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38 Transition and Transformation
Stylistic Variations
In this study I privilege analyzing the style of extant films in order to come to
achieve a concrete comparison between the two film cultures. This allows me,
for example, to explore the extent to which the possibilities of Sjöström’s contract
were exploited. A first case study will be offered by Name the Man,
where the close reading of certain sequences of the remaining parts of the film
may provide both a general sense of Sjöström’s way of dealing with the new
system and as well as a more detailed perspective on his ability to determine
how he carried out his work, such as his use of certain characteristic stylistic
devices.
Even at first glance, it becomes clear that Name the Man is largely based on
thematic contrast. The New World is contrasted to the Old World, urban life to
rural, sophistication and wealth to primitive life and poverty, a certain depravity
to strict moral standards. But the juxtaposition of these two thematic strands
wouldn’t be apparent had it not been for the thorough work on the level of
style. As Graham Petrie observed: “Contrasts between town and country, rich
and poor, privileged and deprived, are made through extensive crosscutting,
some of it quite effective.” 33 The contrasting of ideas is conveyed by concrete,
almost emblematic images representing different values, like the prison van
crosscut with the fancy car, with both the visual contrast between them and
with all the respective connotations they carry. What is particularly obvious in
this as well as many other sequences, however, is the consequent use of crosscutting,
which must be seen as a result of Sjöström’s introduction within the
classical Hollywood paradigm. But there is more to the picture.
In a letter to his wife, actress Edith Erastoff, Victor Sjöström comments on the
task, unusual to him, of shooting a film – Name the Man – on the basis of
someone else’s script, in this case Paul Bern. “I have quite a few details that he
hasn’t got, and details usually make all the difference.” 34 When comparing the
script to the film, it becomes clear that these details consist of stylistic devices,
which Sjöström in Sweden had been used to including at the script stage, but
which are now added afterwards. Thus, Name the Man contains a dissolve
combined with a cut across the line, which shows exactly the same space from
the reverse angle.
While the dissolve remains quite conventional in its function, bridging a spatial
transition, its combination with the violation of the 180-degree rule creates
an interesting effect. In fact, this cut is one of the few examples that may be
found in Sjöström’s Hollywood films of one of his most consistent stylistic patterns
from the earlier Swedish period. In Name the Man, where the perspective
is reversed twice, as well as in the numerous Swedish examples, the cut