Society for Music Theory

Debussy's Late Style and the Devices of the Early Silent Cinema
Author(s): Rebecca Leydon
Source: Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 217-241
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society for Music Theory
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 Debussy's Late Style and
of the Early Silent Cinema
Rebecca Leydon
INTRODUCTION
Mosaic-like designs characterize musical form in Debussy's
late style, exemplified in the twelve piano etudes, written in 1915,
and the contemporaneous chamber music. Like their orchestral
precursor Jeux, these works exhibit fragmented arrangements of
heterogeneous motivic materials and free juxtaposition of tonal
and nontonal pitch resources. Such moments are peculiar to and
pervasive within the composer's late style. But above all, it is the
fascinating methods of "enchainment"in these works-their enig-
matic transitions, their disjunctive reiterations and duplications-
that has puzzled and intrigued listeners and performers.This paper
proposes a model for the continuity and succession of ideas in
Debussy's late style by situating his late works within the context
of the technologies used in the early silent cinema-specifically,
the repertory of cinematic editing techniques that are contempora-
neous with this music.
In positing a cinematic model for Debussy's music, I am imag-
ining something like Anthony Newcomb's narratological concept
of "modes of continuation."1Modeling his approach to musical
form on the narratology of the Russian Formalist Vladmir Propp,
Newcomb views narrativeas an ordered series of "functions" and
characterizes the structural analysis of narrative as a process by
'Newcomb1987.
the Devices
which a paradigmatic plot-a typical series of events in a pre-
scribed order-is deduced from a repertoire of texts. Newcomb
stresses that this paradigmaticplot
... is not the same thingas a quasi-architecturalformalschema,such as
ABA, with its patternsof repetitionandcomplementarities. The paradig-
maticplot may be a unidirectional unfoldingof events,withoutovertrep-
etition.Nor is it the same as a seriesof musicalsectionsdefinedby spe-
cific thematiccontent.The surfacecontentof each individualinstanceof
the series may differ widely. The paradigmaticplot is a series of func-
tions, not necessarilydefinedby patternsof sectionalrecurrencesor by
the specificcharactersfulfillingthe functions.2
Newcomb's approach, then, does not rely solely upon the
schematic conventions peculiar to musical forms. Instead, New-
comb asks, What are the codes according to which we isolate dis-
crete musical events, and what are the codes we invoke to locate
these events within a paradigmatic series? The patterns that char-
acterize musical continuity and succession (as opposed to specific
motivic content) are perceived according to patternsthat are stored
in memory, patterns that are generalizable enough to govern event
successions in more than one medium:
Inasmuchas musicmay be (andis by manylisteners)heardas a mimetic
themimesisinvolvedis of modesof continuation,
andreferentialmetaphor,
2Newcomb1987, 165.
218 Music Theory Spectrum

