hero and a mechanic-who were in training for their wings. Dive Bomber (1941) was concerned with research into the causes of "blackouts" in dive bombing and Navy Blues (1941) with gunnery practice and marksmanship. The President's proclamation of an unlimited national emergency in April of 1941 set off a wave of pictures, aimed to help several million young men and their families accept more agreeably the disruption in their lives caused by the Selective Service Act. Comedies and satires predominated. They carried such titles as Buck Privates, Caught in the Act, You'll Never Get Rich, Call Out the Marines, Great Guns, "Tanks a Million," You're in the Navy, Keep 'Em Flying and Top Sergeant Mulligan. By the summer of 1941, American pictures had become more militant. Hitler's surprise attack on Russia, the Nazi U-boats' sinking of American ships, and the president's national broadcast ordering the navy to shoot on sight those "rattlesnakes of the Atlantic," had aroused public feeling to a fighting pitch. The screen began to share in the aggressiveness with stories calling for some form of counteraction. Both A Yank in the R.A.F. and International Squadron dramatized the careers of American pilots flying bomber ferries to England. They become so aroused at the bombing of England that they join the Royal Air Force in order to strike back at Germany. Parachute Battalion, Flying Fortress, and Submarine Patrol were "topicals" that gave a man and his country "the guts to fight, even against terrible odds," as one trade paper put it. Voices in the Night and Underground praised the virtues and bravery of rebel groups, operating clandestine radios within the captive nations, who stirred their people to acts of sabotage and resistance against the Nazi oppressor. One of the most effective pictures in the movies' march to war-and perhaps the farthest removed from the typical recruiting poster-was Sergeant York, directed by Howard Hawks. The film was based on the true-life story of America's number-one hero of World War I, and it had a special relevance at a time when the nation was trying to balance a national antipathy to war with a conviction that the Axis had to be stopped. When the draft was called in 1917, York registered as a conscientious objector because his religion had taught him killing was a sin. But in a troubled vigil with himself in which he tried to reconcile his duty to his country and to his God, he came upon the Bible verse which said: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's." Reassured by the holy admonition, York joined the army and went to war. In the battle of the Argonne, he killed twenty-five Germans, captured a machine-gun nest, took a hundred and thirty-two prisoners, and destroyed the enemy's position in a vital sector-practically single-handed. For this incredible feat, York received the highest American and French decorations. Sergeant York became a kind of symbol for a public already deeply instilled

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with the idea of national defense. Appearing at the floodtide of pro-war films advocating preparedness, it was perhaps the strongest of them in preaching the necessity for taking up arms in the nation's defense. By showing what happened to an average American who, though he read his Bible and was a pacifist, yet became a war hero, the film subtly and astutely rallied popular feeling for participation in the war. The contemporary impact of the theme, the simplicity of treatment, the fidelity to a real event and a real person gave the picture conviction and made it an eloquent advocate for persuading pacifist-minded men to become war recruits. Two months later the sudden and unforeseen attack on Pearl Harbor shocked America into the war and brought to an abrupt end any convictions favoring nonintervention. There was no opportunity now for isolationists-no matter where their political loyalties lay-to hold themselves aloof from the administration's program of internationalism. The impetus of our involvement in war brought a new urgency to the role of the American film. It was no longer necessary for Americans to be told fascism was a threat to America: the surprise attack on December 7th had proved it. Overnight, film studios were mobilized for national defense. On December 18th, the President designated Lowell Mellett to act as coordinator of motion picture affairs for the government. His letter of appointment included the recommendation that he "consult with and advise motion picture producers of ways and means in which they can usefully serve the National Defense effort." A War Activities Committee, made up of producers, theater owners, distributors, actors and labor unions, was formed to establish mutual cooperation in the national interest. The goal was to emotionalize and glorify "the blood, sweat and tears" of war, the sacrifices demanded, and the ends for which America and her allies were fighting. "Though the screen missed its chance to protest against fascism in a manner worthy of its might," wrote Cecelia Ager, film critic for PM, "now it got the opportunity to redeem itself. Now it got the opportunity to exalt democracy in a manner worthy of its might."'0 Keeping in mind the aim of combining purpose with entertainment, six basic categories and themes were suggested by the government to serve as a guide for Hollywood's contribution to the all-out struggle: (1) The Issues of the War: what we are fighting for, the American way of life; (2) The Nature of the Enemy: his ideology, his objectives, his methods; (3) The United Nations: our allies in arms; (4) The Production Front: supplying the materials for victory; (5) The Home Front: civilian responsibility; (6) The Fighting Forces: our armed services, our allies and our associates. In treating these subjects, film-makers were advised that freedom of the screen, like freedom of the press and radio, would be respected. Nevertheless, there were certain responsibilities and obligations arising from the war, and the studios were expected to make the best possible use of the motion picture as "a weapon of democracy," as morale "vitamins," and "for the presentation of the government's message here and elsewhere." 10. Variety, January 7, 1942.

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The first pictures that tried to inject fact into fiction, with the aim of alleviating the emotional anxieties of a warring nation, were naive responses to the officially designated thematic patterns. Attempts to translate the meaning of war and stimulate audience awareness were crude, with the new themes thinned down to the old standardized plots and formulas. The first post-Pearl Harbor films, made in 1942, were still largely the old gangster or G-men melodramas, fitted out with Nazi soldiers, spies, or a war background. Joan of Paris, All Through the Night, Salute to Courage, Dangerously We Live, Saboteur, The Lady has Plans, and any number of other pictures flaunting exhibitionistic bravado failed to meet war on anything approaching serious terms. Captain of the Clouds and To the Shores of Tripoli which showed in detail the training methods of, respectively, the Royal Canadian Air Force and the United States Marines had all the familiar virtues and defects of those recruiting posters which aim to make men out of boys. NERVOUSMESSAGES

Nearly the entire spate of films immediately after Pearl Harbor undersold the issues of war for its sensationalism. By contrast, the modest Joe Smith, American tried to express in homely terms some reason for the conflict. Its story was credible and stemmed from the government's category of production-front themes. A skilled aircraft mechanic who is selected to work on a secret bombsight is kidnaped by enemy agents. When attempted bribery fails to make him reveal the secrets of the new instrument, the worker is beaten and tortured. Eventually he escapes and helps round up his kidnapers. The method by which he and government agents retraced the road to the house where the mechanic had been held captive had the merits of originality, concision, and ingenuity in the use of sound effects. This picture was also the first to deal with defense workers, to show how they lived and felt under the stress of war's responsibilities; and, although it fell short of expectations, gave evidence of honesty, imagination, and awareness of what it was the civilian was fighting for. Two other serious dramas made at this time illustrated the courage of "our allies in arms" in facing up to their war responsibilities. This Above All, based on the war's first best-selling novel, by Eric Knight, told the story of a disillusioned English hero of Dunkirk who deserts to figure out what he was fighting for. He wonders whether he has been risking death for officers who have no right to command beyond the right of birth; and whether the war is not just another "imperialist hoax" that will result in preventing his class from gaining a greater stake in the country they are defending. The picture is centered around a romance and social debate between the lowborn soldier who had gone AWOL and an aristocratic girl who had joined the WAAF. It gave strong expression to the soldier's questions of whether he was fighting for a just cause. The answer that brought him back to duty, however, was the oversimplified argument that "England must first be saved before she can be reformed." If the picture was weakest in its case for blind patriotism, it did argue vehemently against the Cliveden set's reactionary attitude toward the war, and against snobbish, superior members of the upper class. Unfortunately, the

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involved subject of social classes in war was focused in speeches rather than in any kind of authentic action. If This Above All missed the high goal for which it aimed, Mrs. Miniver didn't fumble in its aim or message and emerged as one of the most articulate pictures of the day. Without talking or preaching about upper class snobbery, heroism, British tradition, or patriotism, it quietly dramatized these qualities through the humor and pathos of a middle-class family in war-time England. When Mrs. Miniver's husband was awakened at two o'clock in the morning to help in the rescue of the British army from Dunkirk-when she watched her son, a pilot in the RAF, fly across the channel each night toward Germany-when she unexpectedly captured a sick and starving German pilot who had crashed and who reminded her of her son-when she witnessed her son's bride of a few weeks shot down by a stray bullet-when she comforted her two small children in an air-raid shelter while her home was bombed-the audience felt the quiet courage with which the people of England were meeting the onslaught. Mrs. Miniver's family became the audience's family. And in its own poignant way, William Wyler's picture underlined the things that not only the British but the Americans and the Allied forces were fighting for. It articulated the meaning of a "people's war" most forcefully and through the most potent kind of propaganda. But for one Mrs. Miniver, there were dozens of films that contained less truth, much less discretion, and little respect for war's gravity. Pictures that dealt with the enemy's aim and methods, of which there was a preponderance in the first six months of 1942, unwittingly fostered misconceptions about the real character of the foe as well as the sober facts of war itself: Berlin Correspondent, United We Stand, A Yank in Libya, Danger in the Pacific, Sabotage Squad, Counter-Espionage, Cairo, Submarine Alert, Journey into Fear, Texas to Bataan. Nor did the movies that depicted the production front, such films as Wings For The Eagle, Girl Trouble, Swing Shift, The Tank Called John and Alaska Highway, do justice to America's determination and vigor in a war which differed in character from any war in history. The problems of the home front were treated superficially with light-minded pursuits of women and trivial personal complications. The contents of Blondie For Victory, Tomorrow We Live, The War Against Mrs. Hadley, and other similar films attempting to build morale were hardly commensurate with the motives and issues of the conflict. An exception was Journey For Margaret which treated the sobering subject of England's uprooted children with uncommon perception and sensitivity. As the war grew fiercer, films about the fighting forces became more numerous, sterner and harsher. They tapped all services and covered the world wide arena. Atlantic Convoy, The Navy Comes Through, Flying Tigers, War Dogs, Army Surgeon, Thunderbirds, Suicide Squadron and others of their kind made during 1942 tried to keep abreast of current events. In some instances there was an attempt to reconstruct history, to make the performers act like soldiers and not actors-even to make no compromise with an easy and happy ending. Wake Island, a reenactment of the heroic resistance by American Marines on that Pacific island, stood out for its lack of bluster and bravado and for its harsh

CINEMA JOURNAL/ 13 expressiveness. But most often these attempts to dramatize war in clear and serious terms had all the authenticity of a recruiting poster. Few of the war films made during the first year of conflict-whatever their category-focused sharply on their themes, or clarified thoughtfully the values of the agony and the effort. The majority, combining propaganda with entertainment, were flagrantly puerile. Most often they reflected the inherited points of view of the first world war or were obvious transformations of melodramas of the past with their leading figures now in uniforms. Training camps, military installations, flying fields, jungles, ships, and other war-time locales replaced the western range, the cattle towns, the big city clubs, bars, streets, penthouses, offices, and apartments. The two-gun fighters, the sheriffs, the private eyes, the executives, the racketeers, and the politicians now wore G.I. fatigues, a sergeant's stripes, or officer's bars. The blonde in the silk negligee, the sophisticated wife in the evening gown, and the sweet girl next door were similarly transformed into the Wac, the Wave, the nurse, the USO entertainer, or the factory doll in overalls. In the rush to translate the shock of war into stories of dynamic action-to serve both the national purpose and entertainment-stock patterns and formulas became the rule. The preponderance of shoddy plots, the similarity of situation and action stirred up protests in trade papers and from exhibitors who told Hollywood that the public was fed up with war films. By the spring of 1943, the rising agitation had stampeded many producers into scheduling programs heavy with musicals and other frivolous films, advertised as having absolutely nothing to do with war. Hostile to the wishful complacency of his colleagues, Harry M. Warner, president of Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc., denounced any abandonment of war movies. "A small group of entertainment appeasers are trying to keep the truth from audiences," he declared.11 Bosley Crowther, who reported the executive's concern over the urgent need of war films, held much the same opinion. "The public is not tired of war's realities, but of woefully cheap make-believe," he wrote. "What we want in our war films is honest expression of national resolve and a clear indication of realities unadorned with Hollywood hoop-la."'2 THE DOCUMENTARY INFLUENCE

Lowell Mellett, chief of the Office of War Information's Bureau of Motion Pictures, deplored the emphasis that film-makers had laid on the melodramatic aspects of the conflict, without conveying what the war was all about, or what it meant "for a great democracy to commit itself to war." He told the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures: "Somehow it is almost impossible to feel the war here in America where we seem to be safe. We are still in a state that makes it necessary for us to keep telling ourselves that it is true, that it is real, that we are part of it."13

Mellett's dissatisfaction with war films led to the army's deciding to show Hollywood its own viewpoint and thinking on war by giving the film capital the 11. New York Times, May 23, 1943. 12. Ibid. 13. Reported by New York Times, November 11, 1942.

