Presence of Narrator: The Legacy of Griffith Films PDF

## Présence du narrateur : l'héritage des films **Thomas GUNNING** *Biograph de Griffith >> D.W. Griffith*. Colloque international Paris, Eclitibus litHarmattan, 1984, p. 126-147. _Car un père est que_ **Arthur Rimbaud** The re-writing of cinema history by each generation encounters the same ob...

## Présence du narrateur : l'héritage des films **Thomas GUNNING** *Biograph de Griffith >> D.W. Griffith*. Colloque international Paris, Eclitibus litHarmattan, 1984, p. 126-147. _Car un père est que_ **Arthur Rimbaud** The re-writing of cinema history by each generation encounters the same obstacles presented in different forms. If the model of cinema history, which consisted of chronicling the progress of technique and aesthetics (from short films to longer films, from the silent films to sound films, from black and white films to colour films), is outdated, it is perhaps more difficult to detach oneself from a history of film style that, in the end, prevailed. This is evident in the work of _André Gaudreault_ and _Charles Musser_ on the films of _Edwin Porter_ (particularly _The Life of an American Fireman_) (1). Due to their haste to find the origins of continuous editing, earlier historians neglected the versions of this film that involved editing with temporal overlapping (where the action is repeated after the 'match on action') because that style of editing was aberrant from the point of view of later techniques. - (1) See _André Gaudreault_ "Les détours du récit filmique", and _Charles Musser_ "Les débuts de Edwin S. Porter" in _Les Cahiers de la Cinémathèque_, n° 29, winter 1979. It is imperative to undertake a film history that takes into account the inconsistencies in the development of style, the cracks in the apparent monolithic nature of film practice, the detours and dead-ends in the course of film evolution. This is particularly true in the study of the early films of _D.W. Griffith_. The ambiguous designation of _Griffith_ as "the necessary patriarch" of classical narrative cinema (2) must be accompanied by a precise study of this claim of paternity. Many aspects of this research are outside the scope of this paper: the diverse sources of narrativity in film; the large number of film-makers who contributed to the development of the classic style; the effect and scope of the direct influence of _Griffith_. But a careful viewing and a precise analysis of the corpus of early _Griffith_ films allow one to address a crucial question: the definition of narrative style in these early films, the understanding of the nature of the work of _Griffith_, which became the heritage of later film-makers. I want to show that this legacy of _Griffith_ is more problematical than is often supposed. - (2) _Jacques Aumont_, "Griffith, le cadre, la figure" in _Le Cinéma Américain_, ed. _Raymond Bellour_. Naturally, _J. Aumont_ perceives the irony in this term. In a penetrating essay, _Jacques Aumont_ has already challenged the assertion of _Griffith_ as the source and origin of the classical narrative style, the "style of transparency and naturalisation" (3). A broader definition of this classical narrative style (in relation to editing, especially) is given by _Alain Bergala_: - (3) Ibid., p. 52. > *Classical narrative editing (in cinema, for example) is determined by an ideology of fiction, as has already been said, which is that of conveying the impression of reality, transparency. To meet the demands of this ideology, the world of fiction must present itself as a "natural" world, continuous and homogeneous, and make itself forgotten for what it is in reality, that is to say, an imaginative production whose material is always fragmentary and discontinuous.* (4) - (4) _Alain Bergala_, _Initiation à la Sémiologie du Récit en Images_, _Les Cahiers de l'audiovisuel_, p. 37. My goal here is to place the analysis of _J. Aumont_ in a historical context and to focus my paper directly on that aspect of _Griffith_'s style which is most often seen as his "legacy": the development of editing, and more particularly of alternating editing. By redefining the legacy of _Griffith_, I am not trying to *deny* the impact of his style on the development of the classical narrative style of cinema. As I have suggested in another paper (5), the style of early _Griffith_ films develops in a context of economic and ideological transformation of the American film industry from which the narrative classic film was defined for the first time. This is made clear by the formation in 1908 of the Motion Picture Patents Company, an organization whose declared economic policy was to try and raise the social respectability of cinema and so move towards a higher quality, more intellectual, more sophisticated, morally acceptable form of entertainment (6). With the advent of the first "narrative films" (7), one does not see a new form of entertainment (because the "narrative film" was already a commercially successful genre which had already been consolidated in the works of _Edwin S. Porter_ and _David W. Griffith_ as well as in more explicitly "theatrical" films), but more an evolution of the genre - an evolution towards the "ideal film" whose potential for influencing ideas and beliefs had been recognized by the Motion Picture Patents Company. - (5) _Tom