of changeandpotential.Andmodesof continuationlie at the veryheartof
whetherverbalor musical.3
narrativity,
Because so much of Debussy's music essentially preserves the
recognizable shapes of familiar tonal objects (triads and seventh
chords, for example), our attention is drawn more directly to their
curious linkages. While the pitch-collectional basis of Debussy's
music (its pervasive octatonicism and hexatonicism, for example,
as elucidated by Allen Forte and Richard Parks4)is responsible for
many unusual new sonorities, Debussy's originality so often lies
in the new orderings and contexts for familiar sonorities. In the re-
mainder of this paper I shall demonstrate how, upon the develop-
ment of a new popular narrativemedium around 1900-the silent
cinema-new paradigmatic modes of continuation emerge, ones
that modify the classical narrative syntax of traditional story-
telling media. Just as Newcomb imagines a kind of a cross-
domain mapping among music and the nineteenth-centurynovel, I
claim that the repertoire of cinematic editing devices can serve as
a key interpretantfor a set of homologous musical structures. In
positing cinematic devices as cognates for musical ones, my goal
is to foster discussion about musical signification, which may in
turn provide a basis for more effective pedagogy and performance
of this music. Finally, cinematic models offer an attractivealterna-
tive to rigidly hierarchical accounts of Debussy's musical syntax.
Although very few of the films from the early 1900s have sur-
vived, extant film reviews and contemporary criticism evoke a
vivid sense of the early cinema, how it was received and what its
most salient devices were. For modern cinema audiences, these
devices have been largely internalized as part of a "film-reading"
competence, but early film reviews by Emile Vuillermoz, Louis
Delluc, Louis Aragon, and others, as well as remarks made by
3Newcomb1987, 167.
4Forte 1991 (developing work begun in Forte 1988), and Parks 1989.
Parks'scomprehensivetheoryof Debussy's pitch languageexpandsand encom-
passes Forte's octatonic angle, and explores the role of hexatonicism,diatoni-
cism, pentatonicism,and otherreferentialcollections in the music.
Debussy himself, reveal the extent to which early cinema im-
pressed its spectators. I begin with a discussion of early film criti-
cism that refers to cinematic techniques and film-editing practices
made possible by and peculiar to the motion-picture camera,
which techniques and practices give expression to a new kind of
visual logic. They include the "fade," in which the screen gradu-
ally turns black; the "dissolve," in which one image gradually dis-
appears while another emerges; the "cut-in,"an instantaneous cut
to a close shot; the juxtaposition of different camera angles; and
the varieties of special effects involving stop-motion tricks, ad-
justment of film speed and direction, double-exposure of the film,
and matted images. The accounts of early film reviewers make
clear that such devices represented a radical departure from the
temporal and spatial orientations to which traditionaltheater-goers
were accustomed. In the second part of the paper, I consider a
number of musical situations as cognates for cinematic ones, and
I illustrate how the particularnarrative situations that give rise to
these devices in films can suggest specific formal functions for the
musical passages in which analogous devices occur in Debussy's
late works. In the final section of the paper, I discuss how De-
bussy's cultivation of a "cinematic" style may be understood in re-
lation to French nationalism in the years surrounding the first
world war.
THE EARLYCINEMA
It is a matter of some debate exactly who should be considered
the original inventor of cinema, since a number of moving-picture
technologies were developed independently at around the same
time in Europe and America. Certainly ideas about motion pictures
were circulating in France from an early date. In the 1880s, for ex-
ample, the British photographer Eadweard Muybridge had orga-
nized lectures in the Parisian salons to show his "motion studies,"
sequences of photographs taken in quick succession and then pro-
jected onto a screen using a device called a "Zoopraxiscope." A
related form of entertainment,popular in the Montmartrecabarets
 Debussy's Late Style and the Devices of the Early Silent Cinema
of the 1890s, was the ombres chinoises; Richard Langam Smith
has written of the "shadow plays" performed by Henri Riviere in
the Chat Noir to piano accompaniment by Eric Satie, Charles de
Sivry, and other musicians in regular attendance at the popular
club. Smith speculates that Debussy himself attended these proto-
cinematic spectacles, and may well have provided musical accom-
paniments on occasion. Indeed, Smith argues that these music-hall
spectacles likely played a significant role in the genesis of De-
bussy's Iberia and other works.5
Louis Lumiere is usually credited with the invention of cin-
ema. With his brother Auguste in their Lyons factory, Lumiere
manufactured photography equipment and in the 1890s designed
the first "cinematographe,"a machine that combined the functions
of a moving-picture camera and a projector. On December 28,
1895-the date usually considered the birth of cinema-Lumiere
screened a number of short films before a paying audience.6 One
of these films, entitled La Sortie des usines Lumiere, is typical
of these first works by Lumiere: a single shot of the outside of the
factory shows the doors swinging open and workers emerging
from inside. Lumiere went on to make hundreds of these short
single-shot films. Perhaps the most famous of these is L'Arrivee
d'un train a la Ciotat, which shows a steam train moving towards
the camera at an oblique angle; it is anecdotally reported that the
members of the audience frantically took cover under their chairs,
so unpreparedwere they for the realism of this cinematic image.
The first cinema audiences were fascinated by the simple de-
piction of motion itself, as they experienced a sort of defamiliar-
5Smith1973.
6AlthoughLumiereis usually creditedwith developing the combined cam-
era and projector,two Americans,ThomasArmatand C. FrancesJenkens,had
independently come up with a similar invention, the "Phantoscope,"some
months earlier.They had used this device to projectmoving picturesfor an au-
dience at an exhibitionin Atlantain 1895, but they did not meet with any com-
mercial success at that time. By this date, ThomasEdison had alreadypatented
his "kinetoscope,"a contraptionthatallowed a single spectatorto view tiny pro-
jected moving images.
219
ization of ordinary objects and events, like the movement of the
train or the factory workers. Anything that moved could supply
the subject for a film. Soon, however, the moving-picture tech-
nology was put to the more specialized use of bringing unusual
scenes and images of remote places into the local theatre. Many
of the first popular cinema productions were of scenic points of
interest, like Niagara Falls, the American West, views from the
bridge of a ship on the high seas or through the window of a mov-
ing train. These kinds of "naturefilms" were enormously popular
at the 1900 Paris Exposition. A technically spectacular example is
Raoul Grimoin-Sanson's Cineorama, in which ten projectors were
arranged in the middle of a spherical auditorium, offering the
viewers the experience of the Sahara desert as seen from a bal-
loon.7
The film theorist Noel Burch has remarkedon the unique sense
of motion and space that is represented in these first cinematic
events; the experience for the spectator is quite different from any-
thing associated either with the traditional theatre or with an ordi-
nary lived experience of space. Burch points out that the work of
early film-makers antedates what he calls the "InstitutionalMode
of Representation" [IMR] in cinema.8 The IMR is the repertoire
of filmic devices that would eventually become a fully developed
visual language of cinema, a language to which all present-day
spectators have been thoroughly exposed through movies and
television. It is a language that is in no way "natural,"Burch em-
phasizes, but is rather a product of a particular history. While a
7Also shown at the Exposition was the Lumiere Brothers' Mareorama,
which simulatedthe view from the bridge of a ship on the high seas. Similar
films were popular across the Atlantic: in 1904 the American film-maker
George C. Hale presentedhis Toursand Scenes of the World,which simulated
the view one would have from the window of a train.Othernotableexamples
of these early "interestfilms" are those of James Freer, a Canadianfarmer
from Brandon,who capturedscenes of the wilds of Manitoba.Freer's films
were shown throughoutEuropeduringthe late 1890s in a tourorganizedby the
CanadianPacificRailwayCompany.
8Burch1990.
220 Music Theory Spectrum
modem film-maker can rely on spectators' ability to understand,
for instance, that a juxtaposition of two views of a single object
