The Creative Process THE SEARCH FOR AN AUDIO-VISUAL LANGUAGE AND STRUCTURE SECOND EDITION by John Howard Lawson Preface by Jay Leyda dol HILL AND WANG • NEW YORK www.johnhowardlawson.com Copyright © 1964, 1967 by John Howard Lawson All rights reserved Library of Congress catalog card number: 67-26852 Manufactured in the United States of America First edition September 1964 Second edition November 1967 www.johnhowardlawson.com To the Association of Film Makers of the U.S.S.R. and all its members, whose proud traditions and present achievements have been an inspiration in the preparation of this book www.johnhowardlawson.com Preface The masters of cinema moved at a leisurely pace, enjoyed giving generalized instruction, and loved to abandon themselves to reminis­ cence. They made it clear that they possessed certain magical secrets of their profession, but they mentioned them evasively. Now and then they made lofty artistic pronouncements, but they showed a more sincere interest in anecdotes about scenarios that were written on a cuff during a gay supper.... This might well be a description of Hollywood during any period of its cultivated silence on the matter of film-making. Actually, it is Leningrad in 1924, described by Grigori Kozintsev in his memoirs.1 It is so seldom that we are allowed to study the disclosures of a Hollywood film-maker about his medium that I cannot recall the last instance that preceded John Howard Lawson's book. There is no dearth of books about Hollywood, but when did any other book come from there that takes such articulate pride in the art that is-or was-made there? I have never understood exactly why the makers of American films felt it necessary to hide their methods and aims under blankets of coyness and anecdotes, the one as impenetrable as the other. I have no doubt that, even from the minimum viewpoint of efficiency, Hollywood's artists knew how and why they made films the way they did, and do. But it was rarely, through accident or alcohol or the general intoxication of being interviewed (away from the protective custody of a studio representative), that they could 1 Fragment translated as "Over the Parisiana," in Sight and Sound, Winter 1962-63. vi www.johnhowardlawson.com PREFACE vii afford to allow the outside world, including each other as well as all hopeful apprentices, to glimpse the actual process. Those who knew the most-directors, writers, cameramen, producers-were the most evasive in guarding their "magical secrets." If an outside but sympathetic ear was available at a moment of crisis-a quarrel with the front office, a challenge to the enlarged ego, or such-much might get said, to demonstrate that a film-maker could think out loud when necessary; but loyalty usually stopped the sympathetic outsider from putting the talk into print. That is one reason why we have an amazingly small body of revealing words on the princi­ ples, technique, and aesthetics of film-making from the place that was the capital of the film world for so many years-and these valuable words were quickly and well buried in the pages of for­ gotten journals and newspapers. There was another possible reason for the semiarticulate mum­ bling that usually passed for an analysis of "how I do it." Some artists, induding those few most respected by historians, depended on intuitions that to an increasing extent were permitted to fossilize into habit without ever being subjected to examination, least of all by the artist himself. Lack of time was the feeblest of several excuses. Results, gauged by attractiveness to the purchasers of tickets, Were considered proof enough that this or that Grand Old Mr. Movie knew his job. Cameramen could retreat behind measurements in decimal numbers. Screen writers spent most of their public time on well-worn distinctions between their work and literature. For some reason we all have been remarkably reluctant to grant that the Hollywood screen writer was as responsible as the Holly­ wood director for the quality and expressiveness of the films made there. To be able to listen to the screen writer who thus shared­ and often his share was more than half-in the making of some of the best American films of two decades, is a benefit to film-makers everywhere. Lawson broadens his earlier work· on playwriting and screenwriting to examine the whole art of films: what governs film-making and how does film-making govern its audience seem to me the two questions least likely to be faced by Hollywood either yesterday or today-and Lawson brings the whole world of film-making to give evidence on these questions. Despite the tabu on articulation sworn silently by