Gunning_, "Weaving a Narrative: Style and Economic Background in Griffith's Biograph films" in _Quarterly Review of Film Studies_, winter 1981. - (6) See _The New York Dramatic Mirror_, 10 July 1909, p. 15-16. - (7) See _The New York Dramatic Mirror_, 14 Mai 1910, p. 18. Many of Woods' articles were reprinted in _American Film Criticism_, ed. _Stanley Kauffman_. The key to understanding the movement from "narrative" films to the "quality, more intellectual, more sophisticated" form of entertainment is to be found in the move, around 1909, towards a different view of the film actor which is encapsulated in the "cinema" section begun in that year by the professional journal _The New York Dramatic Mirror_. This weekly section was written by a man named _Frank Woods_ under the pseudonym "The Spectator" (8). Here the ideal is clearly stated, which would be identified later as that of classical diegesis: a transparent fiction whose impression of reality is strong enough to conceal from the spectator any trace of the process of its fabrication. I will summarise and quote from the comments of _Woods_ in order to illustrate how, according to him, this ideal should be conveyed by early films. The comments of _Woods_ indicate the conscious way in which the foundations of the classical style are being laid. However, as I shall indicate later, I do not think that _Woods_' comments should be interpreted too simply. Firstly, the mere statement of the need for transparent illusionism (compared with later periods in the history of cinema where this need was taken for granted and even ignored by filmmakers, critics and the public) reveals the precarious status of this ideal during the birth of narrative cinema. Secondly, as I shall demonstrate by the direct study of _Griffith_'s films, and particularly of their editing style, the ideal of a transparent story is only one element of _Griffith_'s narrative style. - (8) The relationship between _Woods_ and _Griffith_ was extensive. _Woods_ not only praised _Griffith_ and his films in his articles, he also sold stories for screenplays to the Biograph Company, some of which were directed by _Griffith_. Later he became one of _Griffith_'s closest advisers and collaborated on the screenplay and production of _Birth of a Nation_ and _Intolerance_. The first expression, in _Woods_' column, of the need for the effacement of the work of production appears in his critique of the habit actors had of appearing conscious of the presence of the camera (a common habit in films of _Porter, Méliès, Zecca_, etc.) _Woods_ summarises his objections thus: > There is an important failing in acting, which actors often underestimate, namely the tendency of almost all actors to appear conscious of the presence of the camera. A good director will constantly ask his actors to turn their eyes away from the camera, and good actors will try to do so. Many of them succeed, but is it enough simply not to look at the camera? Shouldn't there be absolute indifference to the presence of the camera? One admits, of course, that the director and the actors must never for a moment forget the camera itself. Every action must take place so that the camera can get the best possible view of the scene, but isn't it true that the more actors can appear not to be conscious of the camera, the closer they will come to absolute realism? As has already been explained in this article, the acting of film actors is more effective if it manages to create the illusion that it represents real facts and not fabricated ones. (9). - (9) Ibid. This critique of the consciousness that an actor might have of the presence of the camera was based on _Woods_' conviction that the very special power of cinema was the result of its astonishing ability to create the illusion of reality. An illusion that gave cinema "an uncanny" psychological power over its public: > The uncanny power of attraction of film resides in the impression of reality which film conveys; by means of this impression of reality, film exerts on the minds of spectators an influence close to hypnotism or visual suggestion; this sort of hypnotic influence limited as it is, is capable of more powerful effects through cinema than by any theatrical or literary production and it is therefore advisable to cultivate realism absolutely in all branches of the cinematographic art. An artificial drama or comedy seems to have no effect on the mind of the public when adapted for cinema, whatever quality they might display on stage or in written literature. (10). - (10) Ibid., 25 June 1909, p. 18. I have deliberately used the Freudian term "disavowal" here. The relationship between _Woods_' point of view on the way audiences watch films and that of _Christian Metz_ in _Le Signifiant Imaginaire_ should be clear. Any deviation from this aesthetic of verisimilitude, for example, an actor betraying the presence of the camera, could destroy this hypnotic effect: - (11) Ibid., 16 August 1911, p. 20. These are the foundations of the continuous editing system in which the spatial orientation of each shot corresponds with that of other shots in a sequence. Space and action appear as a unified whole despite their fragmentary presentation in each shot. _Woods_ is demanding here a logical orientation of the spectator in relation to the image projected, so that