From Where You Dream (9 page)

When I read that, a number of you smiled. Why? Because he has not moved a muscle. You do not have to say,
"I'll do it," her husband offered insincerely from the bed.
You do not need to abstract that, because all of the affect is embedded in the cin-ematically sensual way Hemingway directs the scene. The revelation comes through montage. The husband says "I'll do it," we see him lying there doing nothing, and next comes, "Don't get wet." It's raining out; of course she's going to get wet.

So much is said about the relationship in so few words!— because Hemingway was a brilliant filmmaker.

Fast action, slow motion: what I want to show you now is how these venerable film techniques have always worked for us writers of narrative. This passage is from the Book of Judges, twenty-five hundred years old. The Old Testament— King James Version, of course. The passage is self-explanatory except for the character of Sisera—a bad guy who's bringing his armies to face Israel.

Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be; blessed shall she be above women in the tent.

He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish.

She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen's hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.

At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet, he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead.

The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming?

This is utterly cinematic: ". .. he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet, he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead." That is slow-motion violence a la Sam Peckinpah. He is falling forever. And then that wonderful cut, that wonderful bit of montage,
sans
transitional device: ". .. he fell down dead"; "The mother of Sisera looked out at a window ..." You can see the latticework, the shadow of it on her face. "Why is his chariot so long in coming?" He should be finished raping and pillaging by now. Time for dinner.

Next I want to read you a little bit of Henry James with some ellipses in it. I want to give you a cheek-by-jowl example of three speeds in a brief section of "The Siege of London." Here is an example of appropriate summary—I've used
summary
as an epithet in these lectures, but the summary that's destructive races through what needs to be done in the moment; it is summary that has no sensual impact on the reader. Sensual, carefully and judiciously used summary can be effective and, indeed, is how you mostly achieve fast motion—fast action—in fiction.

The "glass" referred to here is an opera glass; that is, a little pair of binoculars.

That solemn piece of upholstery, the curtain of the Comedie Francaise, had fallen upon the first act of the piece, and our two Americans had taken advantage of the interval to pass out of the huge, hot theatre, in company with the other occupants of the stalls . . .

She turned . . . and presented her face to the public—a fair, well-drawn face, with smiling eyes, smiling lips, ornamented over the brow with delicate rings of black hair and, in each ear, with the sparkle of a diamond sufficiently large to be seen across the Theatre Francais . ..

Littlemore looked at her, then abruptly he gave an exclamation. "Give me the glass!"

"Do you know her?" his companion asked, as he directed the little instrument.

Littlemore made no answer; he only looked in silence; then he handed back the glass. "No, she's not respectable," he said. And he dropped into his seat again. As Waterville remained standing, he added, "Please sit down; I think she saw me."

Now this is the great thing about fiction. We can move from fast action to slow motion to real time seamlessly and with great nuance. The first part of that was fast action—"that solemn piece of upholstery"—it's summary but with wonderful sensual impact—
that heavy, roughly textured thing.
". . . the curtain of the Comedie Francaise, had fallen upon the first act , . . and our two Americans had taken advantage of the interval to pass out of the huge, hot theatre, in company with the other occupants of the stalls." He never lets go of the image in our minds but we move quickly. Then time stops. We examine her face in very slow motion. "She turned . .. and presented her face to the public," and there's this lovely little bit of close examination: "... a fair, well-drawn face, with smiling eyes, smiling lips, ornamented over the brow with delicate rings of black hair and, in each ear, with the sparkle of a diamond . .." Then we shift into real time, the moment-to-moment time that is your normal speed as fiction writers. The
normal
speed, I emphasize.

"Littlemore looked at her, then abruptly he gave an exclamation. 'Give me the glass!'" We watch him sit down. We watch the handing of the glass. We hear the words of their exchange. It's all in real time there.

Next I'm going to give an example from the writer who taught D. W. Griffith everything he knew about film. This is the opening of the novel
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens. Our narrator, Philip Pirrip, is writing in his adulthood, looking back to his childhood as an orphan, and he refers to himself sometimes in the third person, sometimes in the first person. During his childhood he was called Pip. The

people mentioned here are his dead siblings and his parents. Just go to the movies:

Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, Late of the Parish, and Also Georgiana Wife of the Above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry was Pip.

"Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. "Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!"

A fearful man, all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed

by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.

"Oh, don't cut my throat, sir," I pleaded in terror. "Pray don't do it, sir."

"Tell us your name," said the man. "Quick!"

"Pip, sir."

"Once more," said the man, staring at me. "Give it mouth!"

"Pip. Pip, sir."

"Show us where you live," said the man. "Pint out the place!"

I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat inshore, among the alder-trees and pollards, a mile or more from the church.

The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When the church came to itself—for he was so sudden and strong that he made it go head over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my feet—when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high tombstone, trembling, while he ate the bread ravenously.

Dickens begins with what they call the
establishing shot.
We're at "a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard ..." We get a long shot in the gathering dark of the churchyard. And then, what does Dickens do? He cuts to close-ups and pans one after another along the tombstones—as we can tell from the formal phrasing "Late of the parish":

. . . that Philip Pirrip, Late of the Parish, and Also Georgiana Wife of the Above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried.

These are, in fact, the graves of Pip's dead father, his dead mother, and dead brother, dead brother, dead brother, dead brother, dead brother—one after another.

You see the absolutely essential quality of fiction-as-film when you see what he does then. We go from that last dead brother to what?

. . . and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes . . .

He lifts his camera from the dead brother and looks off to a long shot out over the mounds and gates and dikes to the marshes, beyond the churchyard, and then where?

. . . and that the low, leaden line beyond was the river. . .

Then we go to an even longer shot:

... and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing was the sea . . .

He takes us to an extreme shot at the farthest horizon. Then what? He cuts from that distant horizon to a close-up of the orphan child, the narrator of our novel, "the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry was Pip."

How many writers would do this, with perfect logic?

My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, Late of the Parish, and Also Georgiana Wife of the Above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry was Pip.

Perfectly logical. Perfectly thoughtful. Dead father, dead mother, dead brother, dead brother, dead brother, dead brother, dead brother, last remaining child of the family.

Montage, of course. But in such a novel, where you went from the last dead brother to the remaining child, you would be in a totally different world from the one that Dickens is creating. You would be in a world where the focus is on the plight of an orphan, a family in trouble—a sociological problem, a sentimental tale of a struggling child.

Dickens's world is about something far greater, and Pip does not yearn for a family; he yearns for his destiny. When you move from that last dead child to the marshes and the river and to the far horizon, and the whole sensual world is bleak and empty and mysterious, and there's a dark wind blowing from that far horizon, and
then
you cut to the child—that montage creates something utterly different, a world in which the issue is not just, "Gosh, I don't have parents. I'm a kid struggling," but "I am a human soul trying to work out the destiny of my existence."

Let's go further.

"Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. "Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!"

How does Pip respond to this?" 'Oh, don't cut my throat, sir,' I pleaded in terror. . .." Now, I don't mean to presume to edit Charles Dickens, but Dickens sometimes wrote in haste. Does he really need to say "in terror"? Do you understand what I'm talking about in terms of abstractions? Certainly the world of emotional abundance he's creating can tolerate these extra taps on the knee, but they are not necessary. Pip's terror is manifest already, is it not?

But the important thing to understand here is that the man says, "I'll cut your throat," and Pip says, "Don't cut my throat." How long do you think it took him to come to that response? A nanosecond. And how is it written? Pay attention, because there's something really interesting about these three sentences:

. .. "Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!"

A fearful man, all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied around his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.

"Oh, don't cut my throat, sir," . ..

Time stops here, doesn't it? This is
extreme
slow motion, because all of that comes between "I'm going to cut your throat" and "Oh, don't. . ." What is the psychological reality of that? When was the last time you skidded your car on a wet pavement? What happens? You hear every beat of your heart; that telephone pole is floating in your direction, in extreme slow motion, right? It is absolutely organically appropriate for time to slow down drastically in a moment of terror like that. And remember I'm talking about the organic nature of art; every tiny sensual detail has to resonate into everything else. What's unusual about those three sentences in that paragraph where time has stopped? I bet most of you didn't even notice that not one of them is a complete sentence. Listen to it again: