Book Review
Title: The Story of Film
Author: Mark Cousins
Publisher: Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York
Date: 2004
ISBN: 9781560256120
Mark Cousins shows both a massive breadth of knowledge and a deep microscopic detail of knowledge: in film history, technique, theory, and practice. That statement doesn’t begin to convey the wealth of knowledge the reader stands to gain by reading this book. The 493 pages fly by in no time as the reader soaks in the fascinating experiments and developments and the many varied schools of thought that have emerged year in and year out since the birth of cinema in 1895.
The date range of each chapter is clearly stated in the title itself — Chapter 1: “Technical Thrill (1895–1903)” and Chapter 2: The Early Power of Story (1903–18),” for example. I found that framing useful for keeping track of the sequences of cinematographic developments and following the threads of “Schema Plus Variation.”
Schema Plus Variation is the central concept that helps us trace the logical progression and evolution of cinema. Some film makers from each generation had the “adapt-fast-to-new-facts” approach to theory and technology; and a “take-what-you-need-and-discard-the-rest” approach. Film makers build on what others have done (i.e., existing schema), and re-align, re-imagine, re-factor, re-construct, and tweak (i.e., plus variation), in order to create their own new style. It may be a new way to aim a camera, a new angle, a way to move the camera, what to include in a shot, length of shots, or in some cases a whole new way to make a movie, start to finish. Even if the new way rejects everything from the previous generation, the rejection itself is a nod to predecessors who provided the jumping off counterpoint (i.e., a complete jump shot from the past).
Early elements of cinema emphasized shots, cuts, close-ups, and camera-moves (up, down, angle, turn). The years 1903 to 1918 saw the rise of storytelling cinema which included ingredients such as continuity cutting, close-ups, parallel editing, expressive lighting, nuanced acting, and reverse angle editing. By 1918 or 1919, add to this the introduction of “eye-line matching” (eye line correct when showing one actor at a time while two actors are interacting). Later Cinema Verité in France (like Direct Cinema in the US) followed long tracking shots for realism. Then the special use of shadows later in film noir. The steady stream of new techniques promoted creativity and discovery and fueled amazing innovations throughout cinema history.
What about Hollywood? The answer is Closed Romantic Realism. This is the most common mode of film making. It is closed because the actors live exclusively in the movie. They do not acknowledge that there is any audience, they don’t look directly into the camera, they don’t talk to the audience. It is romantic, because it escalates emotional impact. It is realism, because it is not science fiction, or another otherworldly genre; it depicts itself as being our regular real world. Closed Romantic Realism is Hollywood’s specialty.
I studied film theory and criticism in college, and saw several of the film-theory staples at the campus theater (free of charge with my film-student ID). They included Breathless, 8 ½, Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, 400 Blows, Jules & Jim, Last Year in Marienbad, Un Chien Andalou, Citizen Kane, Battleship Potemkin, Annie Hall, The Bicycle Thieves, Cinema Paradiso, Phantom Carriage, Seventh Seal, among others. The book discusses all of these, so it was enjoyable to refresh on films I had seen long ago.
Having grown up at a time when classic horror movies were presented on TV on Friday late-nights (e.g., shock theater, etc.); it was also enjoyable to see the section on the horror genre, and its leading men: Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi, and Boris Karloff.
All the genres and periods of cinema have one thing in common, they all produced some excellent films. From having been a film student, I found that being well made is what makes a film stand out, not its theory, its genre, its technology, or its historical period. What makes this book excellent is that it, too, is well made. This is a well-written, thoroughly researched adventure into the depths of cinematic history. I recommend it for anyone interested in twentieth-century history in general, and especially for all the moviegoers out there.