Lehrman's Keystone Films, Revisited

[Thomas Reeder]

I'm not familiar with the author, but for those of you having difficulty falling asleep tonight:
http://nickredfern.wordpress.com/catego ... y-lehrman/

[Richard M Roberts]

I'm not familiar with the author, but for those of you having difficulty falling asleep tonight:
http://nickredfern.wordpress.com/catego ... y-lehrman/

I think Mr. Redfern's shot-length distributions are a bit on the short side.



RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Rob Farr]

"Cinemetrics" depends on a lot of fallicies. First, that in a factory situation like Keystone, the director supervised or had anything to do with the editing. And that shot time duration in an era of wildly varying projection speeds can be determined 100 years later. Not to mention taking on faith that each shot as it survives today is the length it was projected on opening night.

Kind of like counting the pages in all the editions of the Bible going back to the Dead Sea Scrolls and publishing a paper with the thesis that the Bible expands or contracts depending on whether or not God is mad at us.

[Joe Migliore]

Rob Farr wrote:

Kind of like counting the pages in all the editions of the Bible going back to the Dead Sea Scrolls and publishing a paper with the thesis that the Bible expands or contracts depending on whether or not God is mad at us.

That is a great analogy, Rob! I feel bad for the guy earnestly pursuing such a flawed premise in the belief that it will lead to a greater truth. He's obviously genuinely interested in the era, yet seems unaware that the Keystones aren't factory fresh; that what we have owes at least as much to the whims of capricious fortune as any intent of the filmmaker, certainly in the examples he cites.

At this very moment, he could be embarking on a comparative study of Essanay's four reel BURLESQUE ON CARMEN to SHOULDER ARMS. Only then, with shot-length data, will we know with absolute certainty which is the better film.

Joe Migliore

[Gary Johnson]

He's not just analyzing the Keystones. He;s taking his study into the sound films of Laurel & Hardy, Hitchcock, the Duke and Spielberg.
And I have no idea what it is he is trying to prove.

[Robert Arkus]

Really ... this looks like an inconceivable excersize in futility. It seems as if he's trying to prove whether size matters ... but in a conspicuously sterile fashion!!

[Bob Birchard]

The discussion of average shot length began with Barry Salt, but it was not designed (at least in Salt's work) as a marker for judging individual filmmakers, rather it was designed to demonstrate the change in average shot length in films over time and how the average shot length may have been influenced by various technological factors. Surprisingly, If I'm remembering Salt correctly, the ASL of European films is generally longer than the ASL in American films (no surprise there) and the ASL of American films remained surprisingly consistent through the years from the nickelodeon era up until the introduction of digital editing systems when the ASL became shorter. Given that, according to Salt, the ASL of "all films" did not change much over a period of time, it should come as no great surprise that the ASL in the films of the various Keystone directors would be roughly equivalent.

[Robert Arkus]

The discussion of average shot length began with Barry Salt, but it was not designed (at least in Salt's work) as a marker for judging individual filmmakers, rather it was designed to demonstrate the change in average shot length in films over time and how the average shot length may have been influenced by various technological factors. Surprisingly, If I'm remembering Salt correctly, the ASL of European films is generally longer than the ASL in American films (no surprise there) and the ASL of American films remained surprisingly consistent through the years from the nickelodeon era up until the introduction of digital editing systems when the ASL became shorter. Given that, according to Salt, the ASL of "all films" did not change much over a period of time, it should come as no great surprise that the ASL in the films of the various Keystone directors would be roughly equivalent.

Thank you for giving me some perspective on this, Bob. Salt makes a valid point (arguably). However, I have to agree with Mr. Farr that the current study of films from this era should be comparing actual shot length in footage and not in time (largely due to varied projection speeds and varied opinions on what those speeds should be!!). This fact, and whether they are examining a complete film, seems to define the present study as irrelevant (in my opinion).

[Bob Birchard]

or

Thank you for giving me some perspective on this, Bob. Salt makes a valid point (arguably). However, I have to agree with Mr. Farr that the current study of films from this era should be comparing actual shot length in footage and not in time (largely due to varied projection speeds and varied opinions on what those speeds should be!!). This fact, and whether they are examining a complete film, seems to define the present study as irrelevant (in my opinion).

I don't disagree with you, especially since many of the Keystones were trimmed for reissue. But Salt's examination of ASL is largely a matter of technological influence. His argument being that ASL did not perceptably change, from silence to sound to wide screen, despite all the technological innovations along the way. I think for Salt, though i certainly can't speak for him, the fact that the ASL for Chaplin, Lehrmann and Arbuckle wassay 5' and the ASL for Normand say was 6' he would only conclude that the overall ASL for these filmmakers would be 5.25' and I don't think he would draw any startling conclusion except to say that in general Mabel's ASL was longer that the ASL of the others--but still well within the overall ASL for the era.

As an editor, when i worked in live action, I actually counted the number of cuts per reel on several projects I worked on--and the number was 125-130 cuts per 1,000' reel. Now that is higher than average for the period, where the average was probably between 90-100 cuts per reel, but it's not way off the mark, and there were certainly times when I might have 6-10 cuts per reel due to the nature of the way the material was covered by the director, so my ASL would vary. This is why all such "objective" meaurements turn out only to be objective measurements of the material at hand. Cecil B. DeMille, for example, was primarily a "mise en scene" director who played scenes in relativle long mid-shot takes--except when he didn't due to the exigencies of the scene or the requirement of the action. The exceptions make for what is interesting in cinema, not the raw stats of whether DeMilles's ASL might have been 7 feet 8 frames, while Delmer Daves's ASL might have been 6 feet 2 frames--which proves absolutely nothing.