Page 198 - Inside the Film Factory New Approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema

INSIDE THE FILM FACTORY 179
CRISIS AND COUNTERPOINT: ANTICIPATING
SOUND
The ‘Statement on Sound’, signed by Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Alexandrov, 18
needs to be read against the background of anxious speculation that preceded
actual experience of sound in the Soviet Union, if only because it is a deeply
ambivalent text. Although generally regarded as a cautious acceptance of sound, it
can equally be read as an ingenious rejection of the basic unacceptable discovery
of the talkie, synchronised speech–which, it should be remembered, was not
Hollywood’s original aim in developing sound reproduction. More precisely, the
overall strategy of the ‘Statement’ is to mount a tactical defence of montage by
conceding certain criticisms, while seeking to relocate the inner speech/montage
relationship within the new ensemble of sound cinema.
The ‘Statement’ claims that montage is ‘the indisputable axiom upon which
world cinema culture rests’. From this point of view:

Sound is a double-edged invention and its most probable application will be
along the line of least resistance, i.e. in the field of the satisfaction of simple
curiosity. 19

As a result of such innocent demonstrations of the “‘illusion” of people talking,
objects making a noise, etc.’ there is the likelihood of an institutionalised theatrical
phase, characterised by ‘dramas of high culture’. At first sight, this prediction
seems close to what actually happened as Hollywood turned to Broadway for its
actors and ready-made scripts, but in fact it had a particular and rather different
meaning in the Soviet context. Ever since the pre-Revolutionary period there had
been an intense struggle between partisans of theatre and cinema over the
20
autonomy and specificity of the latter. After the Revolution the debate continued
and became even more complex, with Meyerhold, who had proclaimed the
‘cinefication of the theatre’, and former theatre experimentalists such as Eisenstein
and the FEKS group, ranged against the Moscow Art Theatre and supporters of
21
non-montage and ‘theatrical’ cinema. But the main thrust of the argument is that
sound used naturalistically would, quite simply, ‘destroy the culture of montage’ by
substituting a linear, narrative syntax for the dialectical and disjunctive syntax of
montage.
Then the proposal:

Only the contrapuntal use of sound vis-à-vis the visual fragment of montage
will open up new possibilities for the development and perfection of
montage.
The first experiments in sound must aim at a sharp discord with the
visual images. Only such a ‘hammer and tongs’ approach will produce the
necessary sensation that will result consequently in the creation of a new
orchestral counterpoint of visual and sound images.