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same indoctrination it administered to soldiers. In a series of evening screenings, conducted for producers, directors, writers and the press, the army showed a program of orientation films and documentaries, among which were the Why We Fight series. These included The Prelude To War, The Nazis Strike, Divide and Conquer, The Battle of Britain and The Battle of Russia. (Battle of China and War Comes to America were still in production.) Individually and as a series these military films were sharp and quick in impact, penetrating in persuasiveness. They were imbued with a clarity of meaning seldom approached by Hollywood, and set a challenging standard for studio-made products. The Why We Fight series was produced under the supervision of LieutenantColonel Frank Capra with the assistance of skilled Hollywood as well as documentary film craftsmen. The events leading to the war, the battle scenes, the intensities of combat were all treated on a very high level. There were no heroics, no romantic conceptions of war, and these pictures, in their vividness and technical proficiency and in their doctrine of total war-accepted both by the fascist countries and the democracies-were a powerful embodiment of the War Department's concern for "interpretation of the causes of war, the evidence on which the interpretation is based, and the events which combined to produce the present state of conflict." The Capra series was made in the belief that if a man knows his enemy, the reasons for war, and why he is fighting, he will make a better soldier. Similar viewpoints and ideas were expressed in related informational and educational films, produced by the War Department, Army Pictorial Services, the AAF First Motion Picture Unit, the U.S. Navy, The U.S. Marine Corps, and the OWI in cooperation with the British Ministry of Information. Among the best were William Wyler's Memphis Belle (1944), John Ford's Battle of Midway (1944), The Battle For the Marianas (1944), John Huston's The Battle For San Pietro and Let There Be Light (1945), Fury In the Pacific (1945), and The True Glory (1945) directed by Carol Reed and Garson Kanin. All were striking studies of men preparing for, engaging in, or suffering from combat. Their intense, intimate, authentic tone, like the Why We Fight pictures, had an enormous effect on film-makers, inspiring them with a constant urge to make their own war pictures more genuine and meaningful. Imbued with a new spirit, indoctrinated Hollywood responded more authoritatively to the need for weightier themes and to the demands of the democratic ethos. Pictures dealing with the nature of the enemy became marked by a deepening of the sociological and psychological issues. From stock portrayals of the enemy as a buffoon, a sentimentalist, a coward or a brutal gangster (in such pictures as To Be or Not To Be, The Devil With Hitler, Once Upon a Honeymoon and Margin For Error) a handful of subsequent pictures focused on revealing the enemy's disregard of moral precepts and ethical sensibilities, his calculated cruelty, his cunning, and his actual strength. Keeper of the Flame (1943) warned against Fascists in America, who masqueraded under Americanism but were plot. ting to destroy democracy. Hitler's Children (1943) revealed the training and indoctrination of German youth scientifically subjected to Nazi ideology. Watch

CINEMAJOURNAL/ 15

on the Rhine (1943) dramatized the struggle for power in an American household in Washington between an anti-Fascist and a Fascist and its central conflict was the strategy of ideologies. A somewhat similar struggle informed Tomorrow the World (1944). Here a well-meaning American family was caught between its own liberal principles and the cynicism of Nazi-trained youth. The Hitler Gang (1944) portrayed the brutal nature of the Nazi leaders and their ruthless methods of achieving power. One of the more ambitious and controversial films was Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944). Here was an effort to create an allegory of world shipwreck, in which a deliberate attempt was made to give a more realistic complexion to the strengths and weaknesses of those responsible for the debacle, and to examine, at the same time, varieties of democratic egalitarianism. The entire action of the picture takes place in a drifting lifeboat containing a group of eight Americans, survivors of a torpedoed freighter, and a Nazi commander, whose U-boat gunned down the freighter before it was itself hit and destroyed. The survivors seemed deliberately chosen to serve the ideological as well as the dramatic needs of the plot. Among them are a millionaire shipbuilder with all the virtues and vices of capitalism, a cynical lady journalist who believes in nothing, a religious Negro steward who loves all humanity, an engineer with liberal views, and the cold-blooded, arrogant U-boat commander. Each of these particular people takes his own particular view of their situation and brings to bear his own kind and degree of moral courage. The Nazi functions as a point of reference in relation to which the other types fix their moral attitudes. Together the occupants form an adroit microcosm of the two warring societies. Lifeboat posed the problem of survival when social patterns begin to collapse, and when men (or nations) can only survive if they have strength and resourcefulness. In the life and death conditions that prevailed, the Nazi captain was deliberately portrayed as a resolute and cunning figure because, Hitchcock declared, "In the analogue of war, he was the victor at the time."14 He manipulated the Americans' weakness for his own purpose. He was more competent and showed more skill and initiative. He was the only one who knew anything about sailing. He knew where he was heading for, could take command, plan for survival, and even cope with disastrous emergencies-in this case the amputation of the gangrenous leg of one of the crew members from the freighter. By comparison, the other survivors "representing the democracies, hadn't gotten together yet, hadn't summoned their strength."'5 They seemed weak, poorly prepared to cope with their dangerous situation, and couldn't act as a group. Not until they discovered the Nazi's treachery were they able to act as one and oppose him. They learned that he had been secretly navigating the boat toward a Nazi supply ship, using a compass he had concealed from them; that he had stolen a bottle of water for himself while they were suffering from thirst; that his apparently superhuman strength had come from food tablets and energy pills; and finally, that he had drowned a member of their group, who had surprised him at 14. Peter Bogdanovich, The Cinema of Alfred Hitchcock, page 25. 15. Ibid.

16 / CINEMAJOURNAL his trickery. Outraged, and in a burst of common fury, they collectively beat the Nazi to death. Afterwards, still united and determined in purpose, they fish together. The picture ends in a kind of allegorical epilogue. The survivors, having drifted in sight of a Nazi supply ship, prepare to die as it attempts to run them down, when, from beyond the horizon, comes a volley of fire, and the Nazi boat is destroyed. As the Americans begin planning their rescue, a Nazi sailor from the sunken supply ship attempts to climb into their lifeboat, precipitating a quarrel over whether to save the German or not. The sailor suddenly confronts them with a gun. The others respond by a group attack and take the weapon away from the Nazi. The last scene leaves them quarreling over whether any German can ever again be trusted or should be treated humanely. Made at a crucial period in the war, at a time when many people were calling for a second front and the danger of German rocket and missile attacks from the French coast was imminent, Lifeboat was a grim reminder against underestimating the resourcefulness and power of the enemy. ALLIES AND ACTUALITIES

Hollywood also deepened its treatment of the theme in many pictures coming under the classification of "our brothers in arms." These were mainly inside stories of the conquered people in Nazi-occupied Europe. In the past only surface reference had been made to any conflicts raging within individual characters, the films being largely stories of escape, intrigue and espionage. Seldom had any attention been paid to making the background real or saying anything about how the occupation affected the ordinary citizen. Now such pictures not only began to probe deeper into their characters, but also to argue the political aspects of fascism in addition to its barbarism, and to dramatize the craving and need of human beings resisting Nazification for freedom. Beneath the exterior melodrama of underground plots, sabotage schemes and commando raids, the best of them tried to convey the reason some men resist and fight on moral grounds, and others don't. The Moon is Down, This Land is Mine, Hangmen Also Die, The Commandos, Edge of Darkness, Cross of Lorraine, Song of Russia and North Star-a vintage crop from 1943-were grim and brutal stories of destruction, torture, heroic resistance and death. But they also tried to get underneath the externals of their action and to probe the feelings of individuals, to examine the conflicts between truth and hypocrisy, good will and selfishness. The enemy was called by name-fascism. American and Allied nationals were shown fighting together in plots that graphically illustrated the possibility of victory over the "invincible" enemy, once questions of conscience had been resolved in the determination to win for a just cause. One of the most outstanding pictures in this category, and one whose story was not set in occupied territory was Mission to Moscow (1943). The picture followed the book of the same name by our former Ambassador to Russia, Joseph E. Davies, and made use of confidential reports to the State Department, selections from the Ambassador's diaries, and official correspondence during his two-year

CINEMA JOURNAL/ 17 mission in the Soviet Union. Its purpose was clearly to speak out against antiSoviet prejudice and isolationist feeling in the United States with the object of promoting good will for America's ally. Mission to Moscow had no plot or story line in the usual sense. It attempted to be a documentary of living history. Its events, presented more or less chronologically, began in 1936 at the Geneva Conference when Haile Selassie appealed for action against Italian aggression, and continued up to the time of Roosevelt's appointment of lawyer Davies to Moscow in 1937, where he was instructed to get the facts about the famous purge trials, and to assess Russia's strength and her attitude toward war or peace in Europe. Every important character in the picture was a counterpart of a real person on the stage of world events. Real names were used-Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Litvinov, Trotsky and others. These roles were enacted by performers chosen for their likeness to the real person, with the exception of Ambassador Davies, who was portrayed by Walter Huston. The realism given by such casting was reinforced by an introduction featuring Davies himself, who said: "There was so much prejudice and misunderstanding of the Soviet Union, in which I partly shared, that I felt it my duty to tell the truth as I saw it, for such value as it might have ..." Thereafter the picture loosely followed the approach of the book, recreating pictorially the diary and journal entries, plus numerous official reports, in an effort to present a strong case for the Russian system and its rulers. The Ambassador was shown touring Russian factories, both civilian and military, standing with the political elite at a May Day spectacle, attending an exhibition of Russian Army maneuvers, and conferring with Stalin about a united stand by the democracies against Hitler's aggressions. The Ambassador's wife and daughter were also pictured with Russian friends and with women in business and industry. Among sequences arousing dispute (such as those criticising the Chamberlain government and the Congressional isolationists) by far the most controversial was the film's visual re-enactment of the famed Bukharin-Radik trials of 1937. Using what Davies reported to be the actual transcripts of the trials and the defendants' confessions of guilt, the picture followed the Stalinist contention that Trotsky and the men on trial had conspired with Germany and Japan to sabotage Russia's defenses, partition the country, and take over the government. The picture's missionary zeal to approve the famous Moscow purge trials and to celebrate a country "long maligned and disgracefully minimized in our press and cinema"16evoked a sharp storm of debate. Divergent opinions evaluating the film ranged from "an epoch making film for America"17 to: "The film is antiBritish, anti-Congress, anti-Democratic and anti-truth."18 One group of sixty-six distinguished and prominent commentators, including Anne O'Hare McCormick, Dorothy Thompson, Sidney Hook, Eugene Lyons and W. E. Woodward, took strong exception to the film and sided with the comment expressed by John Haynes Holmes: "As history it is a lie, as propaganda it is a scandal of the first 16. From a letter by Clifford Odets, New Republic, June 14, 1943. 17. From the text of a statement by 266 leading Americans denouncing disruptive attacks on the picture. 18. From a letter by John Dewey and reported by The Hollywood Reporter, June 2, 1943.