shot from two different angles represents the same object, the first
film-makers had no such common visual code: an instantaneous
shift in perspective was not something with which spectators had
had any prior experience. Similarly, a modern film-maker can
rely on certain visual conventions to convey temporal ideas, like
"later" or "meanwhile," but these codes were unavailable to the
first people working within the medium. To grasp the impact of
early film, the modem spectator must try to imagine the silent cin-
ema as seen through the eyes of an audience unstudied in the vari-
ous conventions that modem cinema audiences have internalized
as a film-reading competence.
The unique experience of space that Burch describes is a result
of a variety of cinema-specific devices made possible by the flexi-
bility of the camera's eye. A camera may record moving objects
from a fixed position; it may pan across a static scene from a fixed
point; it may also shift instantaneously to a new view or angle;
and the camera may be mounted on a conveyance which itself
moves through space. In this last case, the "trackingshot," the cin-
ematic spectator experiences a curious kind of motionless voyage.
It is as though the camera has a bodily agency, serving as a site of
subjectivity which the viewer is invited to occupy. On the other
hand, the camera's eye may also represent something seen by a
particular subject within the diegetic world of the film. Or the
camera may function like an unmarked omnipresent narratorin a
novel, seeing everything from all points of view. The silent cin-
ema, lacking overt narration, creates a unique situation in which
the spectator's position with respect to the imaginary space of the
film is ambiguous. Vivian Sobchack has explored the fluctuating
subjective position of the cinematic spectator, the different possi-
bilities for what she calls the "site of sight" or the "viewing view":
... we knowfromour own lived experiencewhatourbodily orientation,
attention,and visual investmentin the world 'look like' as they inform
and play acrossour objectivelyvisible bodilypresenceto others.We can
see the visible andobjectivebody of anotherwho is lookingat the world
or ourselves,and understandthat objectivebody is also a body-subject
whose sight is as intentionaland meaningfulas our own. What is so
uniqueaboutthe cinema's'viewingview', however,is thatit presentsand
representsthe activityof vision not merelyas it is objectivelyseen by us,
but also as it is introceptively
lived by another.Thusthe cinema's'view-
ing view' is a modelof vision as it is livedas 'my own'by a body-subject,
andits uniquenessis thatthis 'viewingview' is objectivelyvisible for us
in the same form as it is subjectively visual for itself.... The structure
andactivityof the cinema's'viewingview' are isomorphicwith our own
bodilyexperienceof vision as we dynamicallylive it as 'mine.'9
What was so unusual about the early silent cinema, then, was
the mobility and flexibility of the camera's eye and the radically
new representations of space made possible by the multiplicity of
shots and perspectives.?0While some of these cinematic devices
can be understood as extensions of the lighting and staging tech-
niques already available in live theatre or opera, other devices rep-
resent a radical departurefrom traditional stage presentation. The
first spectators' inexperience with these devices is brought into re-
lief when we consider the utter transparencyof the same devices
for modem viewers. For instance, a 1906 film called La Danse du
Diable, produced by the Pathe-Freres film company, presents an
elaborately costumed character who appears to be rolling around
on the floor. The scene is filmed with the camera oriented in a
9Sobchack1991.
'OEarlyfilm-makersfrequentlytreatedthe cinematicframe itself as a flexi-
ble form by employing irises and masks (adjustable aperturesof different
shapes and sizes), which providedalternativesto the normalrectangularform
of the cinematic frame. Examples can be found throughoutD. W. Griffith's
Intoleranceof 1916. Multiple-frameimagerywas also sometimesemployed,in
which the screen was divided into separatesegments containingdifferentim-
ages. This technique reached its zenith with the films of Abel Gance in the
1920s, but it alreadyoccurredin Phillips Smalley's Suspenseof 1913. It is also
importantto rememberthat the aspect ratio of the framein the early cinema-
the ratio of the frame's width to its height-was not standardized.Unlike the
later "talkies,"no space was requiredalong the side of the film strip for the
band of sound. Consequently,silent cinema's screen was generally wider than
the one we are accustomedto seeing today.
 Debussy's Late Style and the Devices of the Early Silent Cinema
downward vertical tilt. It is difficult for modem spectators to grasp
the point of this peculiar film unless we realize that we are not
supposed to recognize the downward tilt of the camera. Rather we
are meant to perceive the actor performing his acrobatics within
the traditional proscenium frame and thus witness a "magical,"
gravity-defying dance. Noel Burch remarks:
The effectivenessof this trickat the time undoubtedlylay in the fact that
the clues to downwardverticalitywereabsolutelyunrecognizable-it was
an unthinkableangle neverseen in a systemwhose basic referencepoint
was a flat screen unfailinglyperpendicularto the gaze of a spectator
seatedin a theatre."
These rather simplistic examples aside, the technical sophisti-
cation of many early films was often quite remarkable, as film-
makers rapidly began to take advantage of a host of new tech-
niques and special effects, many of them developed by the cinema
pioneer George Melies. Between 1895 and 1914, Melies made
over a thousand fantasy films that exploit all types of cinematic
devices. As the director of the Theatre Robert-Houdin, Paris's
foremost magic theatre, Melies treated the cinema essentially as a
sort of magic show, and his work explores an array of cinematic
illusions. For example, it was Melies who first used the uniquely
cinematic technique of the dissolve, in which one image is seen to
gradually fade away at the same time as a second image gradually
emerges. Adjustment of the film speed and direction, double expo-
sures and superimpositions,stop-motiontricks, glass shots (in which
the camera shoots through glass on which a scene has been
painted) and model animationwere all used extensively by Melies.12
Many examples of these camera tricks are found throughout his
"Burch 1990, 228. Another film of this type is The Ingenious Soubrette,
producedby Pathe Freresin 1902, which shows a woman apparentlywalking
straightup the side of a wall in orderto hang a picture.
'2Variablefilm speed appearsvery early in cinemahistory,as representedby
time-lapse experiments such as Muybridge's motion studies. The "normal"
speed of early silent film is in the range of 16-20 framesper second, consider-
ably slower than that of modem film. Because this rate is below the fusion
221
well-known film La voyage dans la lune of 1902, based on Jules
Veme's novel of the same name. A notable instance is when the
explorers first arrive at their destination (in a rocket shot from a
cannon): as the characters lie down to sleep on the moon's sur-
face, Melies has the actors occupy the bottom part of the frame
while the upper portion remains completely black. Into this black
area, Melies inserts a second image-a process called "matting,"
in which an additional image is produced either through re-
exposure of a selected portion of the film or by actually fitting a
second piece of film into the space. At this point in the film, a series
of magical dissolves now begins, with images of stars, celestial
bodies, and actors dressed as various mythological personae fad-
ing in and out of view in the space above the sleeping explorers.
Other French film-makers began to make use of multiple cam-
era set-ups, filming the actors from various angles and continu-
ously changing the perspective in the editing. They also began to
incorporate the "cut-in" (or "close-up"), an instantaneous shift
from a distant framing to a closer view of the same space.'3
Naturally such devices have been internalized as part of a moder
film-reading competence, but early film reviews reveal the extent
to which cinema's first viewers were impressed by the shifting
perspectives of the camera. Contemporary accounts indicate that
the shifting spatial orientation was so strongly marked in relation
thresholdof about 24 frames per second, these early films had a pronounced
flicker when projected-hence the term "flicker"or "flick" used to refer to
movies. Today,in orderto eliminatethe flicker,silent films are sometimespro-
jected at sound-film speed which accounts for the fast motion that is erro-
neously associatedwith cinemaof this period.
'3Whileit is sometimesreportedthat early Frenchfilmmakersused the long
shot almostexclusively,Burchhas shown thatthis is not the case.
Contraryto a highly tenaciousmyth, the mediumclose-up and even the
true close-up are found in the very earliest stages of the cinema, in
Europeand in the USA. They rapidlybecame an establishedpresencein
the first decade, so that it can be stated, with no wish to cultivatepara-
dox, that the developmentof institutionalediting among the Americans,
the Danes, and so on, was to reducethe proportionof mediumclose-ups
andclose-ups in the cinema. (Burch 1990, 24.)
222 Music Theory Spectrum
to normative proscenium staging that it could significantly impair
the audience's ability to comprehend a narrative.For example, as
late as 1912, a film critic known as Yhcam complained of the dis-
rupting effect produced by the close-up:
In orderthattheir[theactors]facialexpressionscouldbe seen clearlyby
the spectators(in all comersof thehall),thedirectorhas hadto projectthe
actorsin close-shotsas often as possible.This method,whichgives good
results,has quicklydegeneratedinto an excessivepractice.... Naturally,
little by little, this misusehas been pursuedconscientiouslyby the direc-
tors of othercompanies.Now we have reachedwhatcould be called the
age of the legless cripple.For threequartersof the time, the actorsin a
scene are projectedin close shot, cut off at the knees; from an artistic
pointof view the effectproducedis highlydisagreeableandshocking...
the impression[is] of charactersof unnaturalgrandeur. And whenthe ag-
grandizementdiminishesand they returnto normal,the same character
seems too small;the eye takesa certaintime to get used to this.... The
directorshouldalwaysbegin by projectingthe subjectwith a clearrefer-
ence point,for examplea dog with a man.If laterhe wantsto increasethe
size of one or the other,in orderto bettercapturedetails,he shouldan-
nounceto the audiencethatthe subjectis being projectedin an enlarge-
mentof two, three,or fourtimes.14
While these instantaneous changes in the camera's view were
sometimes experienced as disruptive, other critics were delighted
by the same effect. One was Emile Vuillermoz, the student and bi-
ographer of Gabriel Faure, who was well-known as a critic of both
music and film. In his review of a 1915 film, The Battle Cry of
Peace, he writes:
Here I touch on one of the most marveloustechnicalpossibilitiesof the
cinemaart.This abilityto juxtapose,withinseveralseconds,on the same
luminousscreen,images which generallyare isolatedin time or space,
'4Yhcam 1912.QuotedinAbel1988,72-3. Wellafterthetechnique hadbe-
comewidespread, complaintsaboutthe close-upcontinuedto be voiced:the
film-maker andwriterHenriDiamant-Berger feltit wasmuchoverused, andthe
celebratedwriterColetteobjectedto "thetechnique thatseparates
twospeakers
of a dialogue,thatprojectsthemin turnin hugeclose-ups,justwhenit is impor-
tantto comparetheirfacestogether."
this power(hithertoreservedto the humanimagination)to leap fromone
end of the universeto another,to drawtogetherantipoles,to interweave
thoughtsfar removedfrom one another,to compose, as one fancies, a
ceaselesslychangingmosaicout of millionsof scatteredfacetsof the tan-
gible world... all this could permita poet to realizehis most ambitious
dreams-if poets wouldbecomeinterestedin the cinemaandthe cinema
wouldinterestitself in poets! . . . Morefortunatethanpaintingandsculp-
ture,the cinema,like music, possesses all the riches, all the inflections,
andall the nuancesof beautyin movement:cinemaproducescounterpoint
and harmony . . but still awaits its Debussy.'5
This account is striking since it links Debussy's name with cin-
ematic techniques; it also emphasizes the conspicuousness of film
editing for this viewer (who barely even mentions the film's "con-
tent" in the complete review). Whether viewers found these cine-
matic devices attractive or disruptive, it is certain that such tech-
niques represented a radical departure from the temporal and
spatial orientations to which traditional theater-goers were accus-
tomed.
Above all, the first proponents of the cinema valued it most for
its verisimilitude, its ability to depict "things as they really are,"
particularly things in the natural world. And many critics were
quick to see the poetic possibilities in cinema, a potential for a
kind of psychological verisimilitude. Writers like Vuillermoz were
interested in the way that devices such as the dissolve could evoke
dreams, hallucinations, or imitate real human perception. It was
claimed that cinema could achieve this representationin a manner
more compelling than could traditional painting or poetry. This
opinion enjoyed the support of contemporary psychoanalysis: In
1914, the German psychoanalyst Otto Rank wrote that
in the movies, which is suggestiveof dreamtechniquein
Representation
more than one respect,expressesin clear and sensualpicture-language
certainconditionsand connectionsthat the Poet cannotalways express
withwords.16
'Vuillermoz 1916. Quotedin Abel 1988, 131.
'6Rank1971, 7. Originallypublishedas Der Doppelganger(Leipzig: 1914).
 Debussy's Late Style and the Devices of the Early Silent Cinema
But while cinema's verisimilitude was praised by writers like
Vuillermoz, the realism of the camera could sometimes contradict
traditional codes of representation. Film legend has it that when
Muybridge's first stop-motion analyses of race horses revealed
that the positioning of the horse's legs did not correspond to the
standard way of depicting this motion in painting, some people
had difficulty believing that the photographs were real.17This sort
of contradiction would have delighted Debussy and other artists of
the day who felt that real, "natural"representation had been hin-
dered by academic formulae. The desire to bring the full supple-
ness of the natural world into the theatre, reflected so clearly in
events like the Cineorama of 1900, is equally evident in Debussy's
desire to cultivate in music "an art of the open air, an art compara-
ble to the elements-the wind, the sea, and the sky!"-a kind of
randomness, "subject to laws of beauty inscribed in the move-
ments of nature herself."'8 Debussy argues that music is better
equipped than the other arts to depict the suppleness of nature, by
virtue of its temporal dimension:
the paintersand sculptors
Despite theirclaims to be representationalists,
can only presentus with the beauty of the universein their own free,
somewhatfragmentary, Theycan captureonly one of its as-
interpretation.
pects at a time, preserveonly one moment.It is the musiciansalonewho
havethe privilegeof being able to conveyall the poetryof nightandday,
of earthand sky. Only they can recreatenature'satmosphereand give
rhythmto herheavingbreast.19
What many artists found attractive in the cinema was precisely
its spatial and temporal flexibility, something which gave it the
power to counteract the stiffness of rigid academic representa-
tional codes. It is not surprising, therefore, that Debussy consid-
ered the cinema as a promising model for music. In a 1913 SIM
bulletin Debussy writes:
17Burch1990,11.
'8Smith1977,245 and84.
'9Smith1977,295.
223
There remainsbut one way of revivingthe taste for symphonicmusic
amongourcontemporaries: to applyto puremusicthe techniquesof cine-
matography.It is the film-the Ariadne'sthread-that will show us the
way out of this disquietinglabyrinth.20
MUSICAL COUNTERPARTS TO CINEMATIC DEVICES
In his late works, Debussy employed a variety of unusual pro-
cessive strategies, and a model for his "modes of continuation"-
those characteristic means of following one musical event with
another-can be found in the cinematic devices I have been de-
scribing: the dissolve, the juxtaposition of different camera angles,
the direct cut, the close-up, as well as adjustments of film speed
and direction, superimpositions and matted images, and double-
exposure of the film. Given how conspicuous these techniques
were for the first cinema audiences, could the formal disruptions
represented by these filmic devices have suggested solutions for
the problem of continuity and succession with which Debussy was
faced in his modified tonal idiom? Cinematic devices, in other
words, may have served as a source of new formal options that
became available with the advent of a new narrative medium.
Certain punctuation shots, for examples, like the dissolve and the
direct cut, have musical counterparts in Debussy's techniques of
transition and enchainment. Moreover, the particularnarrativesit-
uations that give rise to these devices in films suggest the possibil-
ity of signifying relationships with the musical passages in which
cognate devices occur.
The dissolve is one of the most salient devices specific to the
cinematic medium. It allows the film-maker to link any two shots
with a perfectly smooth transition. A comparable musical tech-
nique would link two musical events in a similarly seamless man-
ner. A technique closely analogous to the dissolve is illustrated by
the passage in Example 1. In the third measure, the flute sustains
the note E, effecting a diminuendo, while the viola emerges on the
20SIMbulletin,November1, 1913. Quotedin Smith 1977, 298.
224 Music Theory Spectrum

