A Film Canon

This short displays some of the most sophisticated internal montage to date, condensing Griffith's experiments with parallel narratives into a series of parallel movements presented within the same frame. At their most basic, these involve one object or person entering the frame as another leaves, although this entry and exit may take various forms, depending on the presence of windows, doors and other units of domestic topography. Simultaneously, Weber makes pervasive use of mirrors to suggest something more like symmetrical movement, transforming a single action into its own narrative counterpoint, as occurs when the female protagonist barricades her door with a large mirror, as well as in the frequent point-of-view shots from the rear-vision mirror of one of the two cars coming to her rescue. Not only does this double the tension, but it allows for a less hysterical vision of domestic intrusion than is found in Griffith, providing an imaginary space which fragments the home-world dichotomy upon which that vision is predicated; or, alternatively, a formal affirmation of female ingenuity and resourcefulness that belies the more conventionally melodramatic thematics. Both this fragmentation and resourcefulness culminate with Weber's solution to those moments at which internal montage is narratively untenable: one of the first - and certainly the most elaborate - examples of split screens.