FILM FILM - University of Macau Library

112 Transition and Transformation
Wagon – Lucien enters with other prisoners – DISSOLVE TO 3/4 S Marianne and
Legrande – he starts to exit. 41
Not only are the different kinds of bracelet contrasted, but the first sequence
appears at a crucial moment summarizing the basic conflict of the story; it is
through his love for Marianne, and a theft in order to help her, that Lucien has
been caught, while she has got her expensive bracelet as a gift from her rich
lover with whom she has betrayed Lucien. This dissolve fills the classical Sjöström
function of an analogy. The two dissolves follow within the same sequence
mark two spatial transitions, first a transition between two adjacent spaces in
the dissolve to the jail wagon, and then to a more distant space, back to Marianne
and Legrande which still narratively remains close. Thus, first by analogy
and then by spatial transition, this series of dissolves also condenses the triangle
drama. This particular series of dissolves was also noted by a critic from the
period: “Mr Seastrom revels in sharp contrasts. You see Marianne, who has
won wealth and fame on the stage, wearing a sparkling bracelet, and this ornament
fades out into a glimpse of the handcuffed wrist of Lucien, the hero.” 42
Interestingly enough, The Divine Woman also contains a prefiguration of a
character entering screen space, of the kind that had already become famous
during Sjöström’s Swedish period in The Outlaw and His Wife, through a shadow
cast on screen; though this time, yet another dimension is added as the
shadow appears in a medium close-up in a mirror, as a doubly indirect appearance.
According to the script: “MLS Mirror-man’s shadow enters it from left.” 43
The frequency and variation of the dissolves in this film, together with other
devices, shows that the film, though thematically a disaster according to Sjöström’s
wife, at least stylistically shows a clear continuity to his earlier work. Just
like the case of the intruding shadow, they are brought one step further in The
Divine Woman by introducing the mirror theme (which, as we have seen, is
also familiar from Sjöström’s previous work). His next film, The Masks of the
Devil, would take both the mirror and the dissolve yet another step further by
introducing mental images as an integral part of the narration.
A Strange Interlude: The Masks of the Devil
For The Masks of the Devil, Frances Marion, with whom Sjöström had collaborated
in the two Gish classics also starring Lars Hanson, once again wrote the
script, this time together with the Dane, Svend Gade, based on Jakob Wassermann’s
novel, Die Masken Erwin Reiners (1910). Marion’s scenario dates from 8
February. Svend Gade started co-working on the project in March. Other screenwriters
were consulted for further advice. In a letter from Paul Bern, scriptwriter