Peppery Salt
Author(s): Barry Salt and Ernest Callenbach
Source: Film Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Winter, 1985-1986), pp. 61-64
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1212342 .
Accessed: 17/10/2011 06:55
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Quarterly.
http://www.jstor.org
A Salt and Battery
Author(s): David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson
Source: Film Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Winter, 1986-1987), pp. 59-62
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1212357 .
Accessed: 17/10/2011 07:03
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http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Film
Quarterly.
http://www.jstor.org
the otherson whom this title was bestowed,
he resistedit and its implications.Nevertheless,
the emptyhallwaybecamean unfortunate
emblem for his work; his films were
thoughtof asself-containedformalconstructs,
havingnoreferenceto theexternalworld.
Signal-Germany on the Air is a departure
for Gehr.Theimageof thesign,anditsreferenceto
NaziGermany,seemsliketheopening
of a Pandora'sbox, releasingdemonsintothe
film's everyimage. A closer look at Gehr's
earlierworkreveals,however,thatthechange
is one of degree, not of kind. The horror
under the surface of daily life has always
haunted Gehr's images. It has been more
apparentrecently,in the cartoonishautomotive
violence of Shift (1972-74, but not releaseduntilthelate
1970s)andtheaged,anonymous
hands of Untitled(1981). It is also
present,I think,in the NewYorkstreetscene
of Still (1971),andin muchof Gehr'searlier
work, including Serene Velocity. Signal differs
fromthe earlierworkin that it givesa name
to thehorror.
A long sequenceat the end of Signalwas
shot in the rain. This is almost comforting.
The subduedcolorsof an overcastday seem
more appropriatethan the bright, saturated
colors of the storefrontsearlierin the film.
It seems for a while as though the rain can
washawayall tracesof the past. But,whena
brightorangeflare-outsignalsboth the end
of a cameraroll and the end of the film, the
steady hiss of the rain revealsitself as the
roaringof a conflagration.
-HARVEY NOSOWITZ
Controversy& Correspondence
ASALTANDBATTERY
Wehaveno desireto interveneina disputebetween
an author and his reviewer, especially when his
reviewer was also once his editor. But as we are
virtually the only members of the community of
American film academics whom Barry Salt mentions
by name in his reply to Ernest Callenbach,
and as we are dragged into Salt's diatribe as instances
of "dishonesty and dirty tricks," we feel
compelled to offer a response of our own.
Salt accuses our portions of The ClassicalHollywoodCinema:FilmStyleandModeof
Production
to 1960 (written with Janet Staiger) of borrowing
from his work without crediting him. He claims
that we take up his "general approach" of examining
stylistic norms. Salt will be surprisedto learn
that he did not originate the idea of studying
norms, it being a commonplace of Russian Formalist
poetics, Prague Structuralistsemiotics, and arthistorical
research generally. Our citations in The
ClassicalHollywood Cinemaare to E. H. Gombrich,
Jan
Mukarovsky,,
and Roman Jakobson,
among others. But perhaps Salt will claim that
these writers stole from him as well. In any event,
we have been using the concept of stylistic norms
in our own work for over a decade, beginning in
our article, "Space and Narrative in the Films of
Yasujiro Ozu," written in 1975 and published in
Screen in 1976-the same year as Salt's Film Form
article, from which he accuses us of cribbing.
Salt asserts that we derived from him the idea of
statistical sampling. But we deliberately described
our sample as "unbiased" to distinguish it from
others, such as Salt's, which even he has admitted
to be biased. (See "Statistical Style Analysis of
Motion Pictures," Film Quarterly28, 1 [Fall 1974]:
14, and "Film Style and Technology in the Forties,"
Film Quarterly 31, 1 [Fall 1977]:56.) We
learned from Salt here, but negatively, in the sense
that we wished to avoid his mistakes. We did not
explicitly criticize Salt on this score, out of a wish
not to attack work for which we had some regard.
But since Salt keeps a record of all of what he
considers "denigratory" references to his research,
he can now add this to his list.
In his reply to Callenbach, Salt also claims that
we use the Average Shot Length concept without
crediting him. This is utterly false. On page 60 of
TheClassicalHollywoodCinema,Saltis credited,
both in the text and in the footnote, with computing
statistical norms of average shot lengths. True,
his use of the concept is mildly criticized for being
insensitive to the range of choice open to filmmakers
at a given period. But cite him we did.
Apparently, though, we can't win: if we don't cite
him, we are stealing;if we do, he just ignores it.
Salt's other claims are equally absurd. He
accuses us of having "previously denigrated" his
work. "Denigrate" is a pretty strong word, meaning
"to sully or degrade," and we have not done
any such thing. Thompson's review of the Brighton
Conference proceedings (Iris 2, 1) characterized
Salt's work as taking an evolutionary approach to
early film history-hardly a slur, since the title
of his article is "Evolution of Film Form up to
1906." Salt's 1977 Film Quarterly article on film
style in the 1940s is cited, approvingly, in Bord-
59
well's The Films of Carl-Theodor Dreyer (p. 237),
published by the same University of California
Press that Salt now despises. A couple of brief
citations of Salt in our Wide Angle (5, 3) article
"Linearity, Materialism and the Study of the Early
American Cinema" are completely neutral, except
for the expression of some surprisethat Salt would
use the term "Missing Link" in promoting Reginald
Barker. No; one must read Salt's attacks on
various authors, editors, reviewers, and presses to
learn what "denigratory" reallymeans.
Salt then virtually accuses Thompson of having
stolen the examples, ideas, and even the organization
of her section of our book from his 1976Film
Form (1, 1) article, "The Early Development of
Film Form." Thompson's chapters, he asserts,
tell "the same story" as does that article. Aside
from the patent absurdity of the notion that a text
equivalent in length to a small book could be taken
in detail from thirteen pages of Salt's prose, the
accusations are completely false. Salt states that
Thompson "uses exactly the same previously unknown
films" he discussed in the Film Form article.
Let's do a bit of what Salt claims to do so wellcounting.
He refers to about 66 titles from the
pre-1918 period in that article; Thompson cites
about 118 films from the same period in her chapters.
Of these, 25 are the same titles. Of those, a
fair proportion are such previously unknown films
as The Birth of a Nation, The Cheat, A Corner in
Wheat, The Great TrainRobbery, etc. Moreover,
only seven are used to make the same point about
the same scene. In two cases, Thompson does refer
to Salt as having originated the examples-when
Salt was indeed their originator. (See p. 209, "Barry
Salt has pointed out an early example of shot/
reverse shot in The Loader . . ."; p. 274, "Barry
Salt has found a number of early films which use
arc lamps . . ."; other citations of Salt by Thompson
are: p. 438, fn. 2; p. 442, fn. 24; p. 443, fns.