right and left maintain a consistent relationship beyond a match on action. This consistency of orientation (which _Woods_ compares in an interesting way to the relationship of a reader to a written text) will lay the foundations of what will become the 180 degree rule in continuous editing. This pursuit of a sense of the continuity of action and space beyond its fragmentation by editing constitutes the principle of classical editing, the style described by _Marie-Claire Ropars-Wuilleumier_ as that which "always operates from a continuous represented material, has a purely analytical function: designed to make one see better by removing what is useless and highlighting what is essential, it must at the same time make itself forgotten, in order to preserve the illusion of a continuity in space, time and action" (12). - (12) _Marie-Claire Ropars_, "Fonction du montage dans la constitution du récit au cinéma", in _Revue des Sciences Humaines_, Vol. XXXVI, n° 141, p. 38. _Woods_ praised a _Biograph_ film by _Griffith_ (unfortunately one of the 60 _Biograph_ films directed by _Griffith_ which are not currently available, although all the information suggests that this film would be typical of _Griffith_'s editing in 1911) _The White Rose of the Wild_ for its ability to "join scenes": > To an experienced eye, one of the most striking features of this film is the almost perfect clockwork precision with which each scene is timed: everything proceeds as though a well-oiled machine, without any jarring. Repeatedly, when scenes join, where an entry takes place through a door while we see simultaneously the movement continuing on the other side, the action is so carefully articulated that it seems like one single movement. This comes close to perfection in the art of direction. (13). - (13) _The New York Dramatic Mirror_, 31 Mai 1911, p. 31. This text by _Frank Woods_ gives us a very clear formulation of the ideology of the transformation of film style which is taking place in the United States between around 1908 and 1913, and for which *Griffith* plays such an important role. *Woods*' column announces many of the principles of the classical style: its illusion of reality; its transparency; its effacement of the traces of production; its effort to guide and orient the spectator automatically and harmoniously; its creation of a continuous and homogeneous diegesis. Given _Griffith's_ role in establishing the ideology of the classical style of narrative cinema, why is it that I contend that this does not account for the totality of his legacy? What, in the staging style of _Griffith's_ films, contradicts (or is obscured by) this understanding of the classical style? I am convinced that the act of narration in the very earliest films by _Griffith_ the film codes which are introduced or become habitual in the course of _Griffith_'s career at *Biograph* and which allow the development of cinema as a narrative form are *not* simply based on the classical conception of continuity. The aesthetic represented by _Woods_ is the means by which the fundamental nature of _Griffith's_ narrative technique is rehabilitated. This rehabilitation (and the narrative form it allows one to glimpse) is an essential part of _Griffith's_ legacy, but only one part. This should not make us lose sight of the fact that the act of narration in the early films of _Griffith_ is based on discontinuity: the discovery of the "cut" as a means of transforming the shot and raising it to a new level of significance. What I say here is obvious, in a sense. Before continuous editing could appear, we must have had the fragmentation of the "cut". Before suturing diegesis, one has to make an incision. Of course, our conception of the classical style of editing implies this. The style of the Hollywood narrative classic film is founded on the mastery or concealment of the discontinuity inherent in editing (as _Bergala_ writes, "the first contradiction that the code of editing must resolve is, therefore, that of constructing the illusion of a continuous and homogeneous universe from fundamentally fragmentary and discontinuous material") (14). However, I am proposing a change of perspective: recent film theorists have described how this discontinuity is reabsorbed by the continuity of a homogeneous diegesis. To understand the earliest films by _Griffith_ (and the beginnings of narrative codes in cinema), one must look at the period that precedes this re-establishment of continuity: the trend towards fragmentation, the decision to cut. - (14) _Bergala_, op. cit., p. 38. This shift in perspective involves a historical point of view, ensuring that the difference between the period where _Griffith_ created his films and the following decades, which saw the establishment of the rules of matching on action that govern the continuous editing system, is taken into account. After the rules of matching on action were set up in Hollywood in the 1920s and the early 1930s, rules which would determine the logic of the editing process, they would also predetermine the logic of camera positions during filming, offering the film-maker a limited choice of possible positions. In *Biograph* films by *Griffith* (and even in later films), the rules of matching on action did not yet determine how the shots were framed, nor did they find a place in