Literature and film have many similarities and so are closely related. As film is recognised as a predominantly narrative medium, it is no surprise that literature influences the younger art form. However film is a distinct art form in its own right, entirely separate from literature.
Both literature and film are closely linked to the process of mechanical reproduction. Before this development, art was almost entirely unique. An audience could not experience the art unless they travelled to view the one original piece. However, film and literature are widespread arts. They can have a potentially endless number of copies. This reduces the need to travel great distances to view the art: there can be a copy of it near you. The idea of the original piece is eliminated. Benjamin notes that “[t]he presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.” This means that if something is not the original copy of the art, then it is not authentic. This is not necessarily the case any longer. With the arts of film and literature, among others, there is no original that must be visited in order to appreciate it. Each copy of the art is the art. It is in their nature to be spread around. They are the art of the masses, not just the individual who owns the originals. This crucial element at their core is one reason why film and literature can be seen as so similar.
Perhaps it is due to the widespread nature of film and literature that they influenced each other. Film was not originally a narrative art form, but maybe it was the influence of literature that spurred on the development of narrative cinema. McFarlane says that “filmmakers themselves have been drawing on literary sources… since film first established itself as preeminently a narrative medium.” Film attempted to tell stories similar to those found in novels, so it learnt and applied literary techniques straight from those novels. One art began contributing to the other.
There were many public misconceptions about cinema. People did not quite understand or fully appreciate this fledgling art form. According to Dulac, the general public simply “filed it between theatre and literature”, and not as an art in its own right. It was seen as nothing more than an extension of the art that came before it. However despite perhaps not giving film the title it deserved, it was still a very popular medium, even if it was less well regarded than other arts. In fact, it may very possibly have been considered more popular than older novels due to its very accessible nature. McFarlane says that as “film came to replace in popularity the representational novel of the earlier nineteenth century, it did so through the application of techniques practised by writers at the latter end of the century.” Film adopted the more popular literary techniques of the day. It was a much simpler experience than the intensity of reading a novel, making some narratives easier for the public to swallow. That is just what cinema became: an attempt to express literature in a simplified and easily consumable manner. Dulac argues that cinema became simply a “new means of expression for novelistic or dramatic literature”. The films being made were not designed with film’s basic form in mind. Essentially, films were made that should have been novels.
In an ideal world, people would have been respectful and have seen the potential of this new art form. However, to the businessmen, they saw only a potentially lucrative new avenue for business. Dulac observes that the idea of a narrative cinema “was exploited commercially without any attempt to see if it contained an artistic potential”. Film never needed to be predominantly a narrative medium and perhaps the cinema of today would have been very different if things had not gone this way. However, the business world’s implementation of narrative into cinema was so financially promising because, at this early stage at least, it did not even require originality of ideas. In fact it was more secure not developing original ideas. Dulac points out that filmmakers realised they could be sure of making money by adapting “perfectly safe works which have already earned their popularity”. If a certain story was already a popular and financially successful one, then it could be plugged straight into the business machine of cinema and money would be churned out at a very low risk of failure.
As previously mentioned, film was not naturally a narrative medium, but film took much more from literature than just narratives. Words were introduced to cinema. Münsterberg agrees with Dulac’s viewpoint in this regard. He describes this as the “art of words and the art of pictures [were] forcibly yoked together.” Cinema was contorted and forced to change shape. The ‘word gene’ was forced into cinema’s DNA creating something unnatural. Not just stories, but words were ripped straight out of other arts like literature and theatre and thrown into cinema. Effectively, to reference the common expression, literature is a square peg being forced into the round hole of cinema. Münsterberg observes that cinema will never be able to reach its full potential, while all film is fed are works of literature. He says that it “is surely no fault of Shakespeare that Hamlet and King Lear are very poor photoplays.” Regardless of how high the quality of the writing is, if it was not designed with cinematic purposes in mind, then there is little surprise that the film made from it will usually pale in comparison to works that kept cinema in mind. The focus shifted and visual expression was no longer the goal of most filmmakers. Dulac argues that films now sacrifice the “purely visual, the image, in favour of merely reproducing forms of expression where the image may perhaps have a role, but not the most important.” Despite being a naturally visual medium, the visuals were being set to the side and that which was borrowed from literature given centre stage. Dulac argues that the new art has been cheapened and infected by literature. Film was being used for telling stories: a purpose for which it was never naturally intended.