16 and 22; p. 444, fn. 35; and p. 453, fn. 44.) In
four of the seven cases, Salt was not the first to
point out the device and hence was not footnoted
(e.g., the cut-in in The Gay Shoe Clerk, close
framings in The Widow and the Only Man). Indeed,
in a number of cases, Salt's examples duplicate
those of Kemp Niver's 1968 book, The First
Twenty Years (e.g., A Search for Evidence, The
Story the Biograph Told), yet Salt does not do
him the courtesy of giving him a single footnote
or mention. (Thompson does refer to Niver's
book.) For all one could tell from Film Style &
Technology, barely anyone had ever written on
early filmic devices before Salt. The only case in
which Thompson uses a Salt-originated example
without citing him is a shot from A Friendly Marriage
(1911), where a woman sits in the foreground
with her back to the camera. Since Salt saw this
film at the National Archive, which at that time
had it incorrectly catalogued as Love's Awakening
(1910), under which title Salt discussed it, Thompson
did not notice the identity of the two examples
until later; she had used a correctly identified print
at the Library of Congress. Admittedly, both Salt
and Thompson use Her First Adventure (1908) as
an example of crosscutting, but since Salt incorrectly
claimed this to be the first use of crosscutting,
Thompson felt it unnecessary to cite him.
(Both Thompson and Salt independently saw The
100-to-One Shot [1906], currently the earliest
known case of crosscutting, and this film figures
in both their books-though not in Salt's Film
Form article.)
All this leaves us with approximately 93 films of
the pre-1918 period which Thompson cites and
Salt does not, and 41 which only Salt mentions.
"Exactly the same previously unknown films,"
Mr. Salt? Some titles used by Thompson but not
by Salt include: At Old Fort Dearborn, TheBandit
of Tropico, Behind the Footlights, The Bells,
Broncho Billy and the Greaser, and Brother Man,
with the list continuing through the alphabet.
A certain degree of overlap is inevitable, because
Salt and Thompson visited some of the same major
archives, and archives have limited numbers of
titles from this period available as viewing prints.
But more importantly, Thompson often uses the
duplicated titles for different purposes. For example,
Salt draws upon the 1914 Detective Burton's
Triumphfor examples of match on action and lack
of dialogue titles, while The Classical Hollywood
Cinema discusses its remarkable, extended shot/
reverse-shot scene. The same is true for most of
the titles cited by both authors.
Finally, it should be noted that Bordwell, Staiger,
and Thompson were doing their archival film viewing
at the same time that Salt was watching films
used to expand his previous work into his book.
Salt also says that Thompson "tells the same
story" of the early cinema that he does. But where
is Salt's equivalent of Thompson's extended comparison
of narrative forms, based on examinations
of early scenario manuals and comparable playwriting,
novel, and short-story manuals? Does he
discuss goal-oriented protagonists, deadlines, and
the like? Most crucially, he does not use any of the
same arguments that Thompson does-about narration,
the spectator's relation to the playing space,
the disruptive qualities of early editing, the dramaturgical
functions of backlighting, and so on and
on. Thompson does not in fact organize her section
chronologically as a "story," but by largescale
topics-quite different from Salt's randomly
ordered small-scale sections which overall are organized
in strictly chronological fashion. (Given
Salt's lack of arguments concerning causal connections
among his atoms of data, his book does
not add up to a story, either-only a chronicle.)
Finally, Salt accuses Thompson of being unable
even to steal his material efficiently-she often
"gets it seriously wrong." This is mere assertion
again, as he gives no examples. He does criticize
a 1919 article from the Transactions of the Society
of Motion Picture Engineers on lighting, calling it
"years out of date in its recommendations." Yet
this is irrelevant, since Thompson does not employ
60
the Transactions article for direct stylistic evidence
or for the author's "recommendations," but only
for one mention of the number of arc lamps owned
by the Vitagraph studios--something that no one,
even Salt, could tell simply by looking at the films.
Moreover, Salt's complaint is wholy ex cathedra,
since he offers no counter-evidence. And if Salt
is so skeptical about the Transactions as a source,
why is it one of the only two journals (along with
The American Cinematographer) that he used for
"the basic research" (p. 381) on technology in his
own book? We investigated a great variety of contemporary
documents, most of which Salt ignored
in his own research, and we checked our data
against various sources. Salt himself, through a
lack of print sources, occasionally dates major
technological innovations years too late, as with
the Bell &Howell all-metal cameraand the Sunlight
Arc. (For evidence of this, see our forthcoming
review of Film Style & Technology.)
It is ironic that Salt should accuse us of not
acknowledging sources, when The Classical Hollywood
Cinema probably has one of the highest
proportions of footnotes to text of any book ever
In the Service
of the State
The Cinema of Alexander Dovzhenko
Vance Kepley, Jr.
AlexanderDovzhenkoisone ofthe originalmastersofthe Soviet cinemaduring
the classic period from 1920 to 1945. Opportunitiesto view his films, which
reflecthisUkranianpeasantbackground,arerareinthiscountry.VanceKepley's
skillfulanalysis of nine existing films of Dovzhenko advances a new thesis
about the filmmaker'sworkand represents the firstcomprehensive study of
them in English.
The prevailingWesternview of Dovzhenko's workhas been that he was the
cinematic equivalent of aromanticpoet, dominatedbya pastoralvision of life,
and embodying ahistoricaland timeless themes withinhis films. KepleycontendsthatDovzhenko'sfilmswere
notsimplyprojectionsofpersonalandprivate
visions, but that they refer to their historicalsettings and are highly topical.
By examining each filmin its originalhistoricaland politicalcontext, Kepley
uncovers howeach of them borrowedandorganized materialfromthe society
inwhich itwas made.
Thiswell researched and convincing study sheds new lighton an established
artistandbroadensthe scope ofWesterncriticismconcerningDovzhenko'sfilms.
190 pages, 24 illus., $24.50, cloth
The University of Wisconsin Press
114 NorthMurrayStreet,Madison,WI53715
61
published in the field-and when Salt's own book
has no footnotes at all. In the light of his strident
complaints about the lack of scholarly rigor in
film studies, both his book and his letter clearly--
if unwittingly-reveal his own standardsof accuracy.
