FILM FILM - University of Macau Library

Sjöström – From National to International 21
sequence, Berg-Ejvind and his daughter walk to the precipice, looking down
and throwing down a stone, which is seen falling from a perspective from below,
as a dark foreboding. However, from the potential danger, the perspective
is again changed, showing the child returning to her mother, thus downplaying
the danger and closing the sequence with a feeling of close intimacy in the bosom
of the family.
In addition to this general lyrical intimacy, but also contributing to it, two
particular devices also stand out in Sjöström’s films. The first is his systematic
cuts across the 180-degree line to a completely reversed camera position, thus
creating a 360-degree cinematic space, which occurs in most Swedish films from
the period but is particularly frequent in Sjöström. Strikingly enough, these cuts
in his films also occur at narrative turning points in the plot. Early examples
may be found in Tösen från Stormyrtorpet (The Girl from the Marsh
Croft, 1917), where the device is used on five occasions, such as when Gudmund,
the hero, who has fallen in love with Helga, the maid, has to tell her on
behalf of his mother that she wishes to speak to Helga (in order to give her
notice) – indeed a turning point in the story as this meeting between Gudmund
and Helga turns out to be decisive. Interestingly enough, Sjöström has here
himself noted in the script, immediately beside the intertitle “You may go in
and see Mother...”: “To be shot from opposite perspectives – Gudmund with
the other door, Helga turning around at the door to the vestibule.” 10 This confirms
the hypothesis of the cuts across the line being a consciously chosen stylistic
device by the director.
In addition to the cuts, the dissolve plays a particularly central role among
other optical transitions in Sjöström’s films. Moreover, it is often used as a transformatory
device, creating analogies between two images – sometimes also in
connection with superimpositions. This occurs for example in Klostret i Sendomir
(The Monastery of Sendomir, 1920), where a monk, compelled by two
strangers visiting his monastery, begins to recount the story of its coming into
being. The narration takes place in a large room with a centrally placed table
and a sculptured relief on the wall to the left in the shot. An intertitle has recently
shown the beginning of the monk’s story: “Starchensky was the name of
the monk, a count by birth, who owned all his surrounding land.” Now, the
image of the monk in the room recurs, after which the image is dissolved into
another: the image of a man with a child on his lap. Next to the man there
stands a table, and shortly after the sculptured relief on the wall reveals that the
room is the very same one as shown before, and thus that the monastery in the
past has been a castle, i.e. the residence of Count Starchensky. The attentive
viewer may also recognise that the man, Starchensky, is in fact identical with
the narrating monk. This identity gets its explicit confirmation only at the end
of the film when we have returned anew to the frame story. The dissolve works,