Example 1. Sonatafor Flute, Viola, and Harp,"Pastorale,"mm. 1-4: A Dissolve-like transition

5
I

Flute

P melancoliquement

Viola

p doux et pnetrant

1?P?1
^^r I I 0 9
Pf\
~~- 90 0 00
r _-
pb; ; _,^_'.
Harp

'):f1 4- r f f :;r ?v r t

same pitch. When performed skillfully this passage creates the im-
pression of a smooth dissolve from the timbre of the flute to that
of the viola.2l
This timbral effect is not common in Debussy's music, but the
cinematic dissolve does suggest a way that we might think about a
more general feature of Debussy's language, what Richard Parks
calls the "kinesthetic shift."22Parks identifies the pitch resources
of Debussy's music according to their membership in representa-
tive super-sets or "referential collections": the pentatonic, dia-
tonic, hexatonic, octatonic, and dodecaphonic collections (plus an
additional collection that Parks calls the "8-17/18/19 complex").
He then demonstrates the linking action of subsets that are shared
between two referential collections. These are pivots for "modula-
tions" between different referential collections, or for "mutations"
(in a Guidonian sense) between different transpositions of the
2'The popular 1969 recording of this work by Roger Bourdin, Colette
Lequin,andAnne Challanachieves this effect perfectly.
22Parks1989.
same genus. A half-diminished seventh chord, for instance, which
belongs to both the diatonic and octatonic genera, may be used to
effect a shift from one collection to the other. In this way Parks
elucidates a background of fluctuating referential collections
throughout a piece, connected via these kinesthetic pivots.
These linking events function similarly to the cinematic dis-
solve, where one image disappears as another emerges. For a brief
moment, the cinematic spectator sees two images at the same
time; likewise, the "pivot" sonority that links two referential col-
lections momentarily implies two musical spaces for the listener.
Example 2 shows some instances of this type of transition in the
etude "Pour les agrements": X marks a transition from one dia-
tonic referential collection to another, and Y marks a transition
from a diatonic collection to a whole-tone environment.
Certainly this device is not without precedents in Debussy's
earlier "pre-cinematic" style-indeed, similar dissolve-like mo-
ments may be identified in much earlier tonal music. But this tech-
nique acquires a new mimetic significance once the cinema be-
comes available as an interpretant.Even in the early example of
 Debussy's Late Style and the Devices of the Early Silent Cinema 225