In a literary governed cinema, there is little room for visual expression because it is deriving from the literary and not the optical. In fact, Dulac tells us that in a dialogue scene the only visual expression is the “silent expressiveness of their faces”. This is not really cinema. This is a visual representation of literature. Perhaps dialogue does not fit into a purely visual cinema, because there is very little real visual expression. He gives the example of a blind man who can still understand cinema perfectly well if the visuals are explained to him, despite not being able to witness for himself what should be the most important aspect. This outrages Dulac. He says “a real film cannot be able to be told”. Film should be its own art, separate from the art of words. If you can explain film simply through words, then the film has not fulfilled its potential for purely visual expression.
The non-visual has a very negative effect on cinema. Dulac says that it has caused cinema’s stagnation and that it is so sterile that it “fills us with disillusionment and sometimes with bitterness.” Dulac’s view would be that if this is the effect that a literature led cinema has, then an escape from the literary is necessary. A film should naturally explore and convey fundamental ideas and emotions, not dialogue and stories. If these foreign attributes were dropped from the visual art, cinema might return to the way it was intended. Perhaps, according to Dulac, if story gets in the way of the visual film, then it should be cut altogether. As Dulac himself says, we should give “predominance to the image, pushing aside that which cannot be expressed by it alone.” If film is to be truly visual then that which is foreign to the art should be cast away. Without the hindrance of literature then film would be left to be itself.
However, regardless of film returning to a purely visual medium, the impact of literature will always leave its mark on the general public’s view of cinema. A film without a story is no less a film than one adapted from a novel. A wordless film might require just as much intellectual ability in creation as a work of literature. Stannard defends the writers of films saying, “He is not the lowest form of literary hack who… has taken to writing wordless motion-plays because the other forms of literature necessitate prose, writing which would betray his gross ignorance.” Film should be seen as an art form for intellectuals, even independent of literature.
As already considered in this writing, film does not have to be about telling stories. That is the job of literature. Film is a far simpler art form. It is not about words. It is about expressing emotions and common connections. Dulac says that film is about drawing attention “to the feelings and to the intelligence by means of the eye.” Film does not possess the literary detail that a novel might. It is more like a collection of ideas and impressions, which do not have to be literarily expressible. There is no need to express verbally the naturally non-verbal.
However, from Eisenstein’s point of view, perhaps literature’s influence on cinema has not been entirely a negative one. He notes that D.W. Griffith, who is commonly referred to as one of the most influential directors of his day, may have drawn a lot of inspiration from the writing of Charles Dickens. Eisenstein suggests “there was the same fascination for Dickens’ novels as there is now for film”. If film now elicits the same wonder that literature used to, then surely there is little surprise that the old art of literature provided its wisdom to the bright-eyed and bushy tailed art of cinema. It is not just the very visual quality of Dickens’ writing which is interesting though. There are very definite similarities between his writing and that which in film came to be known as parallel action and, by extension, montage. He constantly creates new meaning by cutting between characters and locations, something that a man like Eisenstein would argue is a crucial element in film. Eisenstein says that these techniques were “handed down to the twentieth-century filmmaker by the great nineteenth century novelist.” Perhaps film, or at least Griffith, did inherit parallel action and montage from Dickens, and there are not many sane theorists who would argue the negatives of montage. Montage is not a technique that has to be applied to storytelling. It can remain a visual technique. This may well be a very natural inheritance for film to take from literature.
Thus, maybe literature’s influence is not something that should be completely thrown aside, as there is more to be learnt from literature than that which requires words. Eisenstein notes that Dickens seems to be “the connecting link between the future art of cinema… and the recent (for Dickens) past – the traditions of ‘good murderous melodramas’”. Traditions are very important. They help to shape the path needed to build and grow. Traditions are necessary to build off. You cannot create a piece of art unless you have something to build upon. Therefore literature’s influence might be important to consider. Eisenstein thinks that it is ridiculous for people to suggest literature’s influence should be completely ignored. Film should be able to draw inspiration from all that came before it, including literature, and restricting it is just stifling cinema’s potential. He goes so far as to describe anti-literature theorists as “thoughtless people with their excessive arrogance towards literature”. Perhaps we should let film grow naturally and allow it to grow as it requires, taking inspiration from anywhere it wants.
