FILM FILM - University of Macau Library

116 Transition and Transformation
exactly the effect which O’Neill achieved. I also think this effect can be used in two or
three more instances. 51
The soliloquy technique used by O’Neill that Bern refers to, is indeed one of few
examples in modern plays; the characters here speak their inner thoughts to the
audience, mostly in brief side comments to the dialogue. In the change from
script to film, and thus to cutting continuity script, Bern’s advice also seems to
have been taken ad notam. The scene which Bern refers to reads as follows in the
original script:
14 CLOSEUP REINER
We are to learn at once that it is only a pose... for Reiner is thinking... DISSOLVE over
this CLOSEUP the Dining room of the Reiner villa. Beautiful girls and attractive men
at the table. Evidence of much drinking. The little dancer in a ballet costume spinning
like a top... now she drops into Reiner’s arms. As he plunges his lips upon hers DIS-
SOLVE into Reiner looking at Helene Zurmuhlen. He speaks rather tragically:
TITLE: “I am the loneliest man in the world.” 52
In the cutting continuity script, the meeting between the Baron and the Countess
is staged through a dissolve which is totally in line with O’Neill’s play, but
just as much with Sjöström’s particular way of working with dissolves. Now,
the Baron’s evil inner fantasies are revealed while outwardly his speech is hypocritically
virtuous, as he actually dreams of seducing his friend’s fiancée while in
reality he is bowing politely to her. “CU of Reiner – SUPERIMPOSE over Reiner’s
CU MS of Count and Countess, Reiner steps in, pushes Count away and
kisses Countess – BACK TO Reiner’sCU.” 53
In the end, it remains unclear to whom the original idea of these dissolves
expressing inner images should be attributed, and this might not be all that important
either. Forslund, however, in underlining that Thalberg and Sjöström
went to the theatre together to watch O’Neill’s play, seems to suggest that they
should be attributed to the director. 54 But the question of authorship in this case
is clearly less interesting than the general observation, most clearly expressed in
Bern’s remark to Thalberg, which shows that there seems to have been a development
of the script from its original stage, trying to include effects from the
stage that would develop the story in a way that would also be important to
the development of cinematic narrative devices. This, indeed, is an observation
that might be of importance for the whole of Sjöström’s career in silent cinema,
as he started as a man of the theatre and ended up in the same vein, though in a
completely different cinematic and cultural context. During this lapse of time, a
number of important narrative developments did take place, which would also
profoundly change cinematic language as such. Here, the tension between national
and international perspectives once again takes on its full significance.