If Salt responds to this reply, we expect that he
will fire back more invective, hint again that he
has special evidence up his sleeve, and conveniently
forget that the issue he originally raised is not whether
we are right or wrong but rather whether we
are scrupulous. He will also probably continue to
ignore all the things that our book sets out to do
that he has apparently never dreamt of-discussing
principlesof narrativeconstruction and spectatorial
activity, showing the systematic nature of classical
style, tracing changing modes of film production
across Hollywood's history, showing the institutional
causes and consequences of technological
change, comparing the Hollywood style with other
styles, and so on. The usual response to Salt's
fulminations has been to compliment him for his
genuine accomplishments while clucking one's
tongue about his eccentricities. After Salt's irresponsible
and unfounded charges, however, we can
only suggest that he lift his gaze from his navel to
the printedpage and actually readwhat other scholarshave
written.
-DAVID BORDWELL
AND KRISTIN THOMPSON
15February 1986
STATEMENTOFOWNERSHIP,MANAGEMENT
ANDCIRCULATION,12/1/86
Title: Film Quarterly.Frequency:Quarterly.Four issues published
annually.Subscription price:$12.00 individuals,$24.00 institutions.
Location of office of publication: 2120 Berkeley Way, Berkeley,
Alameda County, CA 94720. Headquartersof publishers: Same.
Publisher:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 2120 BerkeleyWay,Berkeley,
CA 94720. Editor:Ernest Callenbach, Universityof California
Press, Berkeley, CA 94720. Owner:The Regents of the University
of California,Berkeley,CA94720. The purpose, function and nonprofitstatus
of this organizationand the exempt status for Federal
income tax purposes havenotchangedduringpreceding12months.
Extentand natureof circulation: Av.no. Actualno.
copies each copies of
issue pre- single issue
ceding 12 pub.nearest
months to filingdate
A. Totalno. copies printed 6596 6580
B. Paidcirculation:
1. Sales throughdealers and
carriers,street vendors
and countersales 2251 2429
2. Mailsubscriptions 3503 3511
C. Totalpaidcirculation 5754 5940
D. Freedistribution 147 154
E. Totaldistribution 5900 6094
F. Copies not distributed 205 205
G. Total 6596 6580
I certify that the statements made by me above are correct and
complete. EllieYoung,JournalsManager
"Inthisuniquestudy,N. M. Laryhas deepened the
relationbetween cinemaand the olderarts
by tracingthe influenceof Dostoevskyon
Soviet film."-JAY LEYDA,Pinewood Professor of Cinema
Studies,NewYorkUniversity
DOSTOEVSKYAND
SOVIET FILM
Visions of Demonic Realism
By N. M. LARY
Exploringthe relationshipbetween Dostoevsky and Soviet
film as it has developed both on screen and off, this book
not only reveals some hidden sides of Soviet resistance to
Dostoevsky's work but through its insights contributes to-I
ward a new understandingof the uses of literaturein film.
"It is refreshing to see a book on Soviet film that draws
on such a wide range of scholarship, archivalmaterial,and
interviews.The resultis a workof unusualscope and depth."
-J. Michael Holquist, Indiana University.
I
20 b&w
"
illustrations. $24.95
CORNELLUNIVERSITYPRESSP.o.Box 250, Ithaca,NewYork14851
62
Reply to Bordwell & Thompson
Author(s): Barry Salt
Source: Film Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Summer, 1987), pp. 59-61
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1212270 .
Accessed: 17/10/2011 07:06
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Film
Quarterly.
http://www.jstor.org
tions Fayard. Volume two on the years 1938through
1945 written by one of France's master film
raconteurs.
Jean Pierrot, Marguerite Duras, Jose Corti. A
chronological look at the works of the screenwriter
of Resnais's Hiroshima Mon Amour.
Polanski par Polanski, Editions du Chene. Done
with Pierre-Andre Boutang, interviews with the
Polish-French director, accompanied by numerous
photos, but perhapsover-illustratedand over-priced.
Jean Renoir, entretiens et propos, Editions de
l'Etoile, with Ramsay.
CatherineRihoit, BrigitteBardot, OlivierOrban.An
excellent biography-essayon the Frenchscreenstar,
but as with such books published in France, authorized,
and thereforea biographythat has lost much of
the punch it could have had.
Eric Rohmer, Six Contes moraux, Ramsay Poche
Cinema. The tales that were Rohmer's startingpoint
for his Six Moral Tales.
Viviane Romance, Romantique a mourir, Carrere.
Memoirs of the screen actress.
M. Serceau,Roberto Rossellini, un temoin exigeant,
Cerf. Critical and original study of the Italian
director.
tions Fayard. Volume two on the years 1938through
1945 written by one of France's master film
raconteurs.
Jean Pierrot, Marguerite Duras, Jose Corti. A
chronological look at the works of the screenwriter
of Resnais's Hiroshima Mon Amour.
Polanski par Polanski, Editions du Chene. Done
with Pierre-Andre Boutang, interviews with the
Polish-French director, accompanied by numerous
photos, but perhapsover-illustratedand over-priced.
Jean Renoir, entretiens et propos, Editions de
l'Etoile, with Ramsay.
CatherineRihoit, BrigitteBardot, OlivierOrban.An
excellent biography-essayon the Frenchscreenstar,
but as with such books published in France, authorized,
and thereforea biographythat has lost much of
the punch it could have had.
Eric Rohmer, Six Contes moraux, Ramsay Poche
Cinema. The tales that were Rohmer's startingpoint
for his Six Moral Tales.
Viviane Romance, Romantique a mourir, Carrere.
Memoirs of the screen actress.
M. Serceau,Roberto Rossellini, un temoin exigeant,
Cerf. Critical and original study of the Italian
director.
Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain, Fantomas,
Laffont Bouquins. 1000 pages worth of the adventures
of Fant6mas, one of the first subjects of the
French silent screen. Established by the historian
Francis Lacassin.
Jacques Tourneur,Camera-Stylo.Specialnumberof
this excellentfilm publicationdevoted to the FrenchAmerican
director of Cat People.
AlexandreTrauner,CinquanteAns de cinema, JadeFlammarion.
Memoirs, illustrated(naturally)of the
French set designer.
Bruno Villien, Visconti, Calmann-Levy. A very
thorough examination of all of Visconti's careeron
the stageand screen,but somewhatoverpricedat 389
francs ($65).
Roger Viry-Babel, Jean Renoir. Le Jeu et la rigle,
Denoel. Highly original work on the director of La
Regle dujeu.
Andrzej Wajda, Un Cinema nommerDesir. Stock.
Somewhat disappointing memoirs of the directorof
Ashes and Diamonds; one hopes that Wajda's career
will warrant another better thought-out book.
Orson Welles,Cahiersdu Cinema. Just about everything
that ever appeared on Welles in the pages of
this venerable publication.
Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain, Fantomas,
Laffont Bouquins. 1000 pages worth of the adventures
of Fant6mas, one of the first subjects of the
French silent screen. Established by the historian
Francis Lacassin.
Jacques Tourneur,Camera-Stylo.Specialnumberof
this excellentfilm publicationdevoted to the FrenchAmerican
director of Cat People.
AlexandreTrauner,CinquanteAns de cinema, JadeFlammarion.
Memoirs, illustrated(naturally)of the
French set designer.
Bruno Villien, Visconti, Calmann-Levy. A very
thorough examination of all of Visconti's careeron
the stageand screen,but somewhatoverpricedat 389
francs ($65).
Roger Viry-Babel, Jean Renoir. Le Jeu et la rigle,
Denoel. Highly original work on the director of La
Regle dujeu.
Andrzej Wajda, Un Cinema nommerDesir. Stock.
Somewhat disappointing memoirs of the directorof
Ashes and Diamonds; one hopes that Wajda's career
will warrant another better thought-out book.
Orson Welles,Cahiersdu Cinema. Just about everything
that ever appeared on Welles in the pages of
this venerable publication.
Correspondenceand
Controversy
Correspondenceand
Controversy
ReplytoBordwell&Thompson
"Conversely, and perversely as well, Burch allies
himself more with BarrySalt; . . . his account contains
more than a grain of Salt, and should be taken
so." (IrisVol. 2, No. 1, 1984). Readerscan make up
their own minds whether, like the letter in FQ for
Winter 1986-87, this typical quote from Kristin
Thompson is a sneer at my work (and that of Noel
Burch,to whose observationsmuch of theirprevious
work has been indebted), or an expression of regard
for it. And yet without my work Bordwell and
Thompson would not know what to look for, where
to look for it, or how to look for it.
I may not have been the first person to talk about
norms and differencesin artwhen I firstwroteabout
film styleanalysisin 1968,but I was certainlythe person
who introduced them into film studies. In 1974
I published"StatisticalStyleAnalysis of Motion Pictures"
in FQ, in which I not only suggested the use
of norms and differences for studying stylistic questions,
but I also began to do something about it by
introducing various stylistic variables such as Aver-
ReplytoBordwell&Thompson
"Conversely, and perversely as well, Burch allies
himself more with BarrySalt; . . . his account contains
more than a grain of Salt, and should be taken
so." (IrisVol. 2, No. 1, 1984). Readerscan make up
their own minds whether, like the letter in FQ for
Winter 1986-87, this typical quote from Kristin
Thompson is a sneer at my work (and that of Noel
Burch,to whose observationsmuch of theirprevious
work has been indebted), or an expression of regard
for it. And yet without my work Bordwell and
Thompson would not know what to look for, where
to look for it, or how to look for it.
I may not have been the first person to talk about
norms and differencesin artwhen I firstwroteabout
film styleanalysisin 1968,but I was certainlythe person
who introduced them into film studies. In 1974
I published"StatisticalStyleAnalysis of Motion Pictures"
in FQ, in which I not only suggested the use
of norms and differences for studying stylistic questions,
but I also began to do something about it by
introducing various stylistic variables such as Average
Shot Length(A.S.L.), Scale of Shot, and others,
and by obtaining the first results published there.
(Another quite different theoretical article I published
in Sight and Sound in Spring 1974 also mentioned
the importance of applying these ideas to
film.) I also pointed out in FQ in 1974 that ideally
one would use a random sampleof films to establish
the norms. SinceI recognizedtherewereconsiderable
problems in obtaining a truly random sample of
films, problemswhich Bordwelland Thompson have
completely failed to deal with, I resolved to get an
approximation to a random sample by sheer quantity
of results. In their 1976article, written one year
after my article appeared, Bordwell and Thompson
mentionedthe ideaof norms for the firsttime in their
work, but they did nothing whatever about it, and
they also said nothing about how one might tackle
the problem. (The Russian formalists did nothing
much concrete towards establishing norms in literature
either.) In 1976 I repeated these ideas in "Film
StyleandTechnology in the Thirties,"and continued
to present more results of my program, as I did in
1977in "Film Style and Technology in the Forties."
In this last article, mentioned in their letter, but not
59
age Shot Length(A.S.L.), Scale of Shot, and others,
and by obtaining the first results published there.
(Another quite different theoretical article I published
in Sight and Sound in Spring 1974 also mentioned
the importance of applying these ideas to
film.) I also pointed out in FQ in 1974 that ideally
one would use a random sampleof films to establish
the norms. SinceI recognizedtherewereconsiderable
problems in obtaining a truly random sample of
films, problemswhich Bordwelland Thompson have
completely failed to deal with, I resolved to get an
approximation to a random sample by sheer quantity
of results. In their 1976article, written one year
after my article appeared, Bordwell and Thompson
mentionedthe ideaof norms for the firsttime in their
work, but they did nothing whatever about it, and
they also said nothing about how one might tackle
the problem. (The Russian formalists did nothing
much concrete towards establishing norms in literature
either.) In 1976 I repeated these ideas in "Film
StyleandTechnology in the Thirties,"and continued
to present more results of my program, as I did in
1977in "Film Style and Technology in the Forties."
In this last article, mentioned in their letter, but not
59
in TheClassicalHollywood Cinema, though like my
otherarticlesDavid Bordwellreadit soon afterit was
published, I summarized A.S.L.s for nearly 400
sound films, and presented a clear picture of the
normsanddispersionfor this particularvariable;i.e.,
the "paradigmatic range of choice" in use by filmmakers
in the various six-year periods I illustrated.
Yet typicallyBordwelland Thompson, on page60 of
their book, give the absence of such a feature as a
good reason for ignoringmy work. And in 1977they
had still not actually done anything about establishing
stylistic norms and differences, they had merely
mentioned the idea in passing a few more times.
