152
PARTISAN REVIEW
vision and the rectilinearity with which we compose the terrestrial
objects within the frame.
Again, what then? The conclusion of this line of argument
is by no means that cinema can not or ought not aim at effects of
synthetic construction, or participation, or anything except spatial
illusion;-God forbid that a critic should argue for the status quo,
and what a status quo! Rather, that such non-illusory effects require
the invention of .new technical resources and manners of handling,
the work of creative directors. We have seen, for instance, how
Eisenstein's Square is one such invention, more far-reaching in its
expression than one might have thought, intimately related to the
achievement of a non-illusory effect.
An
invention along another
line is Herr Gropius' "Space Theatre," a plan to project films
simultaneously on several different screens. The exact expressive–
ness of such a medium would have to be discovered by exploration,
but it seems to me--on the analogy especially of the Grandeur
screen-that at least an effect of pageantry could be directly
achieved by this means, for the several spaces would destroy the
illusion of the unique illusory space, restore the relation of the
spectator to the spectacle as spectacle, and give the spectacle gre!ij
magnitude. Another technique for overcoming illusion-but one
which seems to me to sink even
deeper
into illusion-is the employ–
ment of news-reels or news-reel atmosphere in documentaries.
Another, thrice-familiar, technique is the direct address to the
audience by a huge close-up of a face-but almost always this
particular sequence in the film merely clashes with everything
that has gone before; let me give no examples.
CONTRIBUTORS
JEAN MALAQUAIS is the author of
Les /avanais.
See the note beginning
page 98 for further information.... JusTIN O'BRIEN is a member of the
Department of Romance Languages of Columbia University.... FRANK
)ONES, co-editor of
Diogenes,
is working on a Fellowship at the Yale School
of Drama.... ISABELLA FEY lives in Brooklyn.... JACKSON MATHEWS,
whose verse has appeared before in PARTISAN REVIEW, lives in New York
City.... OscAR WILLIAMS's latest book of verse is
The Man Coming
Towards You....
E.
L.
MAYO lives in Fargo, N.D.... DYLAN THOMAS is
the author of the recently published
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog.
The ballad printed here was originally published in
Horizon.
...
The Colt
Press will shortly bring out PAUL GooDMAN's novel,
The Grand Piano, or
The Almanac of Alienation.
...
LEON CoLBERT is the pen-name of a
French historian and expert on Russian affairs who is now a refugee
in
this country.... RENE ETIEMBLE is a refugee who is a member of the
Exchange Faculty of the University of Chicago.
