[Renoir's Eye] A Study on the Short Film III

   

            Definite and substantial figures are not only imminent but pivotal to the short film; they are prerequisites for the short, a muscular tale the film must absorb if an effective tale is to be told. In a full feature, there is time for the prologue to be extended, the plot to be expanded and the characters to be wrapped in ciphers for much longer than can be afforded in the short.

            If we can look at what distinguishes the short film from the full feature, we must look at what characterizes the short film. Interrelated movements must be tandem, a plot established within the first few minutes, if not in the prologue, the central figure illuminated to an undeniable degree. The short must strikingly demonstrate objective movements, splice the antagonist and the protagonist to such a degree that grey areas are uncommon, seldom and impossible. The immediate consequence is that we suddenly realize the vitality of the vacuum, the endlessness of the feud of right and wrong, the portraiture of black and white that tends to give us a context that color cannot.

            The establishment of physical existence, film not only differ from photography but from itself, becomes twins with different personalities, different preferences, separate identities, one which will outlive the next. Alfred Hitchcock once said “the chase seems to me the final expression of the motion picture medium.” This can be seen as motion at its extreme, a challenge for a filmmaker or a screenwriter to attempt to do in 30 minutes what is seldom done modern-day in 2 hours; that is, trim a story and by doing so, compressed the viscera of its full existence Even if there are parts unexplained, the short’s inefficiency can be appreciated if the conclusion is left for the audience to wonder, for the audience to draw their own conclusion as to what the fate of the character would become. In this psychological ploy, a few acts short of a Psychodrama, closure to those lives who rather live within film than live outside of it becomes possible. The root of life and the root of film is the same, that is, humanity’s need to pursue their own identities, their own dreams and ideals. If film is supposed to hold any significance, it’s the ability to bring us to ourselves, find answers to this life that have thus far eluded us. In 30 minutes, a short film can allow us a dream and a vision, even to the one whose life has left them visionless.

            In Jean Renoir’s [A Day in the Country, 1936] we can see the beauty of how the filmmaker, with vision, can emphasize the beauty of a woman on a day in the country With every moment, we every frame, even those not directed at Sylvia Bataille. Though Renoir makes his central thesis of the film the family in comic expression, he illuminates Bataille's fall for a man, where they spend the remainder of the day at the end. Film, in this respect, proves that intricacy is not the only element that obtains intimacy, simplicity too shares with the complex a vital spectre of this life, of the short film, then and now.