When after this they finally tried to select a random
sample of films from 1916to 1960to establish
norms, whattheyachievedwas far from "unbiased,"
even with respect to the surviving films, as a glance
at their breakdown by studio and period shows to
anyone who has not only some idea about statistical
sampling,but also of what is containedin the world's
film archives. Becauseof faulty sampling technique,
it is in fact a markedlynon-random sample from the
films theycould lay theirhandson easily, particularly
all those Warner Brothers films in their Wisconsin
archive. Worse than this for their claims, nearly all
of the generalizations about the developments in
American film style and its norms in their book are
in fact not basedon their "unbiasedsample," buton
their "extended sample," which was very definitely
hand-picked by them for their own purposes. Their
"extended sample" is not specified, even as to size
year by year, though it is certainlysmallerthan even
my 1977FQ sound film sample, let alone that in my
1983book Film Style and Technology: History and
Analysis. (Now in paperback at $15. Covers up to
1970,anddealswithEuropeancinematoo. A quarter
of a million original words, and none wasted in
laboring the obvious about narration, or anything
else. The bargain of the century.) As a result of the
shortcomingsof theirsample, Bordwelland Thompson
markedly underestimate the range of stylistic
variation in A.S.L. at any particular time, most
obviously in their treatment of the fifties and the
introductionof 'Scope. Otherformalvariablestreated
quantitatively in my pre-1983 papers they do nothing
about. Another way my statistical work is misrepresentedis
in the matter of my using a section of
film 30 minutes or greater (and greater than 200
shots) to estimate the overall A.S.L., though a proportion
of such results of mine have always been
from complete films. In fact I briefly demonstrated
the justification for this sectional sampling in my
original 1974 article, which discussion Bordwell
ignores. This is what repeatedly happens on the
occasions when Bordwelland Thompson referto my
work: it is misrepresentedand then there is the suggestion
that it is not worth looking at. If they were
reallyinterestedin advancingknowledge, they would
have dealt with these matters, ratherthan concealing
them.
When we turn to early cinema, their 1979 book
Film Art was content to reproduce the traditional
lazy errorsabout Porterand Griffithinventingeverything.
Yet in my 1976 "The Early Development of
60
FilmForm," I outlined for the firsttime the development
of the key constitutional stylistic features of
mainstreamcinemaup to 1918(I intentionallyavoided
the expression "classical cinema," since I felt it was
already devalued by loose usage), namely forms of
movement continuity from shot to shot, directional
continuity, reverse-anglecutting, the introductionof
dialogue titles, and non-frontal stagings at Vitagraph.
No historianshad discussedthe emergenceof
these featuresbefore, and the previousconsideration
of the other features I discussed there such as scene
dissection, flashbackconstruction, naturalismin acting,
cameramovement, and all aspects of film lighting,
had been inadequate. I did this not by reading
other people's work, but by viewingabout 200 films,
most of whichno one had heardabout or considered
before, and from these I selected a smaller number
of filmsto illustratemy novel generalizations.Forthe
1909-1918 period these unknown films included The
Fear, Rory O'Moore, The Loafer, An III Wind,
After One Hundred Years, Weightsand Measures,
TheEagle's Mate, His Phantom Sweetheart, Detective
Burton's Triumph, A Tale of Two Cities, and
Love's Awakening (A Friendly Marriage). In 1979
Kristin Thompson came to the National Film Archive,
mentioned my work to the Viewing Officer,
Elaine Burrows, and asked to see those films, along
with some others from the period. Yet at the end of
1985 Kristin Thompson told an audience gathered
here in London to be sold their book that "Noel
Burchand BarrySaltwereworkingon this areaat the
same time as us, but we werenot awareof this," and
when challenged about the above films, said, as she
says in the FQ Winter letter that ". .. I just happened
to come across these films because we were
working in the same archives." In fact the National
FilmArchivehad about 300 viewingcopies of American
films from the 1909-1917 period in 1979, not "a
limited number of titles," and so the odds against
lighting on those ten films by chance were rather
large.
Introducinghertreatmentof the firsttwentyyears
on pages 157 to 159 of The Classical Hollywood
Cinema (1985), KristinThompson gives the impression
that she is the first to give a full and correct
objective treatmentof formal developments, though
in fact she is using my 1976article,and also my 1978
"Film Form 1900-1906," and the films in them, as
guides, without mentioning this. InevitablyThompson
comes to the same conclusions, but she tries to
cover this up by pretendingthat I got it wrong when
she does mention these articles later in connection
with a few specific points in footnotes. To take one
instance, when discussing the introduction of dialogue
titles (p. 185), her mention of my article,
tucked away in a footnote as usual, says "BarrySalt
has suggestedthat the placementof dialogue titles at
the point in the scene where they are spoken was
minoritypracticearound 1911to 1913." (my emphasis)
In fact what BarrySalt wrote was, "By 1911the
use of dialogue titles was fairlycommon, though not
in Griffith'sfilms, butalthoughsome areat thepoint
between shots where they would be heard, most are
not, and it is doubtful that the principlehad yet been
realised." This exactly accords with the evidence
Thompson produces, despite the very small sample
of films she is considering.This misrepresentationof
what I wrote is followed by the statement that my
work is wrong because I ignored written sources. In
fact, a decadeago, when I startedon my work I went
through the tradepapersfor this period, and discovered
that there were no contemporary references to
the introductionof the major featuresof mainstream
cinema at the time that they happened, and often no
references even much later. Nor have Bordwell and
Thompson been able to find any stylistic developments
that I missed out because my primarymethod
was working through the viewing of thousands of
films. In the particular case of dialogue titles, all
Thompson has been able to find and quote in their
book are discussions in 1911 and 1912of the placement
of narrativetitles, and a 1913quote saying of
dialogue titles ". .. they should be made to follow
the action . . .", which certainly does not describe
the majority practice in 1913.
On the other hand, where I went seriously wrong
in 1976, through believing the traditional publicity
accounts, was in my ascriptionof the introductionof
chiaroscurolightingfor expressivepurposesto Alvin
Wyckoff working for De Mille in 1915. Thompson
follows my 1976account in believingthis, whereasin
fact thereare many previous examples of low key or
"Rembrandtlighting"yearsbeforethis, at Vitagraph
and elsewhere. Naturally I get this rightin my book,
with plenty of illustrations.