the whole tribe, the sensible or frank words imported from foreign film- www.johnhowardlawson.com viii PREFACE makers were eagerly studied, sometimes behind carefully closed doors. Ivor Montagu has described his astonishment to find that a film executive seated next to him on a plane knew the theories of Pudovkin, and I have been as surprised by the various Hollywood desks that I saw Eisenstein's books standing on. Occasionally such writing was greeted with the flattery of derision, but more often the reaction was, "Why was he so foolish as to put it all down for anyone to use!" Next to the Russians, the French and Italian film-makers have been the least elusive about the principles behind their works. The insights of Clair, put forward in his oblique yet penetrating manner, may not have been in such circulation in Hollywood, but I'm sure they must have been studied and combed -when Clair himself, as an alarming brother-competitor, was no longer near by. German, Swedish, and British film-makers (except for those making documentary films) have been almost as reticent as Hollywood's citizens. How good itis to have, finally, an Ameri­ can work to add to the theoretical contributions from abroad. Lawson's thinking and his career have made it possible for him to fuse American pragmatism with the film practice and theory developed by other film-making nations, to present the first useful, articulate, open, and stimulating American film book. It is signifi­ cant that it should come to us at the point in film history when Hollywood as a central fact seems to have drifted to the side, and we now think of Hollywood as one thread in the whole world's film-making activity. Perhaps this was always so, except for the years after World War I, and the historical section of this book should help us to judge the truth and reasons for the changes that have taken place since Hollywood led the world to the box office. The American film industry has never enjoyed any close inspection of its present or past-it was always next month's films that had t6 be sold. But the future ofHollywood probably depends as much on analysis as on social change. Here is a book that puts these both in perspective and in our consciousness. JAY LEYDA www.johnhowardlawson.com Contents page Preface vi Introduction to the Second Edition xv PART I: THE SILENT FILM 1. The Pioneers 3 2. Conflict-in-Motion 14 3. Film as History-D. W. Griffith 21 4. The Human Image-Chaplin 36 5. Origins of the Modem Film 45 6. Revelation 72 7. End of an Era 85 P ART II: THE WORLD OF SOUND 8. The Tyranny of Talk 97 9. Social Consciousness 108 10. The Impending Crisis 119 11. The War Years 137 12. Neo-Realism 146 13. The Decline of Hollywood 154 14. The Film Today 165 ix www.johnhowardlawson.com X CONTENTS page PART III: LANGUAGE 15. Syntax 175 16. Theatre 187 17. Flowers of Speech 195 18. Film and Novel 205 PART IV: THEORY 19. Denial of Reality 221 20. Violence 230 21. Alienation 243 22. Document 259 23. Man Alive 268 24. Toward a Film Structure 281 PART V: STRUCTURE 25. Audio-Visual Conflict 295 26. Time and Space 308 27. Premise 323 28. Progression 334 29. Climax 350 Bibliography 361 Index 369 www.johnhowardlawson.com Illustrations (Plates follow pages 156 and 188) TWO INITIAL TENDENCIES 1. Train Entering a Station (about 1896) 2. The Impossible Voyage (1904) EDWIN S. PORTER EXPLORES POSSIBILITIES 3. Uncle Tom's Cabin (1903) 4. The Great Train Robbery (1904) 5. The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906) CONFLICT OF STYLES 6. Queen Elizabeth (1912) 7. Lines of White on a Sullen Sea (1911) MASS MOVEMENT 8. The Birth of a Nation (1915) 9. Intolerance (1916) CHAPLIN 10. The Tramp (1915) 11. Sunnyside (1919) xi www.johnhowardlawson.com xii ILL UST RAT ION S TWO MAIN TRENDS AFTER WORLD WAR I 12. The Cabinet of Dr. CaUgari (1919) 13. Nanook of the North (1922) HOLLYWOOD IN THE TWENTIES 14. Ben Hur (1926) 15. The Navigator (1924) 16. Greed (1924) THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE 17. Garbo as a Woman (1928) 18. Flesh and the Devil (1927) 19. The Mysterious Lady (1928) THE ART OF EISENSTEIN 20. Strike (1924) 21. Potemkin (1925) CLOSEUP 22. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) 23. Earth (1930) BEYOND REALISM 24. Un Chien Andalou (1929) 25. Le Sang d'un Poete (1931) VIOLENCE AND SOCIAL REALITY 26. Little Caesar (1930) 27. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) THE SOVIET FILM IN THE THIRTIES 28. Chapayev (1934) 29. Alexander Nevsky (1938) www.johnhowardlawson.com ILLUSTRATIONS xiii THE AMERICAN FILM DISCOVERS AMERICA 30. Modern Times (1936) 31. The Grapes of Wrath (1939) AMERICAN DOCUMENT 32 and 33.