Weddings and Babies
On seeing Morris Entgel & Ruth Orkin’s “Weddings and Babies” 1958
Reprinted from Harper’s Magazine of September 1958
Not long ago I had an excited phone call from a cameraman, Richard Leacock, who photographed Robert Flaherty’s “Louisiana Story” and who holds a high place in the regard of movie people. He had just seen a film that he could not say enough good things about, and so I asked him if he would try to put down what, as a professional, he found so remarkable in it. His answer follows,
Recently I attended the preview screening of a movie that opens up an entirely new future for film - Morris Engel’s “Weddings and Babies,” starring Viveca Lindfors. I knew that his earlier successes, “The Little Fugitive” and “Lovers and Lollipops” had been unpretentious, primarily visual films with a great deal of charm and a limited amount of dialogue. I knew that they had walked off with a round dozen prizes, including the Silver Lion of Venice, the top American award there, and a humping good box-office to boot, but I was not prepared for “Weddings and Babies.”
Engel’s earlier films had been dubbed - that is, they had used a system perfected by the postwar Italian film makers, of shooting a scene with a silent camera and then fitting dialogue to it in the studio. This made it possible to photograph anywhere, without being chained to the big clumsy sound cameras or upset by “extraneous noise”. The Italians had taken superb advantage of this technique to produce films of extraordinary ease and grace and, most impressive of all, spontaneity. But it was a spontaneity created by the skillful application of what I can only describe as an agonizing technique.
To my amazement, “Weddings and Babies” was not dubbed. Nor was it an orthodox sound film made with all the imposing and ponderous equipment this normally requires. Here was a feature theatrical film, shot on regular 35-mm stock, with live spontaneous sound. Dialogue had been filmed in an amazing variety of places , including the streets of New York during an Italian neighborhood festival, without noticeably interfering with the normal life going on around.
It soon became evident that this camera was almost totally uninhibited by the usual complications of changing position. It was able to go anywhere with a minimum of preparation and delay. I had the feeling that the camera was able to catch subtleties in the acting that are usually lost under the normal conditions of shooting. This was particularly true in scenes involving the aged mother, a non-professional actor . . .
“Weddings and Babies” is the first theatrical motion picture to make use of a fully mobile, synchronous sound-and-picture system. It should be of enormous interest to film-makers, and to all who are concerned about the future of the film industry, because it is precisely in this area that the greatest undeveloped potential of the film is to be found. Finding itself in competition with the insidious little box, TV, Hollywood has frantically been trying to differentiate its product by changing the proportions of the screen and emphasizing all these aspects of film that television does not yet possess - the large image and the sense of grandeur. The trend is toward fewer and more expensive pictures, and experimental work is largely left to the interesting but limited efforts of the 16-mm film societies. This should not be, but it is - and as a result the most significant breakthrough of recent years had to be made by an outsider.
Morris Engel came to motion pictures with what many would consider the worst possible background - he was a successful magazine photographer. Still photographers had been through their technical revolution some time back, They too had been encumbered by clumsy and heavy equipment until the Leica camera was invented, allowing a whole new area of still photography to develop, the area often associated with the brilliant photo essays of LIFE Magazine. Light, portable equipment enabled photographers to move freely and catch every nuance appeared in their subjects without dominating the situation with their paraphernalia.
Thus it was not surprising that Engel and his collaborator and wife, Ruth Orkin, also a magazine photographer, were appalled at the design of motion-picture equipment. They wanted something that could be carried around in the hand, that didn’t have to be plugged into electric outlets (hard to find in the streets and even harder in a bus.) Unlike others who had faced this problem and settled for what was available, they promptly set about having equipment designed and built to overcome these obstacles.
At first their emphasis was on the image, but after two experiences with dubbing, Engel had become fully aware of the importance of sound and managed to have a tiny sound system developed in which the camera and sound system are battery-operated and independent of each other, fully portable, silent and synchronous. These were the basic problems and they were solved. In order to perfect the system, to make it more reliable and improve its quality, much work remains for the engineers. But that the barrier has been broken is indisputable. I am only dismayed that a giant industry, which can pump millions of dollars into the development of a slightly different screen ratio, should leave such fundamental research to the limited means of a magazine photographer.
And, since I hope to use it myself, I must now pray for an enlightened manufacturer with vision, who will not only develop but manufacture and market this equipment, because only as it becomes widely available will the full significance of “Weddings and Babies” be realized. With this new equipment, it will become possible to make to make many films with budgets that can be financed as clear risk, without having to reach agreement for a guaranteed distribution, as even the “independent” producer now must do. This, added to the technical liberation, should produce a situation in which we who make the films will have only ourselves to blame if we can not live up to its demands.
