I think ultimately each person has to do what works best for him or her.

But for the sake of discussion:
Preminger's remark is ridiculous if taken literally. If no one "notices"
a camera movement, then what was the point of the camera movement?
What Preminger means is that he does not want audiences to be pulled OUT
of the movie by technical tricks.
A good analogous case is the final tracking shot in LOLA MONTÈS, which
was originally one long take and which, shortly after release, Ophuls
(himself, not his producer) shortened by the use of dissolves. Why?
Because audiences were distracted by it, were bored, were puzzled; it
created unnecessary problems. So Ophuls, like a good show man, "fixed"
it. And Ophuls would have argued that what he originally wanted to do is
much better accomplished with the dissolves than without them.

Some posts ago, someone questioned my saying Mizoguchi resembles Brecht,
the objection being that Mizo gets us emotionally involved whereas
Brecht alienates us. But this is an Anglo-American corruption of what
Brecht wanted, which was to increase emotional involvement.

One is certainly not less involved with music by being conscious of the
rhythm, the meter, the phrase structures, the harmonic motion, the
contrapuntal lines, which instrument is playing, how the instrumentalist
chooses to phrase and articulate. Quite the contrary, the more we are
consciously aware of these elements, the more we shall become engulfed
in the emotions, in the world, of the music.

So too with movies. Not being aware of cuts is just being oblivious,
cutting oneself off from actual sensual contact with cinema. It's a
denial of pleasure, of experience. It's stupid.

I don't think it's true that things affect us without our being aware of
it. Experiencing art is not like being etherized for an operation. It's
above all a physical and emotional awareness. If you're not intelligent,
you're not aware.


jaketwilson wrote:

> A number of things said here recently, and particularly Fred's posts,
> have made me think about some of the ways that I look at film that in
> the past I've taken for granted. My experience is that usually when I
> see a narrative film, I'm primarily concerned with the story being
> told. My awareness of the formal elements that go to make up this
> story  acting, camera movement, music and so forth  fluctuates: I'm
> conscious of them, but not all of them equally, and not all the time.
> Normally when I want to write about or study particular films it's
> because I had some kind of compelling initial experience, but I have
> to go back and look at them multiple times to try and see how that
> experience was created. Of course, I then run into a version of the
> Heisenberg Principle: the more closely I try to look at my
> experience, the more that experience changes.
>
> Whether or not you buy the idea that Hollywood film style
> is `invisible' (I don't) the concept of a style that isn't meant to
> be noticed does seem to have some currency among filmmakers
> themselves. I recall an interview with Preminger, for example (quoted
> in V.F. Perkins' book Film As Film) where he says that his ideal film
> would be one where audiences got so caught up in the story that they
> never noticed a cut or a camera movement. Which is not to say they
> wouldn't be affected by these things  my point is that form affects
> us all the time whether or not we're aware of it. I'm curious what
> others feel about this  as I'm sure we agree that there remains a
> basic, unbridgable gap between the primary experience of art and the
> type of analysis carried out in criticism.
>
> JTW
>
>
>
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