18 / CINEMAJOURNAL order."19 Another group of equally prominent Americans representing all fields of endeavor, among whom were Representative John M. Coffee, Senator Claude Pepper, Walter Duranty, Theodore Drieser, Fritz Mahler and more than two hundred others, issued a signed statement denouncing the attacks as a "distinct disservice to the cause of American-Soviet unity during the war and afterward." Mission to Moscow, they declared, "is more than a motion picture; it is a gesture of international friendship made at the most crucial period of American history with the highly laudable and important object of promoting trust instead of distrust in the Soviet Union." By the end of America's second year of involvement in the war, films about the "fighting forces" began to disassociate themselves from their romantic military heritage. In this period just prior to the invasion of Europe and the Allied advances in the Pacific, any focus on the romantic involvements of soldiers faded, and the enemy was treated with much less compassion. The typically chauvinistic values and verities of military romanticism and flag-waving, which had commonly inspired and molded war pictures, became increasingly rarer. G.I. audiences had pointed out the obvious phoniness of settings and surroundings in many combat films. Books by war correspondents and soldier novelists made a mockery of scenes that showed soldiers preoccupied by trivial anxieties and sentimental aspirations, or that showed the "beautiful" death of the fighting men. Documentaries by the armed services and newsreels by the Signal Corps had by now painfully familiarized film-makers with the truth and conviction of combat and violent death. Shaped by the dynamic interaction between America's grinding military advances and the rendering of deeper war-like images, the screen reached out for the heart and essence of war's reality. Movies began to serialize the butchery and profanity of war, its soberness and attrition, the fighting man's dignity, his acts of conscience and personal decision, his fulfillment in group responsibility. In every section of the globe, on all battlefronts, on bomber fields, in merchant ships, in submarines, in the skies, jungles, beaches and prisoner-of-war camps, the camera became an articulate and penetrating witness to the pain, bitterness, and horror of war. Bataan (1943), With the Marines at Tarawa (1944), Guadacanal Diary (1944), The Battle for the Marianas (1944), Attack: Invasion of New Britain (1944), truthfully projected the dirty business of fighting. These pictures were imbued with conviction and unavoidable horror. They documented unflinchingly the desperate involvement of men in close quarters with each other, the shattering muteness of men before the anonymity of death, and the bewildering sense of war's toll and waste. INDIVIDIJALISMAND IDEALISM

Among films that were preoccupied with the deep emotional crisis and individual agony of the average Joe, anxiously examining his own conscience, were Action in the North Atlantic (1943), Destination Tokyo (1943), Sahara (1944), Air Force (1944), A Walk in the Sun (1945), The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), and 19. Hollywood Reporter, June 8, 1943.

CINEMA / 19 JOURNAL The Purple Heart (1945). They showed the perilous journey of a bomber or convoy bringing its lethal cargo safely through Axis flak or "wolf-packs" to its destination, the enforced quiet of an improvised hospital bed, the tension and tribulations of a march through enemy-controlled sectors, the humbled faces of men in prison compounds, the obstinate doggedness of prisoners refusing to divulge information to their brutal captors, and the fury and turbulence of actual combat itself. But there were vivid flashes and undercurrents of the human obsessions and depravities that war evoked. In the best of these films, there was implicit a rationale that attempted to define the moral consequences of the fighting and dying. At the same time, the retreat from the war film as a glorified poster involved also the condemnation of old assumptions. To express the imperatives of an ideological and global war demanded scripts with characters coming from every economic level and representing almost every racial strain in American society. The ethnic composition of soldier groups was stressed, and they invariably included a Jew, a Negro, an Irishman, an Italian, a Pole or Swede-a choice obviously meant to present a microcosm of America. This kind of national collective hero, who wanted the Axis destroyed and a good society created, clearly sprang from the liberal social attitudes of the Thirties that questioned prejudice and social injustice and focused attention on those wronged or victimized by society. Unfortunately, the recognition of democratic and humane conceptions often was not in itself sufficient to convert psychological and sociological truths into imaginative truth. While combat films had developed greater realism, those movies dealing with the home front applied the salve of humor to ease the pain of innumerable petty annoyances, anxieties, and other more profound changes in American life. Comedies and farces proved enormously helpful in alleviating the irritations of well-fed Americans whose menus were curtailed by food rationing, their mobility restricted by gasoline rationing, their jobs and wages frozen, and their income taxes and living costs raised. Hail the Conquering Hero (1944), The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944), and See Here Private Hargrove (1944) were among the best of a sundry output of farces, which, with irrepressible impudence, extravagant action and wild travesty, mocked some of the cherished notions and practices of a public now caught up in the frenzy of war-time living. The tongue-in-cheek sentiment and racy humor of The More the Merrier (1943) and Princess O'Rourke (1943) distinguished them from dozens of less successful films that mocked the irksome tribulations of a people who had to put up with seemingly endless scarcities and inconveniences and had to stand in line for almost everything. Also intended to ease the uncertainties and anxieties of a home-front public were a number of pictures that attempted to pay tribute to the radiance of faith and to satisfy the craving for spiritual sustenance. The expert blending of comedy with religious virtue in Going My Way (1944), and the more sober pieties of Song of Bernadette (1944) set a trend for soothing the apathy and despair of mixed peoples held together by common sacrifices and common anguish. A picture that was tradition-breaking and quite different from those made to fulfill the government's wartime demands appeared some months after the Allied

20 / CINEMAJOURNAL invasion of Europe when the final phase of the war was already under way. Wilson (1944) paid homage to a man who tried to prevent a second world war, but it had a sharp relevance to the current war's end and to the impending Grand Alliance. The film was less a biography of a wartime President than an effort to show how politics relate to war and peace, and a reminder that the very war in which the world was then involved need not have happened but for the failure of others to recognize and act upon Woodrow Wilson's plan for world peace. The story of Wilson was the dignified record of a champion of democracy. From the introduction of Woodrow Wilson at a football game in 1909 as president of Princeton to the closing scenes of his death as President of the United States in 1921, the film characterized him as a crusading American dedicated to democratic principles. He was presented not as the politician, the President, or the war-time Commander-in-Chief, but as the singular idealist. The War Department banned the picture under Title V of Senator Taft's Soldier's Vote Act which forbade the distribution to the troops of any material "containing political argument or political propaganda of any kind designed or calculated to affect the result of any election." Hollywood saw the action as a serious threat to freedom of the screen and was preparing "to mobilize for broad action" when the ban was suddenly removed and Congress "set about repealing the censorship section of Taft's Act."20 Film reviewers also reacted strongly. James Agee wrote: "Pictures like Wil. son have little if anything to do with mature serious cinema as such, and those who think of Wilson as a mature film are not in the least concerned with its liveliness or deadness as a work of art; they are excited because serious ideas are being used on the screen."21 Bosley Crowther asked "whether this is not truly a picture with an importance far beyond the theater, a film with the impulse to action of a popular battle cry?"22Then he went on to add: ".. . The fact is too plain for disputation that there is heady special pleading in this film-special pleading for an international ideal envisioning permanent peace." In the array of pictures dealing with the war and world events, Wilson stood out for its pervasive idealism. It appeared as victory neared in both the Pacific and European theaters, and when allied leaders were soon to meet in San Francisco to establish the United Nations and give increasing attention to shaping the post-war world. The picture's pro-international sentiment and its implied warning against repeating the foreign policy mistakes of the last world war gave it a residual influence, the impact of which could not be readily measured. By 1945 the rising tide of Allied victories and the prospect of a sudden termination of the war shifted producers' interest away from war pictures. Martial subjects in production were hurried to a desperate conclusion. Those in planning stages were quickly abandoned. On the assumption that movies with men in uniform would become "box-officepoison" after V-Day, there was a wild scramble for post-war themes as Hollywood beat all other industries to reconversion. 20. Los Angeles News, July 21, 1944. 21. Nation, August 19, 1944. 22. New York Times, September 10, 1944.

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Energized by the demands of war, the motion picture during these war years gained point, purpose and direction. They provided entertainment to those hammering out the weapons of war as well as to those fighting the battles. They furthered the military effort by conveying information about war and increased the public's awareness of what was going on. Their real opportunity came in emotionalizing the war situation. This led to an exposure of the nature of the enemy and his assaulting ideology, a more realistic treatment of Allied efforts, and a more dignified portrayal of the fighting men. In dramatizing the stories of conquered countries and attempting to tell what Americans and their allies were fighting for, the screen psychologically and materially met the crisis persuasively and with an urgent sense of its obligations. Of the more than seventeen hundred features made during this period, more than five hundred were directly concerned with some aspect of fascism and war. A good many were trite and superficial, aimed to keep civilian and military morale high and satisfy the home front about American and Allied struggles "out there." Others were of another sort-opportunistic responses to the need of the momenteither earnest or patriotically stimulating. Yet buried in this vast serialization of evolving history were a small number of notable films that sharply reflected the varied aspects of war and heightened our understanding of it at that moment. The best of these broke through the barriers of propaganda and entertainment to penetrate the truth of the terror and insanity let loose by fascism and by war itself.

The Great Dictator

Wilson

Mrs. Miniver

This Land Is Mine

A Walk in the Sun

Lifeboat

The Editor'sRole in Film Making Paul Falkenberg

Film editing is the process of selecting shots, arranging and modifying them in order to clarify and refine their form and content. It is concerned with the construction of a sequence of images and sounds of flowing continuity carried out by selecting the particular shot, trimming or expanding it to a certain length, and determining the order in which the shots will appear and the kind of transition between them. Often called cutting, film editing may be described as the art of composing with scissors. When his work is complete, the editor has cut down his material to between a quarter and a tenth of its original length. The editorial process is an integral and important part of film production, and should be anticipated in writing the script or scenario. Editing is a stage-by-stage affair. In the course of a film's production, it begins as soon as the scenes have been recorded on film, the film has been processed in the laboratory, and the editor's copy of the camera original has been received. This work material (dailies, rushes or footage) consists of several takes, or repeat shots from the same camera position of each scene (the ones known to be unsatisfactory having, for the sake of economy, been eliminated at the laboratory stage and not printed). The first stage of editing is the examining and cataloguing of picture and sound track footage. Dialogue and narration, recorded on separate strips of magnetic tape, are prepared by the picture editor. (Music and effects tracks are usually dealt with by sound editors.) The best takes are selected and joined in the order called for by the script to make a rough assembly. Subsequent refinements, in conjunction with the tracks, lead to a rough cut, then to a fine cut of the finished workprint, which shows the final continuity of the scenes, and the type of transition between scenes in terms of optical effects (fades, dissolves, wipes, etc.). The manual operations of editing call for a high degree of precision so that the finished workprint and the several sound tracks are in perfect synchronization, that is, that corresponding sound and picture occur at exactly the same moment. There are various synchronous relations of track and picture, e.g., the simultaneous relation of speech sounds to lip movements, called lip-sync, or between an offscreen sound and a player's reaction to it. Tracks and pacture are said to be in sync when the desired relation has been established. Film editing is a strange mixture of technique and art. It lacks the satisfying directness of fine arts and literary creation. Refractorily, it yields its rewards only This article was written with the assistance of Catherine Ware.