KristinThompson does attemptto improveon my
work, as is only right, but when she discusses the
final scene of Detective Burton's Triumph (now
known to be The Bank Burglar's Fate, directed by
Jack Adolfi), and builds a big argument on the
reverse-anglecutting she sees in this scene, she goes
badly wrong. As can be seen from the frameenlargements
in their book, not to mention the film itself,
there are no reverse-angleshots in this scene, it is all
shot from the same side on a two-walled L-shaped
set. Up to this point my observations have mostly
borne on the ethics of Bordwell and Thompson's
doings, but now we are talking about a point of
major importancefor the study of film history:their
lack of technical competence. This is confirmed by
many examples throughout their book, in the first
place by the major topics in the development of film
style that they miss, such as the reduction of depth
of field in studio shooting from 1918 onwards, the
use of double backlightinglikewise, the introduction
of duplicating stock and its consequences, the development
of the insertshot (andits vitalrelationto film
narration),the reductionof lens diffusion in the late
forties, and etc., etc. The effects of these developments
are visible in some of the films they illustrate,
but they can't see them. Then thereare the other terribleerrorsthey
commit becauseof theirlackof technical
knowledge, such as the description of the foot
pedals on the Bell & Howell semi-automatic splicer
(which actually actuate the clamps) as being "to run
the film through" (Ill. 21.3), the Bell & Howell continuous
printer as using the intermittent "shuttle
gate" mechanism (page 252), the main lights in the
realised." This exactly accords with the evidence
Thompson produces, despite the very small sample
of films she is considering.This misrepresentationof
what I wrote is followed by the statement that my
work is wrong because I ignored written sources. In
fact, a decadeago, when I startedon my work I went
through the tradepapersfor this period, and discovered
that there were no contemporary references to
the introductionof the major featuresof mainstream
cinema at the time that they happened, and often no
references even much later. Nor have Bordwell and
Thompson been able to find any stylistic developments
that I missed out because my primarymethod
was working through the viewing of thousands of
films. In the particular case of dialogue titles, all
Thompson has been able to find and quote in their
book are discussions in 1911 and 1912of the placement
of narrativetitles, and a 1913quote saying of
dialogue titles ". .. they should be made to follow
the action . . .", which certainly does not describe
the majority practice in 1913.
On the other hand, where I went seriously wrong
in 1976, through believing the traditional publicity
accounts, was in my ascriptionof the introductionof
chiaroscurolightingfor expressivepurposesto Alvin
Wyckoff working for De Mille in 1915. Thompson
follows my 1976account in believingthis, whereasin
fact thereare many previous examples of low key or
"Rembrandtlighting"yearsbeforethis, at Vitagraph
and elsewhere. Naturally I get this rightin my book,
with plenty of illustrations.
KristinThompson does attemptto improveon my
work, as is only right, but when she discusses the
final scene of Detective Burton's Triumph (now
known to be The Bank Burglar's Fate, directed by
Jack Adolfi), and builds a big argument on the
reverse-anglecutting she sees in this scene, she goes
badly wrong. As can be seen from the frameenlargements
in their book, not to mention the film itself,
there are no reverse-angleshots in this scene, it is all
shot from the same side on a two-walled L-shaped
set. Up to this point my observations have mostly
borne on the ethics of Bordwell and Thompson's
doings, but now we are talking about a point of
major importancefor the study of film history:their
lack of technical competence. This is confirmed by
many examples throughout their book, in the first
place by the major topics in the development of film
style that they miss, such as the reduction of depth
of field in studio shooting from 1918 onwards, the
use of double backlightinglikewise, the introduction
of duplicating stock and its consequences, the development
of the insertshot (andits vitalrelationto film
narration),the reductionof lens diffusion in the late
forties, and etc., etc. The effects of these developments
are visible in some of the films they illustrate,
but they can't see them. Then thereare the other terribleerrorsthey
commit becauseof theirlackof technical
knowledge, such as the description of the foot
pedals on the Bell & Howell semi-automatic splicer
(which actually actuate the clamps) as being "to run
the film through" (Ill. 21.3), the Bell & Howell continuous
printer as using the intermittent "shuttle
gate" mechanism (page 252), the main lights in the
foreground of illustration 17.41 are reflector-type
spotlights, not floodlights, Illus. 28.1 given as an
exampleof the absenceof backlightingin color films
visiblyshows the presenceof backlighting,and so on
and on and on. Buthow to dealwiththis problemfor
the advancementof knowledgeof film styleandtechnology?
For when confronted with their mistakes
Bordwell and Thompson's reaction is as in their letter,
where Thompson attempts to conceal that she
does give the 1919 TSMPE articleI mentioned as an
exampleof standardcontemporarylightingpractice,
as you can read on page 412 of their book, with no
mention of the number of lights at Vitagraph. But
the inadequaciesand misleadingnatureof the coverage
of such matters in the technical journals, which
are ignorantly accepted as Holy Writ by Bordwell
and Thompson, and then furthermisinterpretedby
them, needsa long articlein itself. -BARRY SALT
SaltII
Readers(if any remain)of this tiresomecontroversy
may not have the stamina to return to the original
texts. We want to point out that, with the exceptions
noted below, Salt has conceded our previous points
simply by neglecting to rebut them. He initially
claimedthatwe usedhis ideaswithoutcitinghim, but
we showed that he was indeed cited. He claimedthat
Thompson's section of The Classical Hollywood
Cinema "tells the same story" as does his 1976article;
we showed that it did not. He charged that she
used "exactlythe samepreviouslyunknownfilms"he
did; we showed that she did not. He assertedthat she
used inadequate documentation for certain points;
we showedthat shedid not. On allthesematters,Salt
now remainssilent. But he is unfazed. He prefersto
occupy his time, our time, and your time with more
invective. Once more, as a matter of principle, we
feel obliged to reply, and since it takes less space to
fling an unsupported charge than to mount a supported
defense, we must presume once more on the
reader's patience.
First, the exceptional passages in which Salt does
address our rejoinder.
1. He answers our claim that we have not
denigrated him by assuming that a passage, from
Thompson's review of the book Cinema 1900/1906
is a "sneer" at him. Yet he assumes wrongly. Anyone
who cares to read the quotation in its original
context (Iris, Vol. 2, no. 1, p. 142) will realize that
it criticizes only Noel Burch's contribution to that
work. Burch, who claimed to be doing a nonevolutionaryhistoryof
the earlycinema, contributed
a highly evolutionary account. Salt, on the other
hand, labelledhis essay "Evolution of the FilmForm
Up To 1906" and gave a consistently evolutionary
description. Burch contradicted his own premises,
while Salt was completely true to his: that was the
point. Thompson's referenceto Salt's own essay (p.
141)is approving, placing him in a group of authors
who contribute to the revision of traditional film
history.
2. Salt insists that he brought the concept of
norms into film studies. However, he now collapses
61
foreground of illustration 17.41 are reflector-type
spotlights, not floodlights, Illus. 28.1 given as an
exampleof the absenceof backlightingin color films
visiblyshows the presenceof backlighting,and so on
and on and on. Buthow to dealwiththis problemfor
the advancementof knowledgeof film styleandtechnology?