editing. The fundamental discontinuity between shots is more evident and the processes of shooting and editing are more opposed to each other than they would be later, where rules of matching on action would determine and coordinate the two processes. While the editing style of _Griffith_ unites shots into a unified diegesis, one can see the join, one draws attention to it. The cut is displayed at the same time as it is sutured. As _Jacques Aumont_ says, it is stitched "with white thread" (15). - (15) _Aumont_, op. cit, p. 59. However, to position historically the style of the early films by _Griffith_, one must see them in the context of the films that preceded them, rather than those which followed them. I will attempt to review rapidly and schematically (and necessarily incompletely in just a few lines) the history of the idea of continuity in films before *Griffith*. Around 1900 and 1907, we encounter a large number of film practices which appear as anomalies in regard to the concepts of film continuity that came later (16). I have already mentioned two of the most important, the consciousness of the camera on the part of the actors and the repetition of action with temporal overlapping, that is, a 'match on action' where time seems to tread water rather than progress continuously. It is equally important to note that before 1904 (at least in the United States), cinematic narratives usually contained just one shot, with films that included more than one shot being seen as totally novel. In fact, multi-shot narratives, often, as has been frequently noted, only involved a series of tableaux illustrating a certain narrative progression. Each of these tableaux had a relative autonomy and contained, in the majority of cases, action taking place entirely within a given setting. There was little syntactic dependence between the different tableaux beyond a certain narrative logic. It was often necessary to have prior knowledge of the inspirational material for the film, or to listen very carefully to the spoken commentary accompanying the screening, in order to link these practically independent tableaux and make a coherent narrative (see, in this connection, the *Biograph* series inspired by a popular melodrama about alcoholism entitled _Ten Nights in a Barroom_ where the spectator is only shown the key moments in the narrative; or _Porter's Uncle Tom's Cabin_ whose narrative arrangement is so jumbled that it was not until recently that its disorder became clear, when shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York). - (16) The reader may refer to my article "Le style non continu du cinéma des premiers temps" in _Les Cahiers de la Cinémathèque_, n° 29, winter 1979. The immense popularity of "chase films" from 1904 onwards is precisely explained, in part, by the fact that these films succeeded in creating a certain continuity of the different shots from which they were composed. These chase stories made it possible to establish, in a very simple way, a syntactic relationship between separate shots, and to create a sort of spatial continuum extending the setting of each shot. From this point on, a series of successive shots would represent the trajectory of a single action, the chase, and although each shot took place in a new location, this trajectory linked the different locations into a continuous geography. The schema of these chase films (from _The Escaped Lunatic_ shot at *Biograph* in 1904 up to _Griffith's Balked at the Altar_ 1908) remained fairly similar throughout the period that such stories were in vogue. The pursuers and the pursued are always shown in the same shot; there is no editing process separating them. So, whether it is a madman on the run, a potential groom or a chicken thief, they are always shown coming into the frame, and are then followed a short distance by the asylum staff, the hordes of old maids or the angry farmers, as the case may be. And, most often, the shot ends with all the characters in motion leaving the frame, and then, as if by magic, they reappear, in the following shot, in exactly the same order as they last left the frame, but in a completely different setting. This kind of film is, in fact, a sort of cinematic equivalent of "Fort/Da", described by _Freud_ in _Beyond the Pleasure Principle_ and where the observer takes pleasure in seeing objects disappear and reappear (17). - (17) _Sigmund Freud_, _Standard Edition_, Vol. XVIII, pp. 14-16. We will call "trajectory continuity" this primitive form of continuity which follows the trajectory of a character or group of characters through different settings, thereby constituting a "continuous geography". This formula was quickly adapted to a whole range of stories, including variations on chase films such as _Rescued by Rover_ (Hepworth, 1905) and a certain type of comedy that we have called "linked sketches". In these comedies (particularly popular between 1906 and 1908), a character is faced with a certain number of situations along a single route ( _Une dame vraiment belle_ by _Louis Feuillade_, *Gaumont*, 1908, where an attractive woman walks along a Parisian street and, as she passes, causes a series of calamities for attracting the attention of men who happen to be in her way, is a good example of this genre, which was then international). _Griffith_ inherited this