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to those who accept and master its discipline. The editor's creative function comprises re-writing stories with films already shot, removing flaws, and sharpening performances. He watches his material closely for new suggestions or new viewpoints, immanent in his scenes. Following clues to new approaches within the film itself, he may at times be able to chart a fresh course for the development of sequences, or even an entire film. He can contribute values which nobody envisages while the film is being written or produced. The editor's work contributes decisively to the cooperative effort which is at the basis of any film making. Editing is learned by experience. "It is not until the stuff is running through your fingers that you can learn to put the magic in," or for that matter, learn to let the magic out. Studying films and film theory and analyzing the work of other editors help to deepen knowledge and skill. A sense of craftsmanship or professional integrity and commitment to quality are essential. Yet editing is based, to a great extent, on intangibles such as taste, a sense of timing, a feeling for rhythm, poetic and musical values, an ability to improvise, a deep affinity to and a good memory for things visual-and endless patience. Pictures have their inner rhyme and reason. It is the editor's task to trace them. Editing can give a film its third dimension, an exciting dimension, always waiting to be explored and conquered. EDITORIAL EQUIPMENT

The editor's work room, the cutting room, is provided with mechanical equipment designed to secure and maintain the precision required at all stages of editing. As a rule, the editor examines his material on the moviola, a brand name now used generically. In its simplest form, it has a picture-viewing head, projecting the image toward the viewer onto a small ground-glass screen, and a sound-playing head for either magnetically or optically recorded sound. Further sound and picture heads can be added. The two heads are connected by a drive shaft. Engaged, the moviola preserves the established synchronism; disengaged, it permits change in the relative alignment of picture and sound. Moviolas are available in both 16mm and 35 mm and in combinations. For the manual handling of film, the editor uses a synchronizer. This is a device for maintaining the synchronous relation between picture and track on the cutting table. It consists of two or four large sprockets fixed to a common spindle, which hold the separate picture and sound reels in precise relationship while they are wound to and fro by the rewinds at either end of the table. Picture takes can be shortened or lengthened without disturbing the sound and by the same token, words, sentences, syllables or objectionable noises can be removed from the tape without interfering with the continuity of the picture. In a typical work session the editor plays picture and sound on the moviola, stopping the machine often to make grease-pencil marks on the picture or track, denoting changes to be made. Next, he takes the material to the cutting bench and pulls it through the synchronizer, possibly in assembly with a viewer or sound

24 / CINEMAJOURNAL reader, in order to make the indicated changes. Then he may go back to the moviola for examination of the new version. A footage counter calibrated in feet and frames, incorporated into both the moviola and the synchronizer, makes an accurate device for measuring the length of film, which can easily be converted to running time, in minutes and seconds. The splicer most commonly used in the cutting room is equipped with a guillotine for cutting film, a roll of tape for joining two ends of film in a butt-joint, and pins to hold the film securely in place during both operations. The cutting bench is a work table equipped with a pair of rewind spindles, one at each end, used to wind film in either direction on reels or flanges. The rewinds may be hand or motor-driven. Small portable picture viewers and sound readers, through which the film is pulled by means of the rewinds complete the list of basic mechanical apparatus used by the editor. A projector, for occasional viewings on a larger screen, can be a welcomed addition. TRADITIONS AND RE-CREATIONS

The very first motion pictures were of events taking place before a stationary camera and recorded in a single shot, from as wide an angle as possible in order to give the viewpoint of the human eye. In moving closer to objects, it became evident that the viewing angle of the camera is narrower than that of the eye, and that filmic representation of an event required a much larger number of shots than any direct viewing of the event would. So early film makers started to tell a story by joining several shots together. Trial and error yielded the basic concepts of filmic continuity of time, space, action and ideas-the principles of editing. Long before the introduction of sound, the work of pioneers such as Porter, Griffith, Pudovkin and Eisenstein elaborated and perfected these principles. The editor of today inherits this immense system of conventions and techniques. It is always in a state of flux, some practices wearing out from overuse or misuse and fresh ones being added. Applying this set of conventions as the vocabulary of film continuity, the editor re-creates the story in terms of the screen, presents it moment by moment, and so tells the story in film. In joining together the strips of film, which have been selected from the amorphous bulk of footage, the editor synthesizes a new reality from the isolated pieces in the individual shots. He creates whatever mood best serves the purpose of the film at any moment and shows what is, at a certain point, the most telling aspect of the story. The editor's first assembly, in which he may begin to shape some individual sequences, is very rough and probably two or three times as long as the specified length of the finished film. This version is carefully analyzed reel by reel; further cutting brings it closer to the required form. During this succession of versions the editor must constantly refresh his understanding of the film's intentions. As the editor approaches a fine cut, he sees that, viewed in context, many of the tentative details of cut, timing, and mode seem wrong. The substitution of short, cuts for a series of slow dissolves may establish the mood of a scene more convinc-

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ingly. In a dialogue sequence, keeping the uncut close-up of one actor on the screen sometimes serves better than cutting from one speaker to the other. A sequence might demand faster cutting for speed and excitement or a change from cutting on a moment of rest to cutting on a movement. Pace and rhythm dictate the choice of transition from shot to shot or from scene to scene. There are no ready-made formulae, and it is difficult to establish rules. Indeed, one of the few accepted facts is that a rule may be broken to achieve a compensating advantage. A few examples illustrate the language in which editing communicates. Suppose it is desired to show a military parade. In almost every case, it is necessary to shorten the real time of the parade, say 20 minutes, to a suitable filmic time. If shortening is the sole purpose, it can be accomplished by showing the parade beginning in a long shot, cutting to a medium shot of the soldiers marching, then perhaps to a close-up of feet stepping along in formation or to the faces of the soldiers, then back to a medium shot, then to another close shot, and eventually to a long shot of the end of the parade marching off the screen leaving an empty street. If it has been established in a long shot that there is a crowd watching the parade, long, medium, or close shots of the crowd can be inserted. By this kind of cutting, an illusion of continuity of time, of having seen the whole parade, may be created in three or four minutes of running time. Intercutting of shots of the same parade with shots of a parade of soldiers in a different kind of uniform marching in the opposite screen direction, using progressively shorter shots to create mounting tension, then cutting to a battle scene, might indicate the beginning of a war. Shots of the parade, perhaps emphasizing the neat uniforms and brightly polished accoutrements of the soldiers, and the jubilant crowd, intercut with shots of soldiers dressed in rags trudging wearily along a road, could suggest that the war is over and contrast victor and vanquished. Juxtaposing shots of the parade with shots of a flock of sheep or a group of toy soldiers moving in the same screen direction and in a similar disposition on the screen, or with small children playing at war, might be used to make various implicit or explicit comments on these soldiers or on soldiers in general. It often happens that a skilled editor makes a whole film from footage gathered from various sources, none of which was originally shot for the purpose. WHERE, WHEN, AND WITH WHOM?

Ideally, on a high-budget feature film, editing may be integrated into the early stages of production. The editor is present on the set. He attends the daily screenings of the previous day's shooting and discusses with the director the choice of takes and ideas for the editing of a sequence. There may be a second editor preparing the material in the cutting room, to whom he relays the instructions of the director; and there may be an assistant doing the routine organizational work, such as classifying and cataloguing the footage, syncing up picture and sound by means of the slates, and checking the camera and sound reports against the picture and track.

26 / CINEMAJOURNAL At the other extreme, perhaps on a low-budget instructional film, the editor is often first called in when all the material is in the can, and his only guide is a narration script; indeed, he may be given a huge mass of material from which to create a film of his own. Here the editor's job assumes directorial proportions. He must elicit a convincing continuity out of the incongruous. In either case the over-all editing process follows the same pattern. The time needed to edit a film cannot be easily calculated. The time allocated to the average feature film, however, is a minimum of thirteen weeks, with a safety period of two to four editorial weeks allowed for in the budget. Documentary half hour films forming a typical television series are scheduled at an average of eight weeks for the completion of each film up to and including the dubbing session, with the understanding that during the last three weeks the editor starts on his next film of that series. Throughout all the stages of his work, the editor is in close communication with some of the other specialists working on the film. His expertise and intimate knowledge of the film can be borrowed to advantage by his colleagues; knowledge of their special procedures enables him to anticipate and evaluate the ways in which their contributions can be brought to bear on his own work. The editor works closest with the director, who is the chief instrument of unity in the film. Directorial principles are difficult to systematize. However, practical experience shows that there are two main types of personality with whom the editor has to work. One is the sure-footed, precise director who, in effect, camera-cuts his scenes. The other, although knowing what he is about, lacks absolute vision, cannot fully and immediately articulate his concept and overshoots. By trial and error, he gropes for precise editing on the moviola. Few directors today edit their own film, and not all are as capable of directing the editor as of directing the actors. Still, they like to place their personal stamp on the screen image. A strong editor can offer invaluable help to those actor-directors with mainly a background of live TV, stage, and radio experience. But even directors who started their careers in the cutting room admit that because they are emotionally involved with the work on the sound stage, their judgment is colored. As a rule, they find it helpful to sit down with a capable and sympathetic editor and listen to his critical and detached views. An experienced editor has no difficulty in assembling a sequence the way it was filmed by the director. He probably tries first to create a sort of free assembly of his material, starting with whatever sequence can be put together after the first few days of shooting. Much depends on the preference of director and producer. Some may want to see a sequence cut, and others be content to see their material once a week, assembled roughly. The trouble with perfecting single sequences at this stage is that when viewed later on in the context of the entire film, many details and cuts, as well as timing and mood may seem wrong, and the scenes may have to be re-edited from scratch. In any case, the process of assembling scene after scene continues until shortly after the shooting period, when between 15 to 18 reels, or 2/2 to 3 hours screening, have been put together. All the scenes, and most of the individual shots are overlong. Everything is very rough.

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And the film has to be brought down to the 100 or 150 minutes running time usually allotted to feature presentations in the theatre. WORKINGWITHIMAGES

Director and editor start analyzing the film all over again. Reel after reel undergoes careful scrutiny. A week or more is sometimes spent over ten minutes of film. Decisions arrived at weeks ago may be questioned. The director is not always aware of the strange chemistry contained in his images; and in searching for the principles which guided the director, the editor may discover unspoken directorial intentions in the images themselves. Each scene must be treated on its own merit. The temptation to use material because it is there or because it is beautiful is great. But editing is a highly sensitive instrument for the control of timing. This applies to the spacing of events within the whole story as well as to the timing of the individual cuts. But considering the rhythm of the action, the highlights of the performances and photography, and the flow of the story, the editor can create scenes which seem perfectly natural and effortless. Bearing in mind the unity of the film, he can build, scene by scene, a lucid continuity. And so from the early stages of the rough cut, the editor gradually compresses the film into the essential footage of the fine cut where every waste frame has been eliminated from each single shot. As his fine cut nears completion, the editor, together with director and/or producer, decides what kind of optical effects, dissolves, fades and wipes are to be incorporated into the film. He assists and supervises the optical effects specialists in the preparation of the layouts necessary for their work. An awareness and knowledge of their technical procedures enables him to evaluate the contribution they can make to the film. The editor may be assigned to work with the composer. Editors and film composers rely substantially on the same elements to create a completely integrated impression of an audience. Since the basis of film art is movement, both attempt to cooperate closely in accomplishing appropriate effects. This means that each of them often has pertinent and mutually stimulating suggestions to make to the other, regarding tempo, dynamics and mood. Total combination of picture and sound track is their main concern so that image and music work together, either in harmony or in counterpoint to each other. When the budget does not allow for an original score, a music editor, or scorer, and a sound effects editor cut and arrange pre-recorded library music. Here again the editor works within the obvious limitations towards the same goal. A close partnership exists between the editor and the mixer in the sound studio. In blending together, say, three voice tracks, four effects tracks, and two music tracks to make one complete sound track, the mixer must match the feeling of the track to that of the picture at every moment. He relies almost entirely on the editor to convey to him the intent of the picture, as a whole and stage by stage, both before and during rehearsals. The editor has prepared a cue or log sheet for each track. These sheets designate where on each track a sound is present, what

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the sound is, how it is to be brought in and taken out (e.g. for a certain music cue, fade in and, at the end of the cue, cross over to another track), what special acoustical treatment is needed by a certain sound, etc. The final product of the mixing session is a re-recorded sound track which combines all the separate sound tracks produced in the editing process. THE FINAL STAGES

Mixing or dubbing is a continuation of editing. Some editors know from experience how things are opening up when the picture and all the tracks are being presented together for the first time. Conscious of the element of improvisation inherent in their work, they may take along to the dubbing studio what amounts to a small truckload of outtakes and trims of picture and track for every eventuality. Sometimes there are up to a dozen tracks to be mixed, calling for several pre-mixes. After such a quasi-rehearsal, the film goes back to the cutting room for final corrections. Altogether, going through a mixing session is like the experience of the composer who listens to a full orchestra playing his score for the first time. Complicated and subtle effects which are to be incorporated into a final track, cannot be mechanically prescheduled. A good editor operates with metronome sensitivity and precision, shaping nuances in film and track to a fine point where a few frames added or cut may give the desired effect. After a dubbing session the workprint is turned over to the negative matcher and the editor is no longer physically involved in the final technical steps preceding the delivery of the married copy. The matcher handles the production's most precious asset in terms of capital investment, the film negative, which he cuts and splices to match the finished workprint. The workprint has been carefully marked and annotated with instructions for the matcher, comparable to a manuscript going to the printer. The instructions must be followed; once the negative has been cut, it cannot be restored. When the negative and the optical sound track have been completed, they are sent to the laboratory for the making of an answer print, the first trial print combining sound and picture. In conference with the timer, the laboratory specialist who controls the density of each shot in the print, the editor can contribute his knowledge of the photographic qualities and the intent of the various shots. When this print has been viewed and, after any necessary alterations, approved, the editor's task is complete.

