Introduction to Filming Thought, Filming Feeling

Abstract

Introduction to Filming Thought, Filming Feeling V.F. Perkins (bio), Douglas Pye, and Edward Gallafent Introduction The video on which this transcription is based is, as far as we know, the only such record of Victor Perkins giving a class. Its uniqueness alone would have made it precious, almost regardless of content, but the class wonderfully exemplifies Perkins's methods and values: it gives us privileged access to a great critic and teacher working through in great detail, for the benefit of a specific group of students, an approach to the problems being solved and effects created by a great director's decision-making. That Hitchcock is the director makes it additionally valuable. Perkins's critical allegiances remained remarkably constant and Hitchcock was always a key figure, one of the small number of directors whose films engaged him deeply and creatively throughout his career. The occasion of this class was an invitation in Summer 1999 by Peter Wyeth, the course leader for the B.A. in Film and Video at what was then The London College of Printing (now The London College of Communication, part of the University of the Arts, London). In a term devoted to narrative within the second year Contextual Studies dimension of the degree, Perkins was one of several invited speakers in a program that Wyeth had chosen to focus entirely on Hitchcock in his centenary year. One of Perkins's strengths as a teacher was his sensitivity to the needs and prior experience of students. Those at The London College of Printing were primarily training as practitioners and we can see how Perkins planned his approach to make vivid and concrete the challenges in storytelling and image-creation which Hitchcock set himself and the striking and resonant filmmaking solutions he found. He stresses from the outset the ways in which Hitchcock's pride in his craft takes him beyond just communicating visual information to create images charged with thought and feeling. The broader perspectives on Hitchcock's work that he wants to offer the students are carefully tied into the specific analysis of individual sequences and moments. [End Page 141] Although there were occasions on which he produced a complete text, Perkins preferred to preserve the immediacy of speech by lecturing from notes—sometimes detailed, often much more schematic. For many years he used index cards to carry a summary that he would elaborate upon, a method perfectly suited to his desire to preserve the spontaneity of thought and expression (though it could also be hazardous—on at least one occasion the unnumbered cards slipped to the floor). From the video it seems clear that for this class Perkins spoke from well-developed notes—another indication, perhaps, of the care he had taken to prepare for this specific audience. But his delivery is very much that of the speaking, as opposed to the reading, voice. Transforming a lecture into printed form can involve almost line-by-line struggles with the constraints of textual convention over matters of emphasis, inflexion, rhythm, and flow. Sid Gottlieb's transcription keeps changes to a minimum and skillfully preserves the impression of speech. For readers who heard Perkins, it will vividly recall his voice and manner; for those who didn't have that pleasure, it will bring a remarkable teacher and critic to life. ________ The value of the following printed version of the lecture is that it demonstrates clearly the qualities that made Victor Perkins's teaching so widely admired by many students and colleagues. There is the direct appeal to the knowledge and sensibility of the viewer, the reliance on shared and accessible experience. Once this connection is established, Perkins pushes it further, taking his approach to less obvious moments in the film and demonstrating the rewards to be gained by paying careful and sustained attention to them. Thus here we have the opening analysis of a moment that many viewers will know from Strangers on a Train, the image of the unmoving Bruno in the audience of the initial tennis match, something that could easily be included in any anthology of famous moments in Hitchcock's films. This is followed by discussion of sequences that are not...