A Film Canon

Realising that the advent of sound lifts the burden of denotation from the visuals, Mamoulian's Applause employs the most fluid cinematography that I have seen to date, as if his ultimate ambition were to create a film consisting of a single tracking shot. Constantly moving, the camera approaches the status of a participant in the drama, its exploratory agency precluding any sense of a predetermined or choreographed cinematographic structure. This is all the more impressive in that many of the extended takes must have required the most precise logistical preparation - and it seems to be logistical, rather than aesthetic, considerations which prevent Mamoulian focusing more on the exterior world, the true province of this kind of cinematic vision. As it is, the images of New York are on a par with anything in Man With A Movie Camera, and exceed those of The Docks of New York and The Crowd. Although the shots of Brooklyn Bridge and the subway are impressive, the most magnificent take sees the central couple atop a skyscraper, with the camera constantly moving between their conversation and the cityscape beyond, the two finally merging through an aeroplane that circles around them and leaves. This romance also benefits from Mamoulian's cinematography, which complicates the sympathetic dimension by implying that the camera can always stray to a more comic or tragic point of focus, and reflecting the rejection of theatrics upon which that dimension hangs. It's also worth noting Mamoulian's evocative silences, something that score-driven silent films paradoxically lack.