form of continuity and used it in a number of his early films shot for *Biograph*, such as _Balked at the Altar_ and _The Curtain Pole_ (both in 1908). In fact, the very first _Griffith_ film _The Adventures of Dollie_ (1908) already uses this type of continuity. In this system of "trajectory continuity", the "match on action" between two shots serves to link the two phases of a character's movement and artificially creates a continuity and progression in the trajectory by masking the fundamentally elliptical nature of the genre. The "matches on action" therefore link two well-defined phases in a character's trajectory by fulfilling the promise of one shot ("The chase continues...") through the arrival of the following shot, and by continuing this process to the end, that is to say, until all successive shots are complete by virtue of the end of the character's trajectory. *Griffith* used this form of continuity as the basic structure of several films, or as a simple element in the overall construction of a number of others. However, within this formula, he also created, at the same time, a technique of discontinuity that would ultimately change the very nature of cinematic narration. In this new editing style, the "match on action" no longer simply satisfies the spectator's expectations by showing them the next stage of the action, but goes so far as to use its power to interrupt an action. From this point on, the "cut" takes on even more importance and scope in its role of interrupting and reorganising the action. One finds one of the earliest examples of this type of "cut" in the adaptation, now famous, that _Griffith_ made of _Enoch Arden_ under the title _After Many Years_: The editing of this film interweaves two actions: that of the sailor John Davis who has been shipwrecked, and that of his wife who awaits news of him in their home. The camera switches back and forth several times from the deserted island where John has taken refuge to the patient wife somewhere in England (shots 3, 4, 5 and 6) and then, in the middle of this action, _Griffith_ cuts and moves to a shot of the wife waiting on the porch of their English cottage. In fact (just as in the case of the false match on action observed by _Aumont_ in a quasi-remake of this film, entitled _Enoch Arden_, and dating from 1911), the action is taken as far as a theoretically impossible outcome, as it ignores very great geographical distances: the wife, in effect, receives the kiss of her distant husband and opens her arms as if he were right in front of her. One can argue that, if there is a reunion of the couple here, in some metaphorical (and maybe even metaphysical) sense, it is based on the interruption of the action taking place in the first shot. The act of leaving this kiss unresolved in shot 8 (in total opposition to the editing style of the early "chase films") undermines the impression of completeness and autonomy which this shot could have conveyed. So the shot in question is interrupted at a certain point so that it functions as a fragment finding its full signification only by being placed within a set of shots. This way of interrupting action (which is opposed to the technique that would be used later by *Hollywood*, a technique tending to make editing imperceptible by having, for instance, an actor's movement flow smoothly from a long shot to a medium shot, to disguise the "break" that is represented by the "cut") is going to become more and more important for *Griffith* with his frequent use of alternating editing, for example in sequences in which melodrama builds towards the resolution of a desperate situation. In these sequences, as we have already seen, one of the roles of alternating editing is to "delay" the narration and to suspend the resolution of a dramatic situation; thus, in _The Greaser's Gauntlet_, which we were just discussing, one wonders whether the lynch mob will hang Jose before Mildred arrives with the proof of his innocence. Or, in another case, is the trap by which a pistol is connected to a clock going to be set in motion before the arrival of the rescuers who can set free the detective, held captive in the face of this lethal weapon? But *Griffith* actually heightens the suspense by interrupting the crucial act. The first example of this type of interruption of the action is given to us in _The Barbarian Ingomar_ (1908). In shot 14 of this film, we see a young Greek woman, Parthena, who has been tied to a tree by a band of barbarians. Then, one of the barbarians raises his sword to kill the young girl. At that exact moment, *Griffith* interrupts the murderous act and moves to a shot of Ingomar rushing towards the barbarian camp to save Parthena. Then shot 16 returns us to the camp and the fateful sword, which is still suspended above the young girl, until Ingomar enters the frame and comes to kill the potential assassin. The longest sequence using this type of suspenseful editing is found in *The Drive for Life* (1909). This is a melodrama in which an abandoned mistress has sent a box of poisoned chocolates to her ex-lover's fiancée. The climactic sequence shows us, firstly, the fiancé who has just learnt of the avenging act of his former mistress, then moves to the fiancée receiving the poisoned sweets and preparing to eat them. The culminating shots of this sequence