For when confronted with their mistakes
Bordwell and Thompson's reaction is as in their letter,
where Thompson attempts to conceal that she
does give the 1919 TSMPE articleI mentioned as an
exampleof standardcontemporarylightingpractice,
as you can read on page 412 of their book, with no
mention of the number of lights at Vitagraph. But
the inadequaciesand misleadingnatureof the coverage
of such matters in the technical journals, which
are ignorantly accepted as Holy Writ by Bordwell
and Thompson, and then furthermisinterpretedby
them, needsa long articlein itself. -BARRY SALT
SaltII
Readers(if any remain)of this tiresomecontroversy
may not have the stamina to return to the original
texts. We want to point out that, with the exceptions
noted below, Salt has conceded our previous points
simply by neglecting to rebut them. He initially
claimedthatwe usedhis ideaswithoutcitinghim, but
we showed that he was indeed cited. He claimedthat
Thompson's section of The Classical Hollywood
Cinema "tells the same story" as does his 1976article;
we showed that it did not. He charged that she
used "exactlythe samepreviouslyunknownfilms"he
did; we showed that she did not. He assertedthat she
used inadequate documentation for certain points;
we showedthat shedid not. On allthesematters,Salt
now remainssilent. But he is unfazed. He prefersto
occupy his time, our time, and your time with more
invective. Once more, as a matter of principle, we
feel obliged to reply, and since it takes less space to
fling an unsupported charge than to mount a supported
defense, we must presume once more on the
reader's patience.
First, the exceptional passages in which Salt does
address our rejoinder.
1. He answers our claim that we have not
denigrated him by assuming that a passage, from
Thompson's review of the book Cinema 1900/1906
is a "sneer" at him. Yet he assumes wrongly. Anyone
who cares to read the quotation in its original
context (Iris, Vol. 2, no. 1, p. 142) will realize that
it criticizes only Noel Burch's contribution to that
work. Burch, who claimed to be doing a nonevolutionaryhistoryof
the earlycinema, contributed
a highly evolutionary account. Salt, on the other
hand, labelledhis essay "Evolution of the FilmForm
Up To 1906" and gave a consistently evolutionary
description. Burch contradicted his own premises,
while Salt was completely true to his: that was the
point. Thompson's referenceto Salt's own essay (p.
141)is approving, placing him in a group of authors
who contribute to the revision of traditional film
history.
2. Salt insists that he brought the concept of
norms into film studies. However, he now collapses
61
the concept of norms as such into the concept of
statisticalnorms. We areconcerned, like the Russian
and Prague poeticians, with both qualitative and
quantitative norms, as a glance at any of our work
since 1976 will show. The notion of average shot
length, which we do use in The ClassicalHollywood
Cinema and do attribute to Salt (as we indicated in
our first response), is only a part of a much broader
account of a paradigmaticset of options. We do not,
frankly, consider quantitativenorms to be as important
as Salt does; witness our neglect of his other
quantitative dimensions, such as shot-scale. (For a
brief discussion of the relevance of quantitative
norms to stylistic study, see Bordwell, Narration in
the Fiction Film, p. 152.)
3. Salt does not acknowledge our demonstration
that Thompson's citationsof films from the pre-1918
period overlap in only a small number of cases with
his citations, and that many of those titles are previously
known classics. He now narrows his charge,
listing fewer than a dozen titles that overlap, all of
which are in the National Film Archive in London.
He estimates that in 1979, when Thompson did her
research,the Archive held about 300 viewing prints.
Whetherthis is a "limited number" the readermust
judge for him or herself. Thompson viewedjust over
50 titles, or about one-sixth, during her two-week
researchstay in 1979.Given that Saltlives in London
and dedicates his book to the National Archive, he
presumably had seen a considerable proportion of
these films. It is therefore hardly surprisingthat he
and Thompson saw a dozen or more of the same
titles there. CertainlyThompson did not, as Salt implies,
ask viewings coordinator Elaine Burrows to
show her all the films used in Salt's article; she did,
however, use the samelistof availableviewingprints,
shown her by Ms. Burrows. To the best of Thompson's
recollection, the only film she viewed specificallybecauseSalt
mentionedit was TheLoafer, as an
early instance of shot/reverse shot, and, again, she
cited Salt on this example. Salt's reply ignores entirely
the point in our previous reply that most of
Thompson's references to these films do not use
themfor the same purpose that his article did. One
must conclude that Salt thinks that anyone viewing
these same films, for whateverends, must inevitably
cite him-as if viewing them for the first time in
modern days had conferred a sort of copyright
privilege on him. (Which reminds us that Salt also
neveranswersour original point about his failureto
cite any previousauthors, includingthose, like Kemp
Niver, who have made the same points he has.)
Finally, Salt claims that there are ten offending
titles on his list, but he in fact mentions eleven. This
should embarrassa writerwho stakes his reputation
on quantitative research.
So much for his attempts to address the points
made in our first reply. Now we turn to his new
round of unfounded, unsupported charges.
Few readerswill be interested in squabbles about
the sort of esoteric points Salt makes, but they have
symptomatic importance. Originally, Salt wanted to
claim that we stole from him. That claim did not
hold up. Now he uses the occasion of a replyto snipe
62
at small, putative inaccuracieswithout having to go
to the trouble to analyze our book properly. In
effect, he writesa mini-review.By contrast, our own
discussion of Film Style and Technology: History
and Analysis was recentlypublishedin the Quarterly
Review of Film Studies ("Toward a Scientific Film
History?" in Vol. 10, no. 3 [Summer 1985]:
224-237). There we examined his book in detail,
drawingon evidence and using footnotes to support
claimsthatdiffered from his. In his discussionof our
book, we find no such effort to back up his criticisms.
Indeed, it is remarkable that nearly all his
criticisms of The Classical Hollywood Cinema bear
upon stills illustratingthe text;the othersreferto the
Appendix or a few footnotes. There is no evidence
that he has actually read the book. Still, this is
progress.His firstattackbetrayedno familiaritywith
the book at all.
Salt's attemptsto claim that Thompson both stole
his ideas on early cinema and managed to get them
completely wrong are wholly untenable. For example,
if there are no references to intertitle usage in
contemporarytradepapers,as Salt asserts,how does
Thompson manage to cite any? Thompson also
does, contraryto Salt's claim, cite instances of lowkey,
or effects, lighting prior to De Mille's famous
usage in 1915(The CHC, pp. 223-224, also Figures
17.23, 17.24, and 17.29). Salt manages to make
Thompson's analysisof a shot/reverse-shot scene in
Detective Burton's Triumph "wrong" by claiming
that it contains no "reverse-angles"-something he
can do only by using his own very limited (and
idiosyncratic) definition of shot/reverse shot as
necessarily involving distinct changes of angles at
each cut. We define shot/reverse shot as consisting
of shots taken of characters at opposite ends of a
180-degreeline. By this definition, which is in wide
usage, the scene is exactly as Thompson describesit.
Salt goes on to attack our "technical competence."