Example 2. "Pourles agrements,"mm. 32-5: Dissolves

rit. X /,//
32 A L I Il
a, I l

molto
leggiero

i A
-9:_. ."A)!
^J^ti' 7v=.'. - _ ^_ -w ^_ 4.-u.
sim.
Pp

J J
34 ~: ~if'. ', = Jpma

-Mf - p ma sonoro

~J.
-.> t= g,
~? -
p .t
~~~~~~
-~r
,:
t I : 1
I4^
"k
' .:9B
-~~ .. 9

Melies' La voyage dans la lune, the dissolve was employed to
convey a quite specific meaning: Melies' way of using the dis-
solve in La voyage in connection with the sleeping explorers sets
the stage for its subsequent use as a signifier for a time lapse-a
means of linking consecutive shots that are temporally distant in a
narrative.The dissolve eventually came to be used in order to ini-
tiate an interior monologue, and especially to represent a past
memory (as in the opening scene of Hitchcock's Rebecca [1940]:
"Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley..."), as well as to
punctuate moments that are understood to stand outside the ordi-
nary flow of narrativetime. The rich network of temporal associa-
tions that the dissolve invokes is brought into play when Debussy
employs kinesthetic shifts to serve as a possible musical cognate,
suggesting that successively linked referential collections need not
necessarily be understood as unfolding on the same temporal
plane, or as hierarchically interrelated in the manner of a tonal
prolongation. The type of smoothly graduated transition associ-
ated with the dissolve contrasts with the "direct cut," which in-
volves an instantaneous shift to a new shot. Likewise, the smooth
modulations in Examples 1 and 2 contrast with the abruptchanges
226 Music Theory Spectrum
of material shown in Example 3, another passage from "Pour les
agrements." The segments marked W, X, Y, and Z are linked by
recurring motives, but these connections are overridden by the
marked discontinuities in register, dynamics, and referential col-
lection. These kinds of rapid changes between sharply contrasting
images are precisely what Vuillermoz found so appealing and
Yhcam so frustrating about early cinema. We might think of this
passage as representing a series of direct cuts among a variety of
different views of some object whose unity is preserved in the
motivic aspects of the example: the recurring 3-9[027] trichords,
whole-tone segments, the transpositions and expansions of the
4-4[0125] motive, and so on, set against the backdrop of the dia-
tonic, hexatonic, chromatic, and pentatonic collections.
Many of the abrupt transitions in the second movement of the
Cello Sonata, some of which are marked with asterisks in Ex-
ample 4, recall the cinematic effects of direct cutting and close-up.
The example traces the path of the tritone motive that first appears
at the end of m. 3: the tritone dyad creeps upward by half-step-
G-DK, Ab-D, A-E. The next expected dyad, Bb-E, arrives in m.
5 but is inverted around its E axis: the cello's Bb-E appears as the
top two notes of a rolled chord, and this gesture initiates the intro-
duction of the higher range, more volatile rhythmic values, and
hair-pin dynamics. Like the inversion of the tritone in m. 5, the
subsequent alternations between pizzicato and arco, the abrupt
harmonic contrasts, and the sudden shifts in register in mm. 7-9
are reminiscent of a cinematic "shot/reverse-shot"technique, a de-
vice in which the camera shoots from two angles 180 degrees
apartin order to capture the facial expressions of two actors facing
one another in a scene. Indeed, in the case of the cello sonata, this
notion of an interaction among different "characters"seems espe-
cially relevant: conceived as a portrait of Pierrot (Pierrot fache
avec la lune was Debussy's working title)-a character prone to
drastic mood swings, and, at least in his early 20th-century mani-
festations, one exhibiting a kind of multiple-personality disorder
-the Serenade draws upon a highly appropriate set of cinemati-
cally inspired devices in order to characterize Pierrot's uninte-
grated personae.23Debussy's intention here, I believe, is to depict
Pierrot in fragments-perhaps as a kind of Chaplinesque clown-
via a series of rapid direct cuts and continuous changes in per-
spective.
In his late works, Debussy often eschewed smoothness of for-
mal continuity. Transition through graduated transformation is a
characteristic associated more with his earlier, so-called Impres-
sionistic style, and his later reliance on sudden musical contrasts
might be understood as a rejection of those Impressionistic
ideals.24It is interesting to note that cinema underwent a similar
change in editing style during its early history: the earliest films of
Georges Melies in France and those of Edwin Porter in America
regularly use dissolves to connect shots instead of having direct
cuts.25After around 1903, however, direct cutting became standard
practice, although some film-makers and critics continued to find
this practice visually jarring.26For example, as late as 1914 the
British film-maker Cecil Hepworth regularly inserted short pieces
of blank film in between cuts in order to temper what he saw as a
disruptive break.27Nevertheless, the wide acceptance of the direct
cut as a viable and comprehensible means of linking different
shots prefigures the kinds of abrupt formal divisions we find in
Debussy's music. The dissolve, on the other hand, begins to be
used for the more specialized purpose of conveying a time lapse
or to demarcate an event from the diegetic past. Debussy's more
sparing use of impressionistic shifts in his late works could be un-
derstood as recognition of this more specialized function of the
dissolve in film and its more specific connotations.
23SeeWatkins1994, 277 ff.
24Lawrence Bermantakesthis view in his comparisonof Jeux andPreludea
l'apres-midid'unfaune. See Berman1980, 225.
25Salt1990, 32. Anotherway in which the early filmmakersconnectedshots
was to insert an appropriateintertitle,a bit of dialogue or text explaining the
scene.
a directcut is less costly and time-consumingto producethana
26Naturally,
dissolve, andthis is likely an importantreasonfor the change in editing style.
27Bottomore1990, 105.
 Debussy's Late Style and the Devices of the EarlySilent Cinema 227

Example 3. "Pour les agr6ments," mm. 27-32: Direct Cutting

W-diatonic
27

'^ ^^^
^IP027 027 0246J13--Ji3
027 027 0246

X-hexatonic

0125 246
I ---I I 0246 I
0125

(
p 7 7
?
'9 subito
Ppo subito PP
? I-:

( 9:~~9 .7~,? _ v
-
i
7^ rZ
Z-pentatonic
Y-chromatic

Y-chromatic Z-pentatonic
0125 0125

31 quasi cadenza

027 lower staff only 027

 1 p

228 Music Theory Spectrum

Example 4. Cello Sonata, second movement, "Serenade," mm. 1-9. Shot/reverse-shot?

Moderement anime