break up the action into a montage full of suspense: - **Shot 23:** A general shot of a salon. Mignon, the new fiancée, is sitting reading, alongside her mother and her sisters. A servant enters the room with a small delivery man, who brings a box of chocolates. Mignon takes the box and reads the card that comes with it (which we assume indicates the name of the fiancé as the giver of the gift), then gives the card a small kiss and begins to open the package. The action is interrupted at that point, to move to ... - **Shot 24:** A suburban road, with a series of houses on the right. A car, containing Harry Walker - Mignon's fiancé, who has heard about the poisoned chocolates - is driving towards the camera, then disappears from view. - **Shot 25:** A country road. Harry Walker's car arrives towards the camera, then stops. Walker and his driver get out and inspect the engine. The two men get back into the car, after a small repair job, then the car starts up, still heading towards the camera, until it disappears from view. - **Shot 26:** The salon of Mignon (same as shot 23). The young girl opens the box of chocolates and takes one out. She raises it to her lips. Cut to... - **Shot 27:** A country road, filmed at a slightly oblique angle. Appearance of Walker's car, which reappears from the right of the frame. The interruption of the different actions in this sequence functions as a series of delays in the resolution of the narrative, in keeping with a tradition of melodrama that is already ancient. However, one can say that there are essentially two types of "narrative delays" in this sequence. On the one hand, a series of delays within the diegesis itself: the repair of the engine; the first barrier; the horse-drawn carriage; the kiss on the chocolate at the moment when Mignon is about to eat it; the chocolate falling to the floor. But on the other hand, there are also delays brought about solely by the editing style itself, which structures and suspends the actions of the different characters. The stopping of the shot in which one of the sisters is going to put the chocolate in Mignon's open mouth (action interrupted between shots **29 and 33**) is only the most extreme example of this manipulation of the action by editing, which structures and delays its resolution (22). - (22) The repetition of Mignon's gesture of taking her chocolate in shots **26 and 29** shows yet more awkwardness in linking the continuity of the action to the style of alternation. One finds oneself witnessing an editing style that organizes the different actions contained within each shot. Some might argue that, in a film, any recourse to editing, any system of organization that goes beyond the autonomy of each shot involves this type of narration. But in reality, the editing style characterizing the early films with "trajectory continuity" is entirely tied to the action contained in each shot. The framing (and the settings) form a sort of chain based on the movement of the characters in each shot. On the contrary, in *The Drive for Life*, the style of editing and narration is based on a principle of independence in relation to the action contained in each shot, in such a way that the "cut" might well interrupt an action and suspend its resolution. This new system of narration also creates a new relationship with the spectator. The editing of early "chase films" led to a narrative style that responded immediately to the audience's expectations (a character disappears from the frame, but makes a very fast reappearance in the next shot). In contrast, the suspense effect created by the type of editing observed in *The Drive for Life* comes precisely from delaying the satisfaction of the spectator's expectation, as it tends to suspend the resolution of the action, often, moreover, for the length of several shots. One might perhaps relate this new mode of narration developed by *Griffith* to the appearance of the concept of a narrator in cinema. But the paradox essential to the legacy bequeathed to us by *Griffith* is precisely that all of the film-maker's technical and narrative inventions (among which alternating editing is the most important but certainly not the only one) lead both to classical diegesis and to the creation of a narrator in cinematic fiction. It is, in fact, the discovery of the power of fragmentation in editing which made possible a whole series of new diegetic effects (the development of character psychology, spatio-temporal attributes and causality, narrative clarity) which are seen in *Biograph* films but which one did not find yet in the films immediately preceding this period. By contrast with the simple continuity based on the "trajectory" of a moving character that is found in the earliest "chase films", or perhaps equally with what has been called "linked sketches", the creation of a diegetic unity in the films that *Griffith* shot for *Biograph* is based on the act of interruption, on the constitution of a breach in the narrative which would later be filled by the act of narration itself. And it is in the space created by this breach that the relationship of the spectator to narrative (as a dialectic of an expectation aroused, held back in its satisfaction, and finally fulfilled) can take shape. Consequently, the act of narration of which we are speaking here is in