Each of his chargesdeservesseparaterebuttal,
but so as not to expand this discussion, we can
reply to only a few examples. We fail, he says, to
deal with "double backlighting." This was a new
term to us, as it has never been in common usage or
professional parlance. But, fearing we had overlooked
something, we went to Salt's own book for
enlightenment. There is no such term in his glossary/index
or text. Presumably he is referring here
to the use of "two backlights," beginning in 1919
(discussedin Film Style& Technology,pp. 141, 143).
Given that backlightingcan come from one lamp or
from dozens, the adjective"double" seemsa bit misleading.
We preferred to discuss backlighting in
termsof its effect on the screen;when backlightsurroundsthe
figuresin lightand picksthem out against
the background, we used the Hollywood term,
"rim" lighting:e.g., "By the end of the teens, films
often extended and refined backlighting by using it
to surround the entire figure-creating what was
called 'rim'lighting"(The CHC, p. 225, also Figures
17.36and 17.37).Again, Salteitherhas failedto read
what we wrote, or he uses a different term (of his
own invention)in orderto pretendthat we havecommitted
some egregious error.
More unsupported claims follow. For example,
Thompson's description of the Bell & Howell semiautomatic
splicer was taken from a reliable contemporary
source. Whereis Salt's evidence for claiming
that description is wrong? As to the "spotlights" in
the foregroundof Figure 17.41, Salt should surelybe
aware that the Sunlight Arc could be used as either
a flood or a spot lamp, dependingon the accessories
used and the adjustment of the carbons. It is fairly
evident that at least the righthand unit has a diffusion
disc mounted on it, indicatingin this case its use
as a floodlight. He also claims that "Thompson
attempts to conceal" a point about her use of a
"1919 TSMPE article" Salt dismissed as "years out
of date" in his originalletter. Had he specified which
referenceto a 1919article from the Transactions of
the Society of Motion Picture Engineers he meant,
it might have made it possible for us to answer his
charge; we assumed he meant the citation on p. 274
(fn 47). Now it turns out he meant the other reference
to this 1919 article. Had we been able to read
Salt's mind on this point, we could have stated to
begin with that Diagram 9 in Appendix D (p. 412)
seems to us a fair representationnot only of a lighting
set-up for 1919, but for any situation in a 1920s
films where the effect desired is a strong sidelight
from one side of an L-shaped set and a weaker one
from the left rear, through windows in the set.
Again, Salt asserts that this is out of date, but does
not support his claim. (A photograph of a 1920s
Lewis Selznick production reproduced on p. 178of
Salt's own book shows a rathersimilar lighting setup
to that in our Diagram 9, though there are more
mercury-vapor lamps than arcs providing the main
side light.) Our spacehereis limited, but these examples
should suffice to indicate how we would reply
to Salt's nit-picking.
Not content with misunderstandingour book, Salt
moves to the realm in which he always seems most
comfortable: personal attack. Both of the "quotations"
Salt attributes to Thompson are his own
fabrications. In her 1985 University of London
Institute of Education lecture, Thompson did say
that in the 1977-78 academicyear, when she and her
collaborators were formulating The ClassicalHollywood
Cinema, she was not awarethat both Salt and
Burch had independently concluded that the classical
continuity system was in place by 1917. She was
not, in fact, awareof this becauseshe had not at that
time read Salt's article. She did, of course, read it
during the early stages of researchingour book and
had never pretended that she was unaware of his
conclusions by the time she viewed films at the
National Archive in October, 1979. (A tape of this
lecture, along with Salt's original oral accusations
against Thompson, Routledge & Kegan Paul, the
BFI, and others, is on file at the Institute of Education.)
The second "quotation" (". . . I just happened
to come across . ..") appears neither in
Thompson's talk nor in our previousresponse. Such
fictitious quotations indicate the level of accuracy
and carewhich characterizesthe restof Salt's claims.
Salt also implies that Thompson acted in a crassly
commercialfashion when she gave a lecture, "Studying
the CinematicInstitution:The Case of the Classical
Hollywood Cinema" at the Universityof London
Institute of Education in 1985 (co-sponsored by the
Institute, the BFI, the Society for Education in Film
and Television, and Routledge & Kegan Paul). The
audiencewas there, he says, "to be sold theirbook."
The audience was actually there to hear a lectureon
the historical methods used in the writings of The
Classical Hollywood Cinema and Thompson's Exporting
Entertainment. (One wonders, incidentally,
given Salt's conviction that Thompson is incapable
of doing her own work, from whom he thinks she
stole the latterbook's contents.) Copies of eachbook
wereavailablein the lobby afterwards,but therewas
no salespitch. Such sales of books at academicfunctions
arestandardpractice,we believe. Indeed, Salt's
initialsales of his book werepartlydone at academic
conferenceswherehe was giving lectures. Moreover,
in spiteof his denigrationof the BFIand his frequent
reference to his own lack of institutional support,
Salt himself wrote the programnotes for a season of
early features, "The Birth of the American Feature
Film: The Other Story," which he programmed at
the National Film Theatre in London. This series
coincided with the appearanceof Salt's book, which
was prominently mentioned in the notes (see NFT
program,February1984, pp. 10-13). Werethe audiences
who came to these films there "to be sold his
book"? Presumablynot. CertainlySalt's parenthetical
promotion of his book ("The bargainof the century")
speaks for itself.
The reader'sendurance,sorelytriedby this affair,
my be somewhat revived by a final piece of backgroundinformation.
The firstversionof Salt's reply,
which was reluctantlyshown to us by the Editorand
his EditorialBoard, was judged legallyactionableby
two attorneys whom we consulted. We pointed this
out to the Editor, who had this opinion confirmed
by the counsel he consulted. The Editor requested
that Salt revisehis replyto make it non-defamatory,
and, within the letter of the law, Salt complied.
The incident is revelatory. Therehas neverbeen a
serious intellectualissue at stake in this controversy.
Initially, Salt used the pretextof replyingto a review
of his book in order to abuse the British Film Institute,
academic presses, and the community of
American film scholars. Since we were named, we
decided, at the advice of colleagues and friends, to
defend our professional reputations, but this was
undertaken on sheerly moral grounds. That Salt's
original diatribe was published, that the Editor
explicitly welcomed readers to write in with letters
supporting Salt, that initially the Editor and Board
refused to allow us to respond to Salt's new round
of accusations or even to show it to us before its
publication, that neither the Editor nor his Board
detectedthe litigious aspects of his first version, and
that Salt has been given yet another forum for his
ungrounded assaults-all this suggests that on this
occasion Film Quarterlyhas overlooked the difference
between scholarly debate and mere mud-
slinging.
[This exchange is now closed. -ED.]
63