FILM FILM - University of Macau Library

40 Transition and Transformation
her lap, dissolves to an iris on a small dog, which, on its opening to an interior
medium shot, is revealed to be on Fenella’s lap, who is sitting comfortably at
home talking to Victor. An iris down on the dog is followed by a new dissolve
and an iris opening, back to a medium shot of Bessie and the lamb. Whereas
these dissolves are clearly marked in the cutting continuity script, it is easy to
miss them in the existing copy of the film, as Graham Petrie does, who mentions
the scene as an example of crosscutting. 40 This was also the original intention. In
Paul Bern’s script, there is no dog and hence the parallel as such is weaker, and
the scene transition is also marked by the words “Cut sharply”. 41
Here again, a comparison to The Phantom Carriage might illustrate the
function of the dissolve. The whole narrative development in the film could be
said to be condensed within one contrasting dissolve, where a triangle with David’s
wife, himself and his brother is changed for an almost identical triangle
where the wife has been replaced by the drinking companion, Georges, and the
picnic by the bottle. This dissolve, which appears as part of the driver Georges’
story, is one of the most condensed transitions between two shots in the film: in
an ellipsis, it contains the whole transformation of the main character David
Holm from happy family man to miserable human wreck. It also has an ironic
function: the wife with the food changed to Georges with the bottle, as a metonymy
for alcoholism. This transition between shots is also included at the script
stage, with the exact parallelism between the two shots marked, which provides
the effect of an analogy:
201.
Long shot of them. There is a happy and, at the same time, peaceful atmosphere over
the picture. While they serve themselves of the food and start eating, the picture fades
away and another appears instead.
202.
On the same spot. David Holm is seated exactly at the same place as before, but is
now rather poorly dressed. In Mrs. Holm’s place, Georges is sitting, dressed in his
long, stained coat and big scarf. David’s brother also sits at the same place as in the
previous shot – he also looks rather decayed. He sits and plays his mouth-organ and
is seemingly rather drunk. Some empty bottles lie between them where the table was
laid in the previous shot. Georges sits and sucks the stump of a cigar and beats time
with his stick. David Holm mixes beer and aquavit in a bottle and shakes it, the image
fades out. 42
In The Phantom Carriage as in Name the Man, the clear structural parallel
between the two images adds a new dimension to the interpretation of the film’s
meaning.
These examples of style clearly indicate continuity between Sweden and Hollywood,
where Sjöström has preserved his characteristic signature in spite of