fantasque et leger Tritone T1

- - - - Yp -
( < 17 -~~ PP
<
7

P
P

Io~o PPc

*
I
*. I
* *.
I I
*
I I
t=
h
=
~ ~ ~ ^~~~~
6A~ I.
_jj~~~~~~~~ r
iarco ~
~~pizz. arco ~ ~pizz.
6 ^^ ^:
p , P p P
pc~Z

p sf p pp p PP
pp - A

The cut-in, shot/reverse-shot, and dissolve represent simple "switch-back editing."28 In this editing technique, several shots are
kinds of editing schema, recurring patterns that become increas- arranged repeatedly in alternation with one another, and their
ingly familiar to film-makers and spectators through continued repetition is meant to imply a relationship of simultaneity between
and exposure.
use and
use These are
exposure. These modes of continuation
are modes against which
continuation against which
28Mostfilm historiesidentify this device as an Americaninvention,firstde-
musical patterns might be matched. A more complex schematic veloped around1905, althoughit also appearsin Frenchfilms aroundthe same
editing pattern is the procedure known as "cross-cutting," or time. It was subsequentlypopularizedby D. W. Griffith,who used it extensively
 Debussy's Late Style and the Devices of the Early Silent Cinema
the scenes. A stereotypical example is a scene in which images of
a villain tying his victim to the railroad tracks are intercut with
shots of a speeding train. The device is often used to generate sus-
pense in "last-minute rescue" situations and usually involves an
acceleration in the editing rhythm. Noel Burch refers to the device
as the "alterating syntagm," to emphasize that it is a pattern sig-
nifying "meanwhile" ratherthan "next."As he explains:
A thresholdwas crossedwhenit becamepossibleto 'deduce'fromthe re-
lationshipof successionbetweentwo tableauxin the time of the film (of
its reading)the idea thatthey were diegeticallysimultaneous.... A dis-
tinctionbeganto be madebetweentwo meaningsattributable to the tran-
sition betweentwo biunivocallyconcatenatedshots:in the firstcase ...
what is signifiedis that the time of the second shot is linkedto that of
the firstby a relationof posterity;in the second,thata seriesof shotsseen
repeatedlyin alternationwith anotherseries implies a relationshipof si-
multaneitywiththe latter.29
This filmic situation can inform our understanding of the pas-
sage shown in Example 5, in which the alternating syntagm is in-
voked. In this case, the editing process eventually settles on one
"image," the viola's tritone motive. This passage is a good exam-
ple of Debussy's more generalized technique of "duplication"-
the repetition of short fragments with a disjunctive interface be-
tween the statement and its repetition. John Clevenger prefers the
term "reiteration"for this technique, which is found throughout
Debussy's oeuvre but that saturates the musical surface of his late
works. In Example 5, the clock-work rhythm of the viola at the un
poco piu mosso, poco a poco at m. 48 creates the impression that
ordinary time is resuming following the switch-backs of the previ-
ous measures. Such moments of duplication frequently seem to
disrupt an ordinary processive sense of time: in Example 6, from
the Etude "Pour les arpeges compos6s," the idea in the first mea-
in his films, includingIntoleranceand Birth of a Nation. BarrySalt notes that
the device is alreadyfully developedin the 1906 Vitagraphfilm The Hundred-
to-One Shot.
29Burch1990, 157-8.
229
sure seems to begin over again in m. 3 following a kind of digres-
sion in m. 2. The sense of temporal disjunction in these examples
distinguishes these and similar instances of duplication from the
straightforwardrepetition of an idea in classic sentential phrases.
Like film-makers who wished to show two things happening at
once, Debussy intended duplications to suggest a kind of narrative
simultaneity in these moments utterly unlike the process of a clas-
sical presentation-phrase.
Sometimes, early film-makers were confronted with the in-
verse problem of representing two distinct spaces within a single
shot. A favorite solution was the superimposition, in which a sec-
ond image is inserted into a portion of the frame through a matting
process or through double exposure of the film. In the silent era,
this second image was often called a "dream balloon," since its
most common function was to represent a character's dreams or
hallucinations. The convention first appears in Melies' films like
La voyage dans la lune. Another well-known early example of
matting occurs in the 1902 Edwin Porter film, Uncle Josh at the
Moving Picture Show. The film tells a story about a man's first
visit to the movies; "Josh"is seen watching a film, which appears
to him so realistic and engrossing that he cannot distinguish be-
tween the film and reality. At one point, Josh becomes so involved
with the scene he is watching-a woman in distress-that he actu-
ally lunges at the screen to intervene. When he attempts to duke it
out with the image of the villain, he has to be restrained by the
projectionist. Throughout Porter's film, a matted image is used to
represent the movie within the movie. The function of the matted
image here is to set off a fictional space within the diegetic space
of the film. The same device is applied in more sophisticated ways
in the films of D. W. Griffith. The last several minutes of Griffith's
Intolerance, for example, contain a series of double-exposures,
with the frame divided into separate segments representing illu-
sion and reality. In one scene, the sky above a battlefield is trans-
formed into a choir of angels, signifying a utopian vision of
heaven that contrasts with the conflict below. Ethereal images-
fields of flowers bathed in light and playing children-hover over
230 Music Theory Spectrum

Example5. Sonatafor Flute,Viola, and Harp,"Finale,"mm. 43-50: Cross-cuttingand Duplication

43
43 lointain tm
lointain p
I auJ I 3 un poco plu mosso 3

p -p 1 p

(sul tasto) (sul tasto)

(du talon) 3 3 3 (du talon) 3 3 3

:
.Y \o ,v i= I e dim. Pe =I- P . -
pi-i f pif Pi f dim. p - p

pi f pp subito pii f p f mf

-lc
Exa mple "Pul j argscops j :
i6 Dt

Example6. "Pourles arpegescomposes,"mm. 40-3: Duplication

6ff^f^f
4..MtW
^^WtA: , , r r
)

p sfz
sfz z==- pii p z_
<=pince
ft.-.4
t)-1 J3:####,
10
:v J :Tz
~ -m ~ I ~i 6 h ~ rb~1iI
I 6
Y

4y
Y
J d 7 J
??~~~t~tYr;l 1 * M!
#0##7 h

1. * * , *
Y
 Debussy's Late Style and the Devices of the Early Silent Cinema
scenes of chain-gangs, signifying a utopian future beyond the mis-
erable present. Again, these examples use superimposition to set
off a fictional, illusory, or "wishful" realm within the film.
This cinematic device suggests a way of thinking about certain
musical devices co-emergent with the cinema, such as situations