Richard Leacock September 1958
Reprinted from Harper’s Magazine of September 1958
Not long ago I had an excited phone call from a cameraman, Richard Leacock, who photographed Robert Flaherty’s “Louisiana Story” and who holds a high place in the regard of movie people. He had just seen a film that he could not say enough good things about, and so I asked him if he would try to put down what, as a professional, he found so remarkable in it. His answer follows,
Recently I attended the preview screening of a movie that opens up an entirely new future for film - Morris Engel’s “Weddings and Babies,” starring Viveca Lindfors. I knew that his earlier successes, “The Little Fugitive” and “Lovers and Lollipops” had been unpretentious, primarily visual films with a great deal of charm and a limited amount of dialogue. I knew that they had walked off with a round dozen prizes, including the Silver Lion of Venice, the top American award there, and a humping good box-office to boot, but I was not prepared for “Weddings and Babies.”
Engel’s earlier films had been dubbed - that is, they had used a system perfected by the postwar Italian film makers, of shooting a scene with a silent camera and then fitting dialogue to it in the studio. This made it possible to photograph anywhere, without being chained to the big clumsy sound cameras or upset by “extraneous noise”. The Italians had taken superb advantage of this technique to produce films of extraordinary ease and grace and, most impressive of all, spontaneity. But it was a spontaneity created by the skillful application of what I can only describe as an agonizing technique.
To my amazement, “Weddings and Babies” was not dubbed. Nor was it an orthodox sound film made with all the imposing and ponderous equipment this normally requires. Here was a feature theatrical film, shot on regular 35-mm stock, with live spontaneous sound. Dialogue had been filmed in an amazing variety of places , including the streets of New York during an Italian neighborhood festival, without noticeably interfering with the normal life going on around.
It soon became evident that this camera was almost totally uninhibited by the usual complications of changing position. It was able to go anywhere with a minimum of preparation and delay. I had the feeling that the camera was able to catch subtleties in the acting that are usually lost under the normal conditions of shooting. This was particularly true in scenes involving the aged mother, a non-professional actor . . .
“Weddings and Babies” is the first theatrical motion picture to make use of a fully mobile, synchronous sound-and-picture system. It should be of enormous interest to film-makers, and to all who are concerned about the future of the film industry, because it is precisely in this area that the greatest undeveloped potential of the film is to be found. Finding itself in competition with the insidious little box, TV, Hollywood has frantically been trying to differentiate its product by changing the proportions of the screen and emphasizing all these aspects of film that television does not yet possess - the large image and the sense of grandeur. The trend is toward fewer and more expensive pictures, and experimental work is largely left to the interesting but limited efforts of the 16-mm film societies. This should not be, but it is - and as a result the most significant breakthrough of recent years had to be made by an outsider.
Morris Engel came to motion pictures with what many would consider the worst possible background - he was a successful magazine photographer. Still photographers had been through their technical revolution some time back, They too had been encumbered by clumsy and heavy equipment until the Leica camera was invented, allowing a whole new area of still photography to develop, the area often associated with the brilliant photo essays of LIFE Magazine. Light, portable equipment enabled photographers to move freely and catch every nuance appeared in their subjects without dominating the situation with their paraphernalia.
Thus it was not surprising that Engel and his collaborator and wife, Ruth Orkin, also a magazine photographer, were appalled at the design of motion-picture equipment. They wanted something that could be carried around in the hand, that didn’t have to be plugged into electric outlets (hard to find in the streets and even harder in a bus.) Unlike others who had faced this problem and settled for what was available, they promptly set about having equipment designed and built to overcome these obstacles.
At first their emphasis was on the image, but after two experiences with dubbing, Engel had become fully aware of the importance of sound and managed to have a tiny sound system developed in which the camera and sound system are battery-operated and independent of each other, fully portable, silent and synchronous. These were the basic problems and they were solved. In order to perfect the system, to make it more reliable and improve its quality, much work remains for the engineers. But that the barrier has been broken is indisputable. I am only dismayed that a giant industry, which can pump millions of dollars into the development of a slightly different screen ratio, should leave such fundamental research to the limited means of a magazine photographer.
And, since I hope to use it myself, I must now pray for an enlightened manufacturer with vision, who will not only develop but manufacture and market this equipment, because only as it becomes widely available will the full significance of “Weddings and Babies” be realized. With this new equipment, it will become possible to make to make many films with budgets that can be financed as clear risk, without having to reach agreement for a guaranteed distribution, as even the “independent” producer now must do. This, added to the technical liberation, should produce a situation in which we who make the films will have only ourselves to blame if we can not live up to its demands.
Richard Leacock September 1958