Luigi Pirandello: Shoot! The Notebooks of Serafino Gubbio, Cinematograph Operator

Luigi Pirandello: Shoot! (01)

Shoot! (Si Gira, 1926) The Notebooks of Serafino Gubbio, Cinematograph Operator

Translated from the Italian by C. K. Scott Moncrieff

Translator’s Dedication To O. H. H. and V. B. H.  Who have seen and survived the Nestaroff.

 

BOOK I

OF THE NOTES OF SERAFINO GUBBIO CINEMATOGRAPH OPERATOR

1

I study people in their most ordinary occupations, to see if I can succeed in discovering in others what I feel that I myself lack in everything that I do: the certainty that they understand what they are doing.

At first sight it does indeed seem as though many of them had this certainty, from the way in which they look at and greet one another, hurrying to and fro in pursuit of  their business or their pleasure. But afterwards, if I stop and gaze for a moment in their eyes with my own intent and silent eyes, at once they begin to take offence. Some of them, in fact, are so disturbed and perplexed that I have only to keep on gazing at them for a little longer, for them to insult or assault me.

No, go your ways in peace. This is enough for me: to know, gentlemen, that there is nothing clear or certain to you either, not even the little that is determined for you from time to time by the absolutely familiar conditions in which you are living. There is a ‘something more’  in everything. You do not wish or do not know how to see it. But the moment this something more gleams in the eyes of an idle person like myself, who has set himself to observe you, why, you become puzzled, disturbed or irritated.

I too am acquainted with the external, that is to say the mechanical framework of the life which keeps us clamorously and dizzily occupied and gives us no rest. To-day, such-and-such; this and that to be done hurrying to one place, watch in hand, so as to be in time at another.

“No, my dear fellow, thank you: I can’t!” “No, really? Lucky fellow!

I must be off….” At eleven, luncheon. The paper, the house, the office, school. … “A fine day, worse luck! But business….”

“What’s this? Ah, a funeral.” We lift our hats as we pass to the man who has made his escape. The shop, the works, the law courts….

No one has the time or the capacity to stop for a moment to consider whether what he sees other people do, what he does himself, is really the right thing, the thing that can give him that absolute certainty, in which alone a man can find rest. The rest that is given us after all the clamour and dizziness is burdened with such a load of weariness, so stunned and deafened, that it is no longer possible for us to snatch a moment for thought. With one hand we hold our heads, the other we wave in a drunken sweep.

“Let us have a little amusement!”

Yes. More wearying and complicated than our work do we find the amusements that are offered us; since from our rest we derive nothing but an increase of weariness.

I look at the women in the street, note how they are dressed, how they walk, the hats they wear on their heads; at the men, and the airs they have or give themselves;  I  listen to their talk, their plans; and at times it seems to me so impossible to believe in the reality of all that I see and hear, that being incapable, on the other hand, of believing that they are all doing it as a joke, I ask myself whether really all this clamorous and dizzy machinery of life, which from day to day seems to become more  complicated and to move with greater speed, has not reduced the human race to such a condition of insanity that presently we must break out in fury and overthrow and destroy everything. It would, perhaps, all things considered, be so much to the good. In one respect only, though: to make a clean sweep and start afresh.

Here in this country we have not yet reached the point of witnessing the spectacle, said to be quite common in America, of men who, while engaged in carrying on their business, amid the tumult of life, fall to the ground, paralysed. But perhaps, with the help of God, we shall soon reach it. I know that all sorts of things are in preparation.

Ah, yes, the work goes on! And I, in my humble way, am one of those employed on this work  ‘to provide amusement’.

I am an operator. But, as a matter of fact, being an operator, in the world in which I live and upon which I live, does not in the least mean operating. I operate nothing.

This is what I do. I set up my machine on its knock-kneed tripod. One or more stage hands, following my directions, mark out on the carpet or on the stage with a long  wand and a blue pencil the limits within which the actors have to move to keep the picture in focus.

This is called  ‘marking out the ground’.

The others mark it out, not I: I do nothing more than apply my eyes to the machine so that I can indicate how far it will manage to ‘take’.

When the stage is set, the producer arranges the actors on it, and outlines to them the action to be gone through.

I say to the producer:

“How many feet?”

The producer, according to the length of the scene, tells me approximately the number of feet of film that I shall need, then calls to the actors:

“Are you ready? Shoot!”

And I start turning the handle.

I might indulge myself in the illusion that, by turning the handle, I set these actors in motion, just as an organ-grinder creates the music by turning his handle. But I allow myself neither this nor any other illusion, and keep on turning until the scene is finished; then I look at the machine and inform the producer:

“Sixty feet,” or “a hundred and twenty.”

And that is all.

A gentleman, who had come out of curiosity, asked me once:

“Excuse me, but haven’t they yet discovered a way of making the camera go by itself?”

I can still see that gentleman’s face; delicate, pale, with thin, fair hair; keen, blue eyes; a pointed, yellowish beard, behind which there lurked a faint smile, that tried to  appear timid and polite, but was really malicious. For by his question he meant to say to me:

“Is there any real necessity for you? What are you?  A hand that turns the handle. Couldn’t they do without this hand? Couldn’t you be eliminated, replaced by some piece of machinery?”

I smiled as I answered:

“In time, Sir, perhaps. To tell you the truth, the chief quality that is required in a man of my profession is impassivity in face of the action that is going on in front of the  camera. A piece of machinery, in that respect, would doubtless be better suited, and preferable to a man. But the most serious difficulty, at present, is this: where to find a machine that can regulate its movements according to the action that is going on in front of the camera. Because I, my dear Sir, do not always turn the handle at the same speed, but faster or slower as may be required. I have no doubt, however, that in time, Sir, they will succeed in eliminating me. The machine–this machine too, like all the other machines–will go by itself. But what mankind will do then, after all the machines have been taught to go by themselves, that, my dear Sir, still remains to be seen.”

(to be continued)

Luigi Pirandello: Shoot! (01)

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