‘On the History of Film Style’
comes across as a very attractive book. The cavalcade of pictures aids a lot in
a vivid understanding as the book opens interestingly with pictorial explanations,
placing its perspective as exciting and simple. It begins by answering the
over-debated opening question of whether the historiography of film style is
important or not. I agree with the author’s view that it is important and that
this approach with style in center is not formalistic though a bit empirical,
which is obvious and normal as that’s the nature of most of the theories of
human sciences. The book narrates the history of films not as a record but the
story of evolution of an art form. As you go on to read it, your anxieties and
questions are answered gradually. Though there is very little in the book about
the era after the introduction of sound, it is fair as the author makes it
clear in the introduction only. Sound films were predicted to have no stylistic
development which is a rather regressive view and there is not sufficient
effort on author’s part of correcting that view. Seldes reflects his time’s
anxiety about the introduction of talkies. Sound was not considered to be
critical to the development of style of film. But to think of it, has not the
introduction of sound made it more realistic and saved the actors from theatric
over-dramatic expressions they had to use to make the message clear? The book gives
you all the perspectives to look from, and hence is quite an open and influent
book. The discussion about the IMR involving the Bourgeois ideology behind the
reproduction of reality and many other debates in the History of Vision could have been better researched and refined. At
times the book gives the feeling of being over-stuffed with interpretation
which becomes detrimental; so there is a want of more quotations.
One gets a sense of history while
learning the interesting working of camera- technical or manual. In some of the
chapters, few points are revised rather redundantly. Yet all these flaws seem
to be time specific. Different levels of maturity approach every era which has
different problems and hence different views. My view will always be biased
towards post-modernist view. When such views and terms become hurdles in the
way of achieving a common or more precise history, they inevitably do such
violence, has been shown adequately through the ‘back and forth’ approach. One
senses the efforts at the standardization of shots so that we recognize
emotions or targeted meaning through the standardized angle, but it comes
across as a very restraining main stream technique. A director’s mind or style
is not a linear development. It goes back and forth and evolves thinking innumerable
things. So, history of style can never be linear; it will always be scattered,
and forcefully linked one. It almost seems like every theory, and every
movement has always existed. The book is not self-reflexive in some ways; the meta-history
does not emerge out of the book. The ‘problems and solutions’ method seems an over-simplified
and technical view at style history like most others, yet it is a type of
history I would like to read. Commoli’s argument is very denaturalizing and systematic. It problematises the over simplified
independent technical view of film style:
‘’If there was ever a discourse
that deserves to be called disordered and confused, anchored in the
"middle way" and "common sense," proceeding not from
historical or dialectical materialism but from an empiricism that is totally
blind to the ideology that it speaks, it is that ... which is the discourse-
of-the-technicians, pure positivism and objectivism.’’
One more interesting approach,
the ideological view accounts for many developments but becomes dogmatic and
over-embracing. Brodwell’s following point mentions that simply and clearly.
‘’Stated starkly, the ideological
demand that an image must exhibit depth carries no instructions about how to
stage or shoot or light a shot, since there are many ways of doing these things
that will create a sense of depth.’’ This could be discussed further on up to
where Comollis’ point won’t be proved faulty but short and as unaccountable as
many other views as it won’t capture the finer details.
Everything is there in the back
of the mind of director whose insight and perception make him an artful creator.
So no point of view can serve as a good enough lens to historicize film style.
The sixth chapter of the book is full of details about staging and camera
angles, making you realize how hard it must have been to guide attention and
center the visual narrative. Nothing seems more interesting than connecting the
shots; staging a shot is refueled with such interest by the book that old
scenes now look new and hard found. And then finally the camera movement takes
its baby steps- with long lens, focus, pan and zoom.
Overall, the book sketches out
the early stylistics of films as clearly and as openly as possibly. I would
recommend it as a satisfactory stylistic book on early film development,
especially for those who are planning to research on the film style.
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