no way antithetical to diegesis, but rather allows its development. The historical and theoretical importance of _Griffith's_ early films lies in the fact that they allow us to see the two constituent elements of the act of narration: the "cut" which creates a certain form of discourse, and the "diegetization" which creates a certain type of continuity ultimately constituting a story. This movement towards the constitution of a story will be preserved and even intensified by the classical American cinema which follows, while the moments of discourse in the cinematographic style will, on the contrary, be increasingly attenuated and obscured (if not eliminated completely). It is for this reason that *Griffith* is both the father of the "transparency" of later narratives and a total stranger to those films which follow. One finds in *His Lesson*, a relatively late film in _Griffith's_ career at *Biograph* (March 1912), a striking example of a sequence where this act of interrupting narrative takes on great import. The plot of this film is common to many *Biograph* films: it is a classic love triangle. In the countryside, an abandoned wife (_Dorothy Bernard_) falls in love with a stranger who happens to be passing through the area (_Charles West_). Hearing about the affair, the husband (_Edwin August_) grabs his rifle and sets off to find the stranger to kill him. The confrontation of the two men is going to take place in shot **60**, in a meadow surrounded by trees. But approximately halfway through this shot, the camera makes a lateral pan to the right, leaving the two men out of frame at this particularly dramatic moment, to head towards a group of trees whose leaves are being stirred by the breeze. The next shot (**61**) abruptly interrupts this movement to show us the woman alone at home, totally unaware of what is going on. She gets up and walks towards the camera. Then, in shot **62**, we revert to the group of trees where the camera movement had stopped at shot **60**. Then, slowly, the camera retraces its movement, that is to say, to the left, to make us rediscover the two men, who are still arguing. At the end of shot **62**, the stranger disappears from view on the right, while the husband aims his rifle as if he were going to shoot his rival. In shot **63**, another cut: the wife is still at home doing the dishes, and this is a perfect example of suspense through interruption of an action before its resolution. In shot **64**, we return to the husband, who is now alone in the shot and apparently decides not to kill his rival. He lowers his rifle and heads left across the screen. In the last three shots of this sequence (**62, 63, 64**), one finds the framework that *Griffith* created in his early *Biograph* films: the suspension of action through alternating editing. However, in shots **60, 61 and 62**, this same framework (although the interruption of the action is less marked since there is not really a cutting of the action) is amplified by the camera movement. This camera movement is radically different, for example, from the pans which follow the bandits in two or three shots of _The Great Train Robbery_ and which, in turn, are only motivated by the movement of the characters themselves. The camera movement we have just detailed in *His Lesson* is yet again different from that which one can see in *Stolen by Gipsies* by *Porter* (1905), which is an independent movement of the characters since it reveals other characters that one hadn't seen before (25). In the shot from *His Lesson* that concerns us, the camera movement does not reveal any narrative information. - (25) See *Jon Gartenberg*, "Les mouvements de Caméra dans les films Edison et Biograph", in *Les Cahiers de la Cinémathèque*, winter 1979, p. 66. It functions simply as a movement that distances the spectator from the zone of dramatic intensity. Just like alternating editing in its entirety, this camera movement is a sign of the control that the narrator exercises over information to intensify the relationship with the spectator and to create what we call suspense. It is evident that this is not an example of "transparent" style, where events "tell themselves". But despite its unique character, we do not believe that this sequence is simply an anomaly in *Griffith's* career. It is more likely a moment where (to borrow an expression from the Russian Formalists) _Griffith_ "exposes his method" (26), by giving the structure of suspense (that of frustrating the spectator) the importance that it has in the cases (more frequent) where _Griffith_ uses alternating editing (and of which one has an example in the shots from *His Lesson* which follow on from the camera movement we are discussing here). It is certain that shots **60 and 62** play a narrative role and that, consequently, they form an integral part of diegesis. However, they cut against a (perhaps too simple) development of classical diegesis that wants to present its universe as transparent and homogeneous. The creation of such a fictional universe is, of course, one of the very aims of the "so-called" classic style. But this creation occurs in fact only through the concealment of the act of fragmentation which allows the narrative to exist. To accept this notion of transparency in classic film is to fall into an ideological trap. For the