prose in cinema, poetry in cinema
We've almost forgotten that at one time cinema was a risky thing. There was a time when there were fiery controversies and interesting debates about cinema. One of the finest and most interesting was that between Pier Paolo Passolini and Eric Rohmer. And it's perfect for this number of the balde, which is especially focussed on poetry. a soviet debate
What these two great film directors said to each other over the years and in different media is collected, amongst other places, in the Iskusstvo Kino publications, Cahiers de Cinema and Recherches internationales à la lumière du marxisme. We have taken our title, Prose et poésie au cinéma, from the latter. Maybe it's giving too much information here, but I can't help mentioning the great film maker Joaquin Jorda, who did the translation from French to
Spanish.
Before dealing with the civilised debate which film directors Passolini and Rohmer had, it is worth mentioning that it is a debate which started almost at the same time as cinema itself. The two trenches were breached when Soviet cinema was just starting up.
Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Dovchenko and Dziga Vertovn took the position that the methods of poetry should be used in the new cinema language because, when it is not dramatic, it is epic and lyrical . They were highly experimental film makers and developed many techniques which are still used today. Einsenstein called his famous editing method "poetic editing". Giving the image which was being not what it represented or the acting.
On the other hand, Yukevitch, Vassiliev, Ermler, Room and Kozintsev favoured prose cinema. The film maker Yukevitch was fiercely opposed to poetic cinema. editing and poetic cinema language, in which framing becomes the rhythm of images on the screen, and in which images are recited like verses, leads us to deny humanity. Humanity becomes an object. It becomes effeminate. Avant-garde Russian cinema wants to get close to effeminate French cinema . Kozintsev did not have such a radical point of view. He reflected on the still on-going debate comparing art house cinema and movies just for entertainment: It isn't a good idea to condense ideas into symbols and offer that to spectators using artificial, ostentatious editing. What matters in movies is the people, the action and the connections between them.
Passolini and Rohmer
Pier Paolo Passolini made some very interesting observations about cinema language. It is important to know what he thought about the cinema if you want to understand his films:Written communication, whether poetic or philosophical, is already highly developed and has its own mature, real system. At the centre of cinema language, however, there is a very rough, almost animal visual language. As dreams and memory are visual, they are prior to grammar. So the language which cinema uses is irrational in character, and that explains cinema's dream-like and specific nature.
Passolini goes on to say that there is something further which cannot be explained in words. And he believed that cinema, being a new language (bear in mind that these reflections were written
over 50 years ago), tries to show that which cannot be put in words or, at least, makes an effort to do so: Literary language has two tendencies. Poetry or prose. They are two different and differentiated tendencies. To such an extent that they have different stories. You can do two things with words: prose or poetry. With images, however, for the moment all I can do is cinema: I can do create poetry or less, more prose or less. In theory. In practice, we've seen that prose has very quickly imposed itself in cinema narrative.
French film maker Eric Rohmer answered him in an interview in Cahiers de Cinema in 1965:I'm amazed that Passolini carries on making films after writing that. I'm very interested in the problems which cinema language brings up, although I still don't know if it is a real problem or a false one which separates us from creative work. Being an abstract problem, and a deep one, it prevents you from enjoying and pleasure which watching a film gives you. Having said that, I agree with Passolini when he says that cinema language is a style rather than a grammar.
Rohmer, in the end, believes that the two trenches are actually just one. I don't believe that the camera's presence should be apparent in modern cinema. That's very fashionable right now. Nor do I believe that modern cinema is 'poetry cinema' or that classic cinema is 'prose cinema'. I think there is modern narrative prose cinema in which poetry, too, has a place, but this is not specifically sought after: it's a type of poetry which appears of its own will.
How fine debates are when they are fine.
What these two great film directors said to each other over the years and in different media is collected, amongst other places, in the Iskusstvo Kino publications, Cahiers de Cinema and Recherches internationales à la lumière du marxisme. We have taken our title, Prose et poésie au cinéma, from the latter. Maybe it's giving too much information here, but I can't help mentioning the great film maker Joaquin Jorda, who did the translation from French to
Spanish.
Before dealing with the civilised debate which film directors Passolini and Rohmer had, it is worth mentioning that it is a debate which started almost at the same time as cinema itself. The two trenches were breached when Soviet cinema was just starting up.
Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Dovchenko and Dziga Vertovn took the position that the methods of poetry should be used in the new cinema language because, when it is not dramatic, it is epic and lyrical . They were highly experimental film makers and developed many techniques which are still used today. Einsenstein called his famous editing method "poetic editing". Giving the image which was being not what it represented or the acting.
On the other hand, Yukevitch, Vassiliev, Ermler, Room and Kozintsev favoured prose cinema. The film maker Yukevitch was fiercely opposed to poetic cinema. editing and poetic cinema language, in which framing becomes the rhythm of images on the screen, and in which images are recited like verses, leads us to deny humanity. Humanity becomes an object. It becomes effeminate. Avant-garde Russian cinema wants to get close to effeminate French cinema . Kozintsev did not have such a radical point of view. He reflected on the still on-going debate comparing art house cinema and movies just for entertainment: It isn't a good idea to condense ideas into symbols and offer that to spectators using artificial, ostentatious editing. What matters in movies is the people, the action and the connections between them.
Passolini and Rohmer
Pier Paolo Passolini made some very interesting observations about cinema language. It is important to know what he thought about the cinema if you want to understand his films:Written communication, whether poetic or philosophical, is already highly developed and has its own mature, real system. At the centre of cinema language, however, there is a very rough, almost animal visual language. As dreams and memory are visual, they are prior to grammar. So the language which cinema uses is irrational in character, and that explains cinema's dream-like and specific nature.
Passolini goes on to say that there is something further which cannot be explained in words. And he believed that cinema, being a new language (bear in mind that these reflections were written
over 50 years ago), tries to show that which cannot be put in words or, at least, makes an effort to do so: Literary language has two tendencies. Poetry or prose. They are two different and differentiated tendencies. To such an extent that they have different stories. You can do two things with words: prose or poetry. With images, however, for the moment all I can do is cinema: I can do create poetry or less, more prose or less. In theory. In practice, we've seen that prose has very quickly imposed itself in cinema narrative.
French film maker Eric Rohmer answered him in an interview in Cahiers de Cinema in 1965:I'm amazed that Passolini carries on making films after writing that. I'm very interested in the problems which cinema language brings up, although I still don't know if it is a real problem or a false one which separates us from creative work. Being an abstract problem, and a deep one, it prevents you from enjoying and pleasure which watching a film gives you. Having said that, I agree with Passolini when he says that cinema language is a style rather than a grammar.
Rohmer, in the end, believes that the two trenches are actually just one. I don't believe that the camera's presence should be apparent in modern cinema. That's very fashionable right now. Nor do I believe that modern cinema is 'poetry cinema' or that classic cinema is 'prose cinema'. I think there is modern narrative prose cinema in which poetry, too, has a place, but this is not specifically sought after: it's a type of poetry which appears of its own will.
How fine debates are when they are fine.