The BayeuxTapestry Gerald Noxon

As far as the overall development of Western pictorial art is concerned, the Bayeux tapestry is a work of very great importance. It is certainly one of the most important works of pictorial narrative art, clearly related to the origins of cinema narrative techniques. Although it is nearly nine hundred years old, it is unique, not only as an individual work but as a kind or category of work that is completely sui generis. There is no other work comparable to it, directly known to us, or likely to be discovered. A few facts about the physical nature of the tapestry must be mentioned before it can be analyzed in some detail. First, it is not really a tapestry at all, because the images are not woven into the base material on a loom. It is actually a long band of images embroidered with a variety of stitches, in colored woollen threads, on a linen base. It measures somewhat over two hundred feet in length and averages about two feet in width or height. Eight basic colors of threads are used. At the time when this massive work was undertaken the art of embroidery, particular with silk and golden threads had reached a state of high perfection in Northwestern Europe. There were not only permanently established embroidery workshops maintained by royalty and church authorities, but also nomadic bands of workers, skilled in all kinds of fine needlework, who wandered in teams through Europe, to secure commissions wherever they could find them. The Bayeux tapestry may well have been the work of one or more of such teams, executing the manual work under the direction of an artist and according to his master drawings. The artist would in turn have worked in collaboration with an official historian, acting, as it were, in the capacity of a producer and as such representing the sponsors of the work. The overall size of the work seems to have been one reason for the choice of this particular technique of embroidery. Large areas can be covered more quickly than is possible using other techniques current at the time. The fact that the tapestry was intended to be viewed from a considerable distance may also have been a factor in the choice of this technique. Any painstaking detail would have been lost at a distance and the additional cost involved was probably considered a waste of money. The work was designed to be hung up along the inside of the nave of Bayeux Cathedral in Normandy. The Bayeux tapestry is important to our study for several reasons. First, it represents the earliest example of a complex dramatized narrative, part truth and part fiction, which has been conceived and executed so completely in terms of

30 / CINEMA JOURNAL visual pictorial values. It can be described as a dramatic production bearing the strongest kind of resemblance to an early silent film. It is, in fact, astonishingly similar in many respects to the kind of historical movies made in Italy just before World War I, a genre which has never lost its broad popular appeal. Second, the scenario for this historical drama is the result of applied principles of dramaturgy inseparable from the pictorial narrative techniques which originally conditioned it. Almost all of the pictorial and other narrative techniques and devices found in the common forms of cinema drama today have their equivalents in the Bayeux tapestry. Third, apart from pictorial techniques and applied dramaturgy, the Bayeux tapestry deals with a kind of subject matter treated in a manner which has shown itself to have very great and durable appeal to cinema audiences of yesterday and today, an appeal that is essentially a mass appeal. In this, the tapestry must be counted as a modern work. The Bayeux tapestry is a sponsored, propaganda work, designed for an illiterate mass audience. In it great liberties are taken with generally accepted facts of history, just as they are habitually taken by the producers of films based on historical events today. The motives are not quite the same. Film producers are usually influenced in their conscious distortions of history only by factors which will, they think, influence favorably the amount of the gross receipts at the box office. The producers of the tapestry, although likewise aiming at mass acceptance for their product, were influenced in their treatment of history by the very definite propaganda purposes which they had in mind. The tapestry is a Norman version of the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy, and his assumption of the English crown after the death of King Harold the Second in the decisive battle of Hastings. The dramatic narrative is designed to build up Duke William as the virtuous conquering hero supported by the true church and the only right and lawful successor to Edward the Confessor as King of England. It is also designed not to offend too greatly the still considerable body of Harold's supporters, by making too obvious a villain out of him. He is presented as a brave warrior, only slightly less brave than William, but as a man with a fatal flaw in his character. He is shown as the victim of his overweening pride and vanity when he commits the fatal error of breaking his solemn vow of allegiance to William by accepting for himself the English Crown on the death of Edward. The band of images, some two hundred feet in length and two feet in height, is not composed of a single, simple element. It consists of three separate parallel bands running horizontally from one end of the tapestry to the other. The top band is a narrow one and only rarely carries an image vital to the main pictorial narrative. The center band is by far the widest and also the most important. The images which follow one another in this center band constitute the main pictorial narrative throughout the Tapestry. The third and lowest band is narrow and resembles the topmost band to a great extent in both design and narrative function. It never carries the main pictorial narrative as a whole, but its images are quite frequently directly related pictorially to the main narrative in the broad band immediately above it. The overall physical presentation of the pictorial

CINEMA JOURNAL/ 31 narrative in the tapestry therefore takes the form of a sort of horizontal tryptych, which is somewhat like a triple movie screen form of presentation, but with the center screen much larger in width than the other two screens flanking it. A brief examination of the tapestry reveals that it may be divided into scenes without any difficulty. In this connection the term "scene" is used to indicate a unit of action that is continuous in chronological time, or one that is presented with the obvious intention that it should seem to be continuous in chronological time for the purposes of the narrative. Analyzed by scenes according to the above definition the tapestry proves to contain sixty-three (63) different scenes. These may be grouped into five sequences. The grouping emerges clearly from the dramatic structure of the story line and the sequences are usually marked by internal pictorial devices. These usually take the form of formalized images of trees, placed vertically in the center band of the pictorial narrative. Divisions and transitions between scenes are usually indicated by single trees or the wall of a building. Termination of sequences are often shown by a group of two or more trees. There follows an analysis of the tapestry by sequences. It is by no means a complete analysis, but has been designed to bring out various points important to the present study. After conferring with Edward the Confessor, the aging and ailing King of England, at his Palace of Westminster, Count Harold sets out to seek Duke William of Normandy, presumably to discuss with him the problem of the succession to the throne of England which will arise upon the death of Edward. Having no natural heir, Edward has already promised the crown to William. But Harold, the most powerful and influential of the English nobles has pretensions to the throne which can hardly be ignored either by Edward or William. The tapestry fails to give any precise indication of the purpose of Harold's mission, which seems to have a highly equivocal nature. Harold arrives on the shores of Normandy where he is immediately taken into custody by Guy de Ponthieu, a vassal of William. Guy's action is polite, but firm. Following instructions received from William, Count Guy escorts Harold towards William's headquarters at Rouen. William, showing that he intends to welcome Harold as a guest, rather than to make him prisoner, comes out to meet him and the two men ride on to Rouen in what seems to be a friendly relationship. In the first scene of the second sequence, scene 17 of the tapestry, William and Harold are shown setting off together with an armed force of William's men. Harold is fully armed and it is clear that he has the status of an ally as far as William is concerned. The object of this armed expedition is not at first revealed in the narrative, but subsequent events quickly show that William has enlisted Harold's participation in a punitive expedition against Duke Conan of Brittany. It seems that William must be using this opportunity to test Harold's loyalty. In scene 18, William, bearing his battle mace on his shoulder, is shown among his troops. They have come to the mouth of the Couesnon River which divides Normandy from Brittany. Passage of the Couesnon at this point is notoriously

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dangerous even today on account of the dangerous quicksands which border the route at low tide. After by-passing the town of Rennes, capital of Brittany, William and Harold with their forces surround the Chateau of Dinan where Duke Conan has taken final refuge. As the troops attack the chateau and begin to set fire to it, Conan, in token of surrender, extends the keys of the chateau on his lance to William, who transfers them to his own lance. The first part of scene 21 is shown above and is continued below, with only a slight overlap. Here is a good example of the way in which individual scenes are elaborated in the tapestry narrative. In this case three units of action, parallel in time, are shown taking place in a single extensive location. The Norman cavalry are making a frontal attack on the citadel, foot soldiers are setting fire to the place from below, and Conan is giving up the keys to William. It is interesting to note here that when necessary to the pictorial requirements of the main center band, the artist does not hesitate to intrude directly into the upper narrow band. Here the top of the citadel extends upward to the limit of the upper band. After Conan's surrender, William and Harold return to Normandy to the castle of Bayeux. In scene 24 of the tapestry, Harold confirms his loyalty to William by taking a solemn oath of allegiance to him. The ceremony is a formal one. William sits on his throne while, in the presence of courtiers who serve as witnesses, Harold, one hand on the altar and the other on the reliquary, takes the oath. This scene brings to an end the second sequence of the dramatic narrative. Harold's loyalty to William has been demonstrated by his actions in battle and confirmed by the oath of allegiance taken at Bayeux. It seems that William has every reason to believe in Harold's good faith and to count on his support when he, William, lays claim to the crown of England at Edward's death. In scene number 29 of the tapestry, a detail of which is shown, we have what is really a split screen effect. In a room in the upper part of Westminster Palace, Edward is shown on his death bed speaking with Harold, and we are no doubt meant to infer that he is reminding Harold of his duty to support William as the rightful heir to the crown of England. In the crypt below Edward is seen dead, his body being prepared for burial. On the left, in scene 30, an exterior, Harold is standing outside the Palace of Westminster. Two English noblemen, members of the Witan, or supreme council of nobles are offering him the crown of England. To the right, after a cut from exterior to interior, we see in scene 31 that Harold has accepted the crown. We are not shown the coronation ceremony, but are presented with the fait accompli. Harold sits squarely on the throne, holding the sceptre and sphere symbolic of his sovereignty. On the left stand two noblemen presenting to Harold the sword of state, while on the right an archbishop, identified in the Latin legend as Stigand, gives his blessing to the new king. The extreme rapidity with which these fateful events take place in the dramatic narrative is fully confirmed by the historical records. Certainly the split screen effect in scene 29 is used to underscore the unusual and unseemly haste of the proceedings. Immediately after Edward's burial, on the very same day, Harold

