Abstract
CINEMA and Modernism marks a turning point in the study of literary modernism and early cinema. As Trotter rightly states, over the past thirty years, the majority of cinema and modernism scholars have been ‘committed implicitly or explicitly to argument by analogy’, a commitment that has been rather unfruitful (1). According to these scholars, cinema and modernist literature employ analogous techniques, particularly montage. For Trotter, the argument by analogy fails on both historical and theoretical grounds. It is historically inaccurate to argue that Ulysses or The Waste Land (both published in 1922) were influenced by filmic montage techniques, as the films that employed these techniques—Sergei Eisenstein’s experimental Soviet films, most notably—were not seen in Britain until after the founding of the London Film Society in 1925. The argument by analogy is unsuccessful on theoretical grounds, as scholars fail to recognize an important difference between literature and film: ‘[l]iterature is a representational medium, film is a recording medium’ (3). Modernist literature sought ‘freedom from the ways in which the world had hitherto been represented in literature’, while early film sought freedom from representation altogether, the ‘freedom merely to record’ (3). Given this difference between film and literature, the techniques of the two mediums cannot be usefully compared. Instead, Trotter argues that modernist literature and early film are best ‘understood as constituting and constituted by parallel histories’ (3).
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call