2/19/12

Elliot Thompson

Film Form: The Unexpected After opening the book, Film Form, it doesn't take long to realize that Sergei Eisenstein, the Soviet author of this collection of essays and director of such classic works as "Battleship Potemkin," is as enthusiastic about cinema as one can get. He does not, however, dwell on past accomplishments, but instead, is forward-thinking, attempting to peer into the foggy future of film, and with great expectations. The collection spans most of his career (early 1920s through late 1940s) and in his early writing, the then-new "sound film" was one of his most curious concerns. He touches on this several times throughout his 1928 essay, "The Unexpected." This essay revolves around the comparison of the developing medium of film to that of Kabuki theater. While it seems fairly obvious that film is a descendant of live theater, Eisenstein makes some interesting points, albeit abstract at times, why Kabuki is the purest example of this film/theater. Kabuki is a tradition in Japanese theater that dates back to 17th century feudal Japan and which, although still in practice today, had its golden age toward the end of the 18th century. Eisenstein's argument is that Kabuki is the only theater that achieves the same level of "monism" as film. In other words, for Kabuki to achieve greatness, all parts must work together equally, in unison. There are no lead or supporting pieces, or Eisenstein states, "It is impossible to speak of "accompaniments" in Kabuki--just as one would not say that, in walking or running, the right leg "accompanies" the left leg, or that both of the accompany the diaphragm!" I happen to like this analogy, as well as his emphatic tone. Like I said, the guy loves film. Of course, since my Kabuki experience is limited to what I've seen on television or through clips on the internet, it's hard for me to provide tangible proof of what exactly Eisenstein is referring to. I can, however, say that I think his statement consists of more than just each actor working together, but more so that of each aspect of the production of Kabuki, from set design to sound design, doing its part to further convey, both literally and figuratively, what is happening on stage.

Speaking of the sound of Kabuki, I took the opportunity to listen to various "scores" from different famous productions. I put scores in quotations because it is mostly percussive and, from a western point of view, atonal. After some thought, however, I realized that this type of score one of the most striking similarities between this type of theater and modern film. As cinema has progressed throughout the decades, SFX and music have merged together more and more seamlessly, to a point at which we have no better description to give what we hear than to call it "sound design." The aural blanket that covers the grey area between music and SFX. Kabuki theater seems to have been doing this for 400 years. Eisenstein cites a quote from Zoe Kincaid, author of Kabuki, the Popular Stage of Japan, in which she describes the "samisen," a plucked, three-string instrument often used in Kabuki. She says, "samisen music depends almost completely on rhythm rather than melody to interpret emotion... [when] changing rhythms, the samisen musicians gain the effect they desire... falling snow, a flight of birds, wind in the tree tops..." This sort of cleverness seems to me like sound design at its best. When listening to the instrumentation used in Kabuki, I couldn't help but be reminded of the score to Roman Polanski's Repulsion, composed by jazz musician, Gbor Szab, which, although sparse, is centered around percussion. Both the music and sound design for Repulsion are regarded as progressive accomplishments in film and so, I think it would be interesting to see what the late Eisenstein would have thought of it. Perhaps an example like this would have caused him to stand up from his seat and proclaim, as he did in the last sentence of his essay, "Hail the junction of Kabuki and the sound film!"