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was offered and accepted the crown. Then, with equally great and even more unusual haste, on the following day, January 6, 1066, the new king was crowned Harold the Second. The fateful and ominous nature of Harold's act of betrayal is stressed in the thirty-second and final scene in the third sequence of the drama. A few weeks after Harold's coronation, a great comet is seen, flashing thru the sky above Westminster. While the crowd outside gazes in awe and wonder at the fearsome sight, a courtier tells Harold of the dread portent. The news strikes fear into Harold whose conscience is heavy with the guilt of his broken oath to William. This scene is one of the most important dramatically in the whole tapestry because it reveals a condition of mind and spirit in Harold which show him psychologically foredoomed to defeat in the struggle to come. It is also a scene of great and special interest as far as the techniques of pictorial dramatic narrative are concerned. Here for the first time in the tapestry, as if to stress the dramatic importance of this moment in the story, images in both the upper and lower bands are directly and pictorially related to the main narrative in the center band. In the upper band, directly above the towers of the palace, we see the image of the comet with its blazing head and streaming tail. The appearance of the comet at this juncture is no dramatic invention. It was in fact Halley's comet. First noted by Chinese observers in 467 B.C., it has been visible from the earth at intervals varying between 75 and 77 years ever since. Its appearance in 1066 marked the death of Edward, the Confessor. Throughout the middle ages, all comets were viewed with the greatest superstitious fear and dread, none more so than Halley's because of its extreme brilliance. Harold's fear at its appearance, so soon after his coronation, is readily understandable. To stress this fear and its dramatic importance in the narrative, a most interesting pictorial device is used by the artist in this scene. In the lower narrow band of the tapestry, phantom images of ships are shown, moving mysteriously across the water, unmanned and without sails, directly below Harold as he sits on his throne. These are the imaginary ships of an invasion fleet which Harold now fearfully expects to come from Normandy to the shores of England. In this pictorial device we have the obvious prototype of one commonly used in the cinema of today. We are allowed to see into the inner workings of Harold's mind and visually to share in the images evoked by his roused emotions. Thus this pictorial version of the interior monologue made its appearance centuries before its equivalent in sound was brought into such common and effective use on the stage by the Elizabethan dramatists. The phantom ships, inspired by fear in Harold's guilt-ridden imagination, are close kin to the trees of Birnam wood that were so tragically to possess the mind and spirit of Macbeth. Indeed, the entire dramaturgy of the tapestry is prophetic of the Elizabethan stage drama and all that we have derived from it. In its way the tapestry thus stands as a great and universal work of dramatic art, recalling both the intensely personal elements of the oldest biblical dramas and the fate and god dominated tragedies of the Greek classical theater, while at the same time anticipating the modern dramaturgy of the West, developed in cinema. With this scene, so rich in dramatic echoes from the past, as in implications for

34 / CINEMAJOURNAL the future, and in the devices of pictorial narrative, the third sequence of the drama comes to an end. At the right a formalized tree marks the end of the sequence and a transition to the beginning of the next. Meanwhile, back at the Chateau of Bayeux in Normandy, Duke William has learned of Harold's treachery and the fact that he has been crowned King of England. In a series of short scenes, the fourth sequence of the dramatic narrative is developed. In what amounts to a montage of images we see messengers crossing the Channel to report Harold's actions to William. Then William, in conference with Bishop of Odo of Bayeux, giving orders for the construction of a fleet of ships for the invasion of England and all other necessary preparations. Trees are felled, timbers shaped, and ships built. In a detail of scene 36 we see part of the montage showing the construction and equipment of William's invasion fleet. Here carpenters work in one stage of a series of operations which resemble a modern production line. As fast as ships are built and launched they are stocked with arms and provisions. Scene 39: the Norman invasion fleet approaches the English coast. In scene 40, the Normans disembark without resistance at Pevensey. It is September 28, 1066, less than nine months since the coronation of Harold at Westminster. William has already shown a formidable organizational capacity in mounting a huge military operation in record time. Scene 42: Immediately after the landing a detachment of William's cavalry gallops off towards the town of Hastings on a foraging expedition. Below, a detail from scene 43: the illusion of movement is startingly achieved in a leaping steer, so similar in imaginative conception and life quality to the jumping cow portrayed in the prehistoric cave wall paintings of Lascaux. When supplies have been gathered in from the surrounding countryside, an elaborate banquet is prepared for the Norman leaders. The location is somewhere near the town of Hastings. Waiters stand at a serving table contrived from a couple of shields and sheltered inside some sort of building (Scene 44). In the background another waiter sounds the dinner horn. On the right, seated at the banquet table are the Norman leaders including Bishop Odo who is saying grace with William on his right hand. Other knights have jumped the gun and are eating before the conclusion of Odo's prayer. Below the curve of the table a wine waiter stands ready to fill the cups as required. This elaborate scene is one of the most fascinating in the tapestry. Not only does it achieve a high degree of realism and authenticity thru the profusion of significant detail and the illusion of movement in the activities of all concerned; it also serves the dramatic purpose of humanizing this part of the narrative and so provides an effective contrast to the brutal battle scenes which follow. The fifth and final sequence of the tapestry begins with the Norman army setting out from Hastings to seek contact with Harold's forces that have been reported in the vicinity. In scene 55 the Norman horsemen, preceded by archers on foot, launch their attack. In a complex and violent scene (57), the illusion of movement, the feeling of dynamic force in the brutal clash between the onrushing cavalry and the stolid,

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heavily armored group of foot soldiers, represent a triumph of pictorial narrative techniques. Once more the images in the lower, narrow band of the tapestry become directly involved pictorially with the main narrative in the center band. Here on the margins of the field of battle lie the prone bodies of dead and dying soldiers, some transfixed by arrows or lances, some decapitated. In conclusion it may be pertinent briefly to examine the tapestry as a whole work, in terms of the four principal conceptual elements which have been our terms of reference throughout this study of the pictorial origins of cinema narrative. In respect to the creation of the illusion of movement in the work, the Bayeux tapestry is outstanding, in spite of certain limitations which the particular medium might seem to impose on the artist. As regards the concept of the "scene" as a pictorial unit, the tapestry includes some of the most pictorially complex and dramatically conceived "scenes" in all Western art prior to the Renaissance. In addition, the use of the upper and lower narrow bands in the tapestry to extend and enhance the impact both physically and psychologically is of capital importance to any study of the pictorial origins of dramatic narrative. The concept of the "frame," as in the case of the Chinese scroll painting, is present only to the extent of the limitation imposed by the more or less fixed vertical dimension of the tapestry. Horizontal boundaries of the scene are often indicated, as we have observed, but their inclusion and positioning are both completely at the discretion of the artist. Also, in connection with the definition of the "frame" at top and bottom, the artist has exercised his discretion. He does not hesitate to allow the images in the main center band to extend into the upper and lower bands, whenever pictorial or dramatic requirements of the narrative may make this expedient. The concept of the artist's viewpoint on the scene, both physical and metaphysical is one which is forcibly expressed throughout the tapestry. Physically the artist's viewpoint demonstrates an exceptionally high degree of flexibility, which succeeds in overcoming both the conventions of hidebound tradition and the inherent limitations of embroidery as a medium. Although lacking the intimate and intensely individual tools such as the paintbrush and the charcoal stick, which give the artist a direct and immediate contact with his work, the artist of the tapestry, with the help of the workers who executed his designs, has regained much of the freedom of viewpoint developed and enjoyed by the pre-historic cave wall painters, the popular artists of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and the muralists of Knossos and Etruria. One feels that the execution of the work has in itself been an act of celebration, miraculously sustained over a period of years of hard and intricate work. It is a complete work in a language which can be readily understood. It is probably the earliest major work of European art to achieve this kind of distinction. The tapestry is indeed a humanistic work, amazingly prophetic of the Renaissance to come, possessed of a modern quality of human vitality, and full of impact for us today, some nine hundred years after its creation.

Scene 18

The

Bayeux Tapestry

Scene 21

Scene 24

Ct 0 Im

Scene 36

Scenes 39, 40

Scenes 42, 43

Scene 44

Scene 55

Detail, Scene 57

Scene 57

Cinema JournalBook Reviews From Universities, From Underground mainly take on subjects they are qualified Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University to cope with-an evidence of perceptive ediPress, 1967;344 pages, $7.95. torial planning. Harry M. Geduld. Film Makers on Film MakOne of the best sequences deals with ing. Bloomington,Indiana UniversityPress, in and about Hollywood. In a prewriting 1967;302 pages, $6.75. view of his authorized biography of William As universities have been hesitant, until Faulkner, Joseph Blotner gives us a long recently, to accept film as a field of legiti- piece about Faulkner's various sojourns in mate study, so the university presses have the movie capital, his necessary compronot been in the forefront of film book pub- mises, his respect for the screenwriting craft lication. The University of California has and for Howard Hawks, his credited and been the pioneer, with Oklahoma a staunch non-credited work at M-G-M, Fox, and contributor of early Americana. Now Louisi- Warners. Leslie Fiedler contributes a brilana and Indiana have been heard from. liant, if somewhat erratic, critical study of Out of the South comes a book about novels about Hollywood by Fitzgerald, the cinema written by poets, novelists, West, Viertel, Mailer, and Schulberg. literary critics, and English professors. George Garrett describes his encounters Man and the Movies, edited by W. R. with agents and producers in the television Robinson, a professor at the University of world, then offers a sober analysis of the Florida, is full of vitality, rich reflection, differences between film and theater. R. H. and genuine love for the film. W. Dillard, Garrett's collaborator on the Professors of cinema history and criti- script for Frankenstein Meets the Space cism will not only want to commend this Monster (both are professors at Hollins volume to skeptical colleagues in humanis- College in Virginia), writes a learned paean tic disciplines. They will find much in it of praise for the horror movie. Richard to stretch their own thinking. Of course it Wilbur, in a brief appearance, quotes a is "literary." O. B. Hardison writes of poem he drew from Dracula. "The Rhetoric of Hitchcock's Thrillers," Martin Battestin, an editor of Fielding's and Alan Downer seems pleased to discover works, does an impressive analysis of the that John Huston hewed closely to the film, Tom Jones, as "a brilliantly imaginovel in The Maltese Falcon. We do not native imitation of the art of the novel"learn much that is new about Griffith, Berg- the eating scene, for example, originated man, or Antonioni as directors. with Fielding, "virtually every gesture and Yet the smell of the lamp is not ex- every grimace." But John Osborne and cessive. Throughout this remarkable collec- Tony Richardson had no interest in Fieldtion of new writing there is an explicit ing's sense of order in life, his insistence recognition of the moving image as an art that things work out well for Tom only form deserving alert critical notice. Most when he confesses his folly and accepts the of these writers, especially the younger ones, value of prudence. What remains in the are trying hard to be aware of the film contemporary movie is Tom's animal vitaldirector's multiple visual choices. The style ity and exuberance, plus some irrational is often crisp and readable and the authors luck. W. R. Robinson (editor). Man and the Movies.

CINEMA JOURNAL/

37

W. R. Robinson contributes a closely- shares one especially interesting comparareasoned examination of cinema as both a tive view of his own work: in L'Avventura, moral confrontation and an existential re- he says, the protagonists do not speak to laxation of responsibility "unburdening us one another, whereas in La Notte they of the hunger for and anxiety about mean- communicate freely, "but the result is the ing." I suspect Professor Robinson is im- same." Less compelling, perhaps, are selections paled on the same inevitable dichotomy he attributes to Erwin Panofsky and Susanne in which Carl Dreyer lays down laws about Langer, "between conceptions of a movie color films, Griffith predicts that sound will as dream or as bound to physical reality." never come, and Eisenstein predicts 3-D. It is hard to see how a movie which "teaches There are extracts from the Chaplin and us that to be is enough" can be what he Sennett autobiographies. A long section also wants it to be, a free art confronting from Dziga Vertov's notebooks has considthe viewer with the issues of human life. erable archaic interest. There are lightNathan A. Scott, Jr., deals more directly weight interviews with Hitchcock and with contemporary McLuhanism and Welles, an extract from Cocteau on the Marienbadism. He gives due respect to Film, and valuable pieces written by Ingthis "deliberate superficiality" and "spirit- mar Bergman, Josef von Sternberg, Fritz ual depthlessness," crediting John Cage Lang, Tony Richardson, and Satyajit Ray. and Alain Robbe-Grillet with the same Special rarities are a tribute to Bunuel desire for skeletal simplicity represented by Andrzej Wajda and a quite informative in the canvases of Franz Kline and the interview from Spider magazine with Kenbuildings of Mies van der Rohe. The op- neth Anger. All in all, a varied and interposite dangers of depth, when it is mere esting collection which the film teacher will abstract analysis, seem to Professor Scott certainly want on his shelf. -Richard Dyer MacCann (an Episcopal theologian at the University of Chicago) to justify the current preoccupation with appearances, the simple aware- Sheldon Renan. An Introduction to the American Underground Film. New York, E. P. ness of "the thing itself." But he hopes, as Dutton & Co., Inc., 1967. Subtitle on the I do, that we shall not skate forever on the cover: A unique, fully illustrated handbook surface. to the art of underground films and their Prominent among the valuable pieces makers. Appendix on rental sources of in Film Makers on Film Making is a pair films;294 pages, $2.25. of interviews with Alain Resnais which GregoryBattcock (editor). The New American first appeared in Films and Filming. In one Cinema. Subtitle: A Critical Anthology. New York, E. P. Dutton 8 Co., Inc., 1967; of them, Robbe-Grillet is also involved, and 252 pages, $1.75. he says of Last Year at Marienbad, "the imThere was always an experimental film. portant thing is always a sort of hollow in the heart of reality." Resnais confesses that The early history of cinema is filled with "we never really know if the scenes are oc- innumerable trick or fantasy films of all curring in the man's mind or in the descriptions and one can hardly deny that woman's." An overworked film professor many of these were done quite seriously as may find such comments helpful; they will artistic experiments at least as much as further puzzle those anxious sophomores they were done for a commercial theater. who seek rational clues to the anti-ration- Or, let us say, the two comfortably went toalism of Marienbad. gether. In the twenties there was a great a made available deal of serious experiment. After World Geduld has also Harry transcript of a discussion at the Centro War II there was a new burst of experiSperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, mental activity in this country. But within during which Michelangelo Antonioni de- the past ten or fifteen years the activity has livered himself of characteristic sentiments reached the point where it has virtually beand also read aloud in its entirety the state- come the serious film-making of the country. ment he made at the press conference in These two books, complementing each Cannes when L'Avventura was shown. He other document this current activity.

