FILM FILM - University of Macau Library

32 Transition and Transformation
years, he returns to the same question and relates the virtual terror he experienced
while shooting his first scenes there. A sequence in Name the Man revolves
around a pregnant girl whose family has thrown her out of the house
and left her to wander down a dark road on a stormy night. During the afternoon,
Sjöström took his assistant and cameraman to the remote rural spot in
order to explain what he was trying to do with the scene.
“Don’t worry, Mr Seastrom”–those were probably the words I heard most frequently
in California –“We’ll take care of everything, you don’t have to come until 8 PM when
it gets dark out.” Just imagine my surprise when I showed up and found a whole little
crowd there. I asked my assistant who they were, and he said that they were simply
the crew that would be helping us during the evening: a bunch of electricians, people
to run the wind and rain machines, assistant cameramen, you name it – not to mention
the orchestra. “An orchestra?” I inquired. Sure enough, there was a little quartet that
was going to play. “But won’t the wind machines drown them out?” I persisted.
“Sure”, he answered, “but the studio has already hired them, and they might as well
hang around and liven things up a little during the breaks.” I snuck around and
counted the technical crew – 63 people in all, myself included. Back in Sweden, we
would have made it with 12 or 14. Think about it – a crew of 63 for a single actress. 19
Sjöström’s accounts are much more interesting than the anecdotal form might
suggest. Source material concerning the evolution of the production system
during the 1910s and1920s is characteristically poor. The conclusions that may
be drawn are general, based upon small-scale development in Sweden, which
hints at a situation similar to the French film industry during the same period.
Thompson characterized this as a “director unit system”, as in Hollywood during
the period 1909-1914, where the director also functioned as producer. 20 The
director’s responsibility and control over the script stage is confirmed by the
credits, and the salary lists show the number of persons involved in the productions,
but without specifying their tasks. However, Sjöström’s reactions, positive
as well as negative, to the new production context, confirm and specify this
picture. How, then, did this adjustment take place?
Contaminating Hollywood
Hypotheses vary about the degree of independence enjoyed by European directors
within the Hollywood system. Concerning Sjöström, it is often mentioned
that he, like other Scandinavians, met difficulties and setbacks in the new country.
However, the historical perspective varies: whereas contemporary critics
tended to see the Europeans as prisoners of the system, later historians have