Film can draw as much inspiration from literature as it likes, but at the end of the day, the process of making a film is still a very different one compared to that involved in writing literature. Literature requires a minimum of only one person, whose only limit is the furthest reaches of their imagination. Film, on the other hand, requires collaboration. Münsterberg notes, “the photoplay always demands the cooperation of two inventive personalities, the scenario writer and the producer.” Once the writing of the film has finished, there is still a whole different aspect of the film to consider. The input of others beyond the writer is still required to complete the film and it is crucial that the writer remembers this. Perhaps counterintuitively, the writer is not writing for a reader, but for a viewer. Their work will never be seen directly because the end goal is a visual experience and not a literary one. Thus, the talents of a screenwriter are very different from those of a novelist because their job is only part of the process.
While not a requirement for literature, generally film must be grounded in the world: not the real world, but a representation of it. However, in order to be recorded in the cinematic world, the subject must exist in this reality. Polan says that due to this necessary direct connection with the real world “it caused abstract notions to be regrounded in worldly activity. The lessons of the great books would thereby be given relevance”. Aspects from literature are more directly connected to the real world through cinema and can speak new volumes through their fresh and unprecedented release. Münsterberg argues that, while it is not necessarily an advantage “no artistic means of literature or drama can render the details of life with such convincing sincerity and with such realistic power.” Film contains more detail of reality in a single shot than literature could ever put into words. While it could arguably limit the possibilities of filmic expression, this very much grounds film in a perceived reality. As a result of this, film can be much more relatable in that way and can impress upon certain audiences who may well have been alienated by the expressions of literature.
To this day, the general public’s perception of cinema is very different to that of literature. It is much less highly regarded as an art form. Balazs notes in frustration that a man possessing no knowledge of literature would never be considered well educated. However, “if he has not the faintest idea of the rudiments of film art… he might still pass for a well educated, cultured person, even on the highest level.” This seems ridiculous because, as previously examined, film is considered by some to be even more popular than literature. Film has significant potential to speak to people. As a visual art form, the ability to read is not even a requirement, so it can speak to the literarily educated and uneducated alike. Balazs considers that film might be the “greatest instrument of mass influence ever devised in the whole course of human history.” However despite all of this, unlike literature, film is not widely taught. People go to school and are taught all about the literary techniques of books they will never read, while the new art of film is left untaught and unappreciated. Perhaps a fundamental difference between film and literature is the cultural perceptions surrounding both arts.
Film is undeniably closely linked to literature. It shares many similarities with literature and, for better or for worse, has been greatly influenced by it too. Stannard says, “the moving picture is the amalgamation [of painting and literature], having the composition of the former and the psychology of the latter.” Film’s ability to explore narratives is only part of its potential. It can tell stories, but it is an optical art. Literature is the art of words, but film is the art of visuals. Sometimes literature’s storytelling and film’s visuals can go hand in hand, but at their core they are fundamentally different.
Bibliography
Balazs, Bela, ‘In Praise of Theory’ in Theory of the Film: Character and Growth of a New Art, trans. By Edith Bone (London: Dennis Dobson LTD, 1952), pp. 17-22
Benjamin, Walter, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ in Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, 5th edn, ed. by Leo Braudy and
Marshall Cohen, trans. by Harry Zorn (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 731-751
Dulac, Germaine, ‘The Essence of the Cinema: The Visual Idea’ in The Avant-Garde Film: A Reader of Theory and Criticism, ed. by P. Adams Sitney (New York: New York University Press, 1978), pp. 57-62
Dulac, Germaine, ‘Visual and Anti-Visual Films’ in The Avant-Garde Film: A Reader of Theory and Criticism, ed. by P. Adams Sitney (New York: New York University Press, 1978), pp. 31-35
Eisenstein, Sergei, ‘Dickens, Griffith and Ourselves’ in Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, 5th edn, ed. by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 426-434
McFarlane, Brian, ‘From Novel to Film’ in Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, 7th edn, ed. by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 381-389
Münsterberg, Hugo, ‘The Demands of the Photoplay’ in The Photoplay: A Psychological Study (Australia: Trieste Publishing Pty Ltd, 2017), pp. 191-214
Polan, Dana, ‘Young Art, Old Colleges: Early Episodes in the American Study of Film’ in Inventing Film Studies, ed. by Lee Grieveson and Haidee Wasson (London: Duke University Press, 2008), pp. 93-117
Stannard, Eliot, Writing Screen Plays, (London: Standard Art Book Co, 1920)
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