38 / CINEMA JOURNAL Sheldon Renan's Introduction is a history that goes back to the beginnings and covers the main trends but concentrates on the recent work. It has a general essay, a summary of development, a large alphabetical section dealing with current film-makers, a few pages on leading "stars"of the underground, then a discussion of the practical problems of production and distribution, and finally a piece on "expanded cinema" -that is, the various multi-media effects which are now so popular. Gregory Battcock's Anthology is a collection of twenty-nine pieces, all written within the past few years, some original, some reprinted from film and other journals. I think I like the Renan book better, but that is somewhat in the nature of things. Renan after all is talking about what is actually happening and the people in Battcock are talking about what they think of what is happening, like all critics. And, to be sure, these critics are apt to be more than a little fuzzy around the edges, like their films. Why, those of us on the outside cry, must so many of the films be so sloppy So many of the and-yes-unimaginative? films have what Susan Sontag calls a "studied primitiveness." They are "antiart" in a very special way. It is all very well to dissemble your love of classic form and beauty but why must you go to such fantastic extremes? But then one thinks of the beauty that underground film makers have produced, the wild marvel of Ron Rice's Chumlum, the pure delight of the best of Ian Hugo and Storm de Hirsch, some moments of Jack Smith, the outpouring of Stan Brakhage, the early work of the Kuchars, and the later work of Andy Warhol, and one pauses for reflection. Where there is such fire one can forgive a large amount of smoke. At any moment other new major figures may appear. The spirit is certainly there and if many film-makers do seem to react woefully against the slightest taint of Establishment

it is no service to the cause to dismiss them out of hand. Far better to receive them hospitably and believe that this is the way art develops. This is not the approach of some of the critics Battcock has rounded up to give the minority, opposition view. Dwight Macdonald lashes out at both Mekases for their films, Guns of the Trees (Jonas) and Hallelujah the Hills (Adolfas). Amos Vogel in his Evergreen Review piece, "Thirteen Confusions," admits the qualities of many of the older (by say five years) filmmakers but feels that the newer people have little or nothing to offer. I don't myself feel that this downbeat attitude goes very far toward a serious critique of these films. It is too much like the immortal "This will never do" that was supposed to take care of young Keats. In contrast I would particularly recommend Jonas Mekas's apologia pro the underground, Susan Sontag's sympathetic (if by now familiar) piece on Flaming Creatures, and the Harry Smith interview by P. Adams Sitney which presents a legendary "wild man" of the underground as a very interesting, level-headed fellow. The Renan book, though, deserves warm praise. Flatly, in a disarming preface, the author tells us that when he began his quest for underground films (some three years ago) he was "not a critic, really, and certainly not a scholar." But it would be hard to beat his overall survey of the scene. Yes, he gives too little space to some people I would want emphasized, and he dwells on some people I find less than exciting. But in the main he gives a reasonably accurate picture of the underground. The only trouble with Renan's survey is that it is so out-of-datel In a field where a temporary absence of two months can mean ignorance of a whole new school of film-makers a book which as the writer says comes up to Spring 1966 is practically an antique. But until we have new, improved methods of communication this will have to -Kirk Bond do.

CinemaJournalNotes Annual Meeting The Society of Cinematologists held its eighth annual meeting in the Wilson Room at the Library of Congress, March 31 to April 1, 1967. Librarian L. Quincy Mumford welcomed the members and spoke of the Library's interest in the preservation of films. During a tour of the Motion Picture Section, John B. Kuiper, head of the section and president of the Society, discussed the research facilities and answered questions about the use of the collection for scholarly purposes. The meeting departed somewhat from the usual pattern in that only two longer papers were read, by Gerald Noxon, Boston University, and Walter Stainton, Cornell. Both were on the prehistory of cinema. Three additional sessions were organized by the Society's officers on a panel basis, with planned topics and invited speakers. In conjunction with the Library of Congress tour, two members from Canada reported on procedures and policies of their agencies, Guy L. Cot6, director of La Cinematheque Canadienne in Montreal, and Mrs. Dorothy Macpherson, of the Center for Films on Art. The first evening session included screenings of two recent productions by Charles Guggenheim and Associates of Washington, D.C.: a political film made for television release at the time of the Robert Kennedy senatorial campaign in New York, and Monument to the Dream, a record of the building of the arch at the gateway to St. Louis. The evening of April 1 was devoted to a preview of the Library of Congress public screenings, April 3 and 4, of rare D. W. Griffith films from the years 1908-1913, selected from the collection of positive

"paper prints" deposited for copyright and recently rephotographed under the project paid for by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and by the Congress of the U.S. Films shown in the Coolidge Auditorium (and copyright dates) were: For Love of Gold (Aug. 11, 1908); The Wooden Leg (Mar. 9, 1909); The Test (Dec. 20, 1909); On the Reef (Jan. 19, 1910); The Poor Sick Men (Jan. 26, 1911); The Two Paths (Jan. 4, 1911); One Is Business, the Other Crime (Apr. 24, 1912); The Lesser Evil (Apr. 27, 1912); and Judith of Bethulia, Reel IV (Oct. 21 and Nov. 17, 1913). New officers elected for 1967-68 were John B. Kuiper, American University and Library of Congress, president; Richard D. MacCann, University of Kansas, secretary; Donald Staples, Ohio State University, treasurer; Sol Worth, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania, council member. After his designation as editor of Cinema Journal, MacCann resigned as secretary and was replaced by Donald McCaffrey, University of North Dakota, in accordance with the constitution of the Society. More detailed accounts of annual meeting sessions follow. MEMBERS'PROJECTS

On Saturday, April 1, the morning session was devoted to special reports by members on their recent work in film production. Solomon Dworkin introduced Society members to "Animation by Means of Computer Programs." He presented two methods of computer animation in use at Bell Telephone Laboratories and showed completed computer films.

40 / CINEMA JOURNAL "Computers, as they exist today, are really very stupid," he explained. "Like all machines, they cannot reason for themselves but must depend entirely on directions provided by an intelligent human being." Their tremendous memory capacity and speed of working make them useful tools, however. Dworkin, as head of the Educational Programs Department at Bell Laboratories and at the same time a film-maker, got started in computer films by animating on motion picture film the paper prints of computer generated frames produced by the 4020 Stromberg-Carlson microfilm printer. This technique has been replaced now, since E. Zajac, also at Bell, developed a system whereby the film which comes from the camera that is connected with the computer display device can be projected directly without the print-making and animating steps. Dworkin showed a film which illustrated the steps in production. A computer tape which has come from a computer into which punched cards had been fed, is mounted on the 4020 microfilm printer and controls the information which is fed to a cathode ray tube and the mechanism of the microfilm camera which records the pictures on the face of the tube. The two systems currently in use at Bell are the "point-to-point" method and the BEFLIX method. In the point-to-point system of Dr. Zajac the cathode ray tube is thought of as consisting of many invisible raster points on the face-1024 points up and 1024 points across. The pictures are drawn by a spot of light from an electron beam which is positioned at the raster points indicated by the tape and moves from point to point, and is recorded by the open camera. It is similar to the numbered dots in a dot-todot drawing by children. After the showing of a film which illustrated the above system the BEFLIX system was explained as a program or language developed by K. C. Knowlton. It uses the 1024 by 1024 point grid; however, letters or numbers are positioned at these raster points to create a picture. If X's are used in an area, a darker picture results than if T's were used. By the choice

of letter or number and by controlled spacing, a picture containing apparent gray tones is achieved whereas the point-topoint system produces only black or white. Since computer time is so precious, computer generated frames which must appear more than once in the final film are optically repeated by the motion picture laboratory when printing. Although an artist animator could have achieved some of the same pictures, it would have taken an extremely long time. It did, of course, take the programmers a great deal of time to write the programs for the computer to generate these films; however, by the use of loops, subroutines, and existing programs, the time for preparation will be substantially reduced. The computer language is so precise in its instructions and data that if any faults are discovered by the computer the program will either be totally rejected, or will indicate the error by printed diagnostic comments. Now the scientist and engineer can submit his ideas and data and receive a proof film from the computer as one might receive galley proofs from a publisher, make his corrections, and request the final product. Color computer generated films have been successfully made. After being given the necessary parameters the computer has composed music in the style of Bach and produced a Mondrian-like drawing. Dworkin feels that computer animation "will never replace Donald Duck." This part of the session was concluded by the showing of Two Paradoxes, which combined the work of a computer mathematician and an experimental film-makerKen Knowlton and Stan VanderBeek. Arnold Eagle's presentation was entitled "The Cinematic Characteristics of the Animated Still Photograph in Film." He compared the theoretical characteristics of the still and motion picture with particular attention to the psychological and physiological reactions of the viewer. The advantages of the still photograph include lower cost, ease and speed of set-up, easier lighting, variable exposures, and greater variety of angles and positions, taking "a fraction of the time it would take a most efficient and very fast working movie crew."

CINEMA JOURNAL/ 41 The still photograph and a motion picture are "two totally different media." The viewing of a shot produced on the animation stand, Eagle explained, is a very different experience from the dolly movement on film since "the basic phenomenon of optical perspective is the apparent increase or decrease in the size of an object as it approaches or recedes from a viewer's position" and this phenomenon, with the attendant increase of accelerated rate of growth for nearer objects, is only experienced in the dolly shot. This geometric rate of growth does not happen with the zoom on an animation stand. A similar phenomenon occurs with the pan, trucking, or tilt shot in a motion picture situation as opposed to an east-west or north-south movement on the animation stand. The gradient of motion defines the difference. When the motion picture is used, the nearer foreground objects move faster past the camera than the middle or background objects; whereas in the horizontal or vertical movement across a still photograph, all objects pass by at the same rate. Eagle noted Slavko Vorkapich's statement that "it is only the kinesthetic phenomenon which elevates the film medium to the stature of an original art form." He explained that Vorkapich contended that the other cinematic characteristics of film are derivative from more established art forms and that the kinesthetic phenomenon is unique to the motion picture. Kinesthesia is invisible-felt, not noticed. Recent films like A Hard Day's Night and Blow-Up owe their success to kinesthesia, not fast cutting. "The kinesthetic audience response probably accounts for the universal passion for Westerns and other violent action films all over the world. This very essential ingredient of the cinematic technique is totally absent in the animated still photo film technique." The difference results from the fact that film is the re-creation of real movement, while animation is synthetic. Even the editing is different. For the animated still photograph there is no matching of action; every shot is a cutaway. The most practical method of editing these films is "intellectual montage," according to Eagle-"the use of contrast to heighten

the impact and to give the previous shot a conceptual meaning" in the manner of Eisenstein. Repetition also is useful and Eagle cites Lewis Jacobs' technique of panning across Brady photographs of four dead soldiers and one dead mule to create the impression of a huge battlefield with hundreds of dead. In the live action sound film the visual image has primacy; however, when the animated still photograph is used, a reversal takes place and "the sound track has the greater importance of the two." When new sound techniques are used with the documentary animated still photo film a believable cinema verite quality can be achieved. This is especially true with an "authentic spontaneous undirected sound track recorded on location at the same time that the stills were taken." To illustrate his remarks, Eagle showed his recent film, Now God Speaks Tzaltal, in which the twenty-five years of work of two missionary women are recounted as they bid farewell to the Tzaltal Indian tribe of Mexico. Cornell Capa was responsible for the still photography which is "comparable to three or four movie cameras covering the action simultaneously." Sol Worth reported work in progress which he is directing at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communications. Do we really understand words and phrases of interest such as "film literacy," "the language of the motion picture," or "the syntax of film"? Linguistics and literature have guidelines and conventions; they have sets of rules. By applying these rules, it is possible to "decide if a native speaker is generating grammatical utterances or not." But what about film? Who is the "native speaker" in film? Are there different languages of film? If different languages do exist, what are the boundaries of film dialects or tongues? Are they geographic, cultural, or cognitive? Worth and an anthropologist went to the southwest and conducted experiments with young Navajos ages 17-24 who had seen between six and one hundred films. The subjects could talk some English and were briefly instructed in how to use the

42 / CINEMAJOURNAL Bell and Howell camera with a three-lens turret. They were told that after taking the pictures they could piece the film together in sequences of any length. The results were quite satisfactory as film and as communication. The most successful film, according to Worth, was the one a young girl made about her 65-year-old mother, an educational or "process" film which showed all the steps in the weaving of Navajo material. At the same time, in Philadelphia, a graduate student was teaching a group of eleven to fourteen-year-old Negro boys to "speak" with film. Their efforts resulted in a documentary about their day, which to them was boring, but to the assembled Cinematologists seemed a lively view of the metropolitan environment. Film, then, may be a fairly universal language.-Reported by Chairman Donald E. Staples. FRONTIERS IN TEACHING

At the afternoon session on Saturday several members described new developments in the teaching of film history and criticism at their own institutions. They were also asked by the chairman, Richard MacCann, to share with the Society any thoughts they might have on the needs and trends of the future. MacCann reported on the new graduate and undergraduate programs in history and criticism under his direction at the University of Kansas. The department chairman, Bruce Linton, is in charge of film and television production courses; each of the sequences will require some course work in the other. As the program develops in relation to both speech and journalism, there will no doubt be some emphasis on film and society as an aspect of criticism; cooperative arrangements with Ph.D. programs in American studies and in art history are already in progress. In the immediate future, MacCann felt that good books were becoming available but he foresaw some budgetary problems on all campuses in procuring sufficient film rentals for constant "outside viewing" assignments. Cooperation with existing film societies is helpful, although it seldom allows coordination with the topical organization of a history course. Two longer-range problems relate to

teaching philosophy. As the demand for teachers in the film field expands, the best preparation will probably be the broadest possible cultural background, as opposed to narrow specialization and knowledge of temporary technical skills. Within the university, the art of the film needs to be seen as a contributor to the humanities and the liberal arts. In a more personal vein, MacCann said he felt film teachers were in some danger today of stressing too much the technical or stylistic differences among films and film makers and putting aside the question of content. In his report on developments at New York University, George Amberg indicated that changes and adjustments were coming about because of the "explosion of students" in the area who want to study and make films. He noted that there was a professional school at his institution for film-makers and a film aesthetics approach emphasizing historical-critical, scholarly study. One great problem facing the field is the need for standards and criteriageneral concepts that would serve as a basis for operation in such scholarly activities. As one who guides research Amberg indicated that connection with film archives (such as the Museum of Modern Art Film Library) was highly important. He also saw film archive work itself as an area for opportunities in the future. When questioned about his graduate program, Amberg indicated that a person training for the "practical" film-maker's M.F.A. degree could not count his courses for a history and criticism Ph.D. If this person wished to change his direction of study he would have to start his graduate program over to qualify for the highest degree. Robert Hammond explained his unique way of incorporating films into the study of the French language. While he had encountered some resistance to the use of films at the University of Arizona, he was able to work out his method at Wells College before he instituted his approach at the university. His method is to use film scripts as the reading part of the course, studied as literature first of all. Questions are presented

CINEMA JOURNAL / 43

to the student before the showing of the film. When the motion picture is shown, differences and similarities between the script and the finished production are discussed. Film techniques and the transfer of a "literary image to a film image" might then be topics of inquiry. Hammond presented a sample sheet entitled "Suggested Guide for Literary Analysis" which indicated the preliminary analysis of "Language, literary technique, and exterior factors (time and space)." Robert Steele of Boston University presented a summary of the general needs for developing an effective cinema study program: (a) faculty of quality, (b) money, and (c) freedom from restrictions by the administration. He then went into pertinent specifics which he felt should be explored: (a) Substantial faculty leaves of absence for study. This he believed would strengthen and develop the teacher's ability in the fast-changing area of film study. (b) Publishing outlets for out of print items (such as Lewis Jacobs' Rise of the American Film). He pointed out that many university presses were "going commercial" and might not handle the strong scholarly works that are needed. (c) Divorcement of cinema from the communication concept and placement of the discipline in the fine arts. While there were some objections from members, others agreed. It was also suggested from the floor that film study could embrace a variety of scholarly approaches. Steele concluded by suggesting several immediate tasks: (a) enlightenment of university administrators regarding film needs, (b) exchange of students and rotation of faculty with other schools to avoid sameness in approach to the study of cinema, and (c) development of film libraries of merit. There was further discussion after his Lewis Jacobs suggested presentation. stronger public relations for the Societythat this would help to convince administrators of the importance of specific programs in each university. The exchange or rotation of faculty between institutions was lauded by Gerald Noxon as advantageous to the university as well as the department. Donald Staples indicated that universities in the Big Ten had an exchange plan for

students, who register with one institution but may take courses at others. Robert Gessner, final member of the panel, explained that his twenty-five years of teaching cinema had been a constant "refining process." At New York University he concentrates on the methodology of instruction, especially on getting students to view the "language of cinema"the visual and plastic aspects of the medium. He has developed a "common description" approach to viewing cinema. He provides a "Frame, Shot, Edit (A and B) Analysis Chart" and on this sheet he has the student concentrate on a single shot. Gessner added that he also studies the sequence of shots. Steele asked if this approach did not restrict or focus the analysis to "form" alone. Gessner expressed the view that form and content are inseparable.-Reported by Donald McCaffrey. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

The following statement reprints the major portion of an article appearing in the first issue (Winter 1967-68) of the new Film Library Quarterly, entitled "Opportunities for Film Study at the Library of Congress." It appears here by permission of the author and editor, in lieu of a report on the archives section of the annual meeting. The motion-picture collection of the Library contains about 32,000 separate films and is in the custody of the Motion Picture Section of the Prints and Photographs Division of the Reference Department. The Motion Picture Section maintains this extensive collection primarily for scholarly study and research and, although public projection in general and loan services are not available, every attempt is made to provide film librarians, scholars, graduate students, and other serious users adequate access to the collection. The Motion Picture Section answers written or telephone questions about its holdings and sets up schedules for the use of its reference facilities by serious users. Copies of films which are not restricted by copyright, by provisions of their gift (or transfer) to the Library, or by their physical condition, may be ordered through the Motion Picture Section. The Library's collection began in the

44 / CINEMA JOURNAL early 1890's through the operation of the copyright law. In addition to copyright deposits, more than 1,000 early motion pictures have been acquired through the purchase of the George Kleine collection in 1947 with appropriated funds and through such gifts as the Ernst collection of early comedies and animated cartoons, the Allen collection of documentary and entertainment films, the Mary Pickford collection, and the Dunstan collection of William S. Hart films. Recent acquisitions by gift or transfer from other government agencies include early films from the Edison Laboratory at West Orange, N.J., the Theodore Roosevelt film collection from the Roosevelt Birthplace in New York City, and examples of educational television donated by NET. Each year approximately 1,000 titles are added to the collection from films deposited in the Copyright Office for registration during the preceding year. The Copyright Cataloging Division in the Copyright Office prepares a semi-annual Catalog of Copyright Entries: Motion Pictures and Filmstrips, which lists all such materials registered for copyright in the United States, and which is published by the Library and sold by the Government Printing Office. The Copyright Office has also prepared four cumulative catalogs entitled Motion Pictures, which together cover registrations of films for the years 1894-1959 and which are also for sale by the Government Printing Office. In addition, the Descriptive and Subject Cataloging Divisions in the Library's Processing Department have cataloged educational films since 1952, using data supplied largely by producers and distributors. The

Library publishes this cataloging information in two useful forms for purchase by other libraries or by individuals. One form is the printed card, which any film user may purchase to establish his own card catalog for the control of his collection and for the dissemination of film information. The other is a book catalog reproduced photographically from the printed cards and containing a detailed subject index, adequately cross indexed. This book catalog, entitled Library of Congress Catalog-Motion Pictures and Filmstrips, is issued quarterly and in annual cumulation. It also appears as a volume in the quinquennial cumulation of the Library's National Union Catalog. Both the printed catalog cards and the book catalog may be purchased from the Card Division, Library of Congress, Building 159, Navy Yard Annex, Washington, D.C. 20541. Many of the films of the 1940's in the collection are printed on highly flammable nitrate stock, which must be stored in fireproof vaults outside the District of Columbia. During the past four years the Library has made every effort to convert this footage to safety base stock in order to preserve it and to make reference service more efficient and convenient. Although this preservation project is still underway, initial progress has been encouraging. The Mary Pickford collection of some 200 titles has been converted with funds donated by Miss Pickford. Appropriated funds and income derived from the copying of unrestricted films have enabled the Library to preserve several hundred pre-1920 films and to begin converting American features and newsreels dating from World War II to 1950.-John B. Kuiper.

CONTRIBUTORS Lewis Jacobs, author of The Rise of the American Film, is preparing a companion Paul Falkenvolume about U.S. films since 1940; his article is an advance instalment.... role at the the editor's 1966 meethis of in York New who works berg, City, gave analysis Boston Gerald Noxon, professor of film at University, continues ing of the Society.... his exploration of the pictorial origins of cinema narrative. .... All contributors in this issue are members of the Society. Manuscripts are accepted, however, from members and non-members.

THE SOCIETY OF CINEMATOLOGISTS A learned society founded in the spring of 1959, the Society of Cinematologists is composed of college and university film educators, film makers, historians, critics, scholars, and others concerned with the study of the moving image. The Society seeks to serve its members by stimulating an exchange of ideas, by encouraging and publishing research, by providing international relationships whereby likeminded persons may know each other, and by assisting students and young people in their endeavors to engage in research, writing, and film making. Activities of the Society include an annual meeting at which papers are read, films viewed, and business transacted, and the publication of a members' newsletter and the Journal. Officers for 1967-68: President, John B. Kuiper, Library of Congress; Secretary, Donald W. McCaffrey, University of North Dakota; Treasurer, Donald Staples, Ohio State University. Councilmen: Arthur Knight, William J. Sloan, Robert Steele, Amos Vogel, Sol Worth.

Photographs

in This Issue

Front cover: From Foreign Correspondent .... Inside front cover: From Desert Victory.... Inside back cover: Fron Charles Eames experimental seven-screen film at American National Exhibition in Moscow... Back cover: From Force, Mass and Motion, with animation by automation. CREDITS: Front and inside front cover, first three pages of picture section, Museum of Modern Art Film Stills Archive. Inside back cover, Charles Eames. Back cover, Bell Telephone Laboratories. Bayeux Tapestry photographs by Gerald Noxon.