in which contrasting musical environments are presented simulta-
neously, most notably in polytonality. In Debussy's late works
several examples of "superimposing" materials connote contrast-
ing musical spaces. One is shown in Example 7, a passage from
the Etude "Pour les sonorites opposees." Here, even the notation
Debussy uses recalls the look of a cinematic "dream balloon" set
off to one side of the frame. This passage can be viewed as repre-
senting two "opposed"tonal spaces that correspond to two diegetic
spaces in a film, one "real" (the notes which accord with the no-
tated key signature) and one "imagined" (the chords written in
small notes on the upper staff). Such an analytical perspective has
ramifications for how one might think about the resolution of
"tonal problems" and "goals" later in the piece. For instance,
Example 8 shows a passage from the end of this piece in which a
series of chords sounds in the same register as the earlier F-major
chord. If these chords recall the "dream-world"represented by the
earlier chords, they may point toward an unattainable tonal goal
that remains unrealized at the end of the piece. This might explain
why the D#-major chord in m. 73 seems somehow unresolved-
perhaps even implying an impossible resolution.
The curious disembodied chords at the end of "Pour les
sonorites oppos6es" recall another early cinematic device. Edwin
Porter's popular 1903 film, The Great Train Robbery, employs a
device known as the "emblematic shot," which was copied in
many subsequent films.30The film is about the exploits of a band
of violent robbers, and it concludes with a shoot-out in which the
crooks make off with the spoils. Following the conclusion of the
narrative,the terminal image in the film shows a medium close-up
shot of a cowboy who points and shoots a gun straight into the
30Salt1990, 32.
231
camera. This "coda" image does not represent any particular ac-
tion in the film-the story has already ended; it does suggest a
general mood of balefulness. Considering certain musical events
as analogs for emblematic shots offers the analyst a useful alterna-
tive to a notion of "coherence" that compels us to account for the
structuralfunction of each event in a piece of music. A model that
incorporates the structural "functionlessness" of the emblematic
shot allows some musical events to have a role beyond that in a
strictly hierarchical or goal-directed design. This is especially cru-
cial for post-tonal works in which the relations between musical
events within the work may be metaphorical and associative rather
than causal or hierarchical.
Perhaps the most significant way in which the silent cinema
could serve as a compositional model and as a key interpretantfor
listeners was this: film editing suggested a reconfiguration of con-
ventional narrative syntax in which events needed not always to
act as "cardinal functions," moving the plot inexorably forward.
Indeed, a narrative might be structured more as a collection of
indices, with a global form emerging from the purely rhythmic
aspects of a succession of images. Likewise, musical forms might
cohere not on the basis of an over-arching Ursatz or other central-
izing and coordinating feature, but ratheras a montage of ideas.
Debussy's preoccupation with these cinematic modes is clearly
most pronounced in his late works. Understanding of formal syn-
tax in a late work like Jeux, for example, might be considerably
enriched if musical counterparts to cinematic devices are consid-
ered in analysis. Lawrence Berman has written persuasively about
Jeux, claiming that this work can be understood as a reworking of
both the poetic and musical premises of the earlier Prelude a
l'apres-midi d'un faune.31 Berman views Jeux as a second, more
successful rendering of the Mallarme poem upon which Faune is
based. The two works share common narrative elements in their
scenarios: the theme of pursuit, and the menage a trois. The roles
of the faun and the two nymphs depicted musically in the Prelude
31Berman1980, 225.
232 Music Theory Spectrum

Example7. "Pourles sonoritesopposees,"mm. 54-6: Dream Balloons

Calmato
--va ,---..

Example8. "Pourles sonorit6sopposees,"mm. 70-5, recallingthe "dream-world"of the calmato section

(de plus loin. ..) . -----------------.

--------------.
8va.. --.-.
---------------------------------------- -a
70 3
a AA. _I I L_ :f t^ i #

pp - --- smorzando p pp

> : -:? ? ~~ ~ ~ h~Ri

,:#### ^ ?i
ha_
9 0
W.- W.-

*_.......... *_

map onto those of the man and the two women playing tennis in
the later work. In light of these correspondences, we might imag-
ine Jeux as a kind of Modernist version of Mallarme's pastoral
scene, with the mythological characters transformedinto modem-
day counterparts-athletes in tennis clothes carrying rackets. I
suggest that Jeux might be understood more specifically as a cine-
matic rendering of the Prelude, for what Jeux retains and greatly
amplifies from the earlier Prelude is its qualities of formal discon-
tinuity and its disorienting, over-abundance of motivic material-
precisely the kinds of narrative modes that become possible and
credible in the age of cinema.
A formal analysis of Jeux is well beyond the scope of the pre-
sent paper, but a more modest work, the piano Etude "Pour les
'cinq doigts'-d'apres Monsieur Czerny," can illustrate how
Debussy's cinematic mode transformedaspects of his earlier style
by comparing the 1915 Etude with a well-known earlier work:
 Debussy's Late Style and the Devices of the Early Silent Cinema
Example9 "Pourles 'cinq doigts'-d'apres MonsieurCzemy,"mm. 1-10: Superimpositionof the two differenttonal worlds
Sagement
' '
. S:
p ben legato
6 Anime (Mvt de Gigue)
: mf
1 rS#B
'
d=f?_=
the opening movement of the Children's Corner Suite, "Doctor
Gradus ad Parassum," published in 1908. Clearly, both of these
works are intended to be humorous, and both vividly evoke the
image of a distracted piano student practicing tedious technical
exercises. Each work concludes with an accelerando and final
presto section, signifying-certainly in "Doctor Gradus" but
perhaps also in the Etude-a pupil rushing to finish the practice
session.
Example 9 illustrates how the commonplace "Czerny"exercise
that begins "Pour les 'cinq doigts'" is complicated by the super-
imposition of an intrusive Ab, which clashes with the five white
notes in the left hand. In order to make sense of this superimposi-
tion in the Etude, consider how the same pitch-class relationships
play out in "Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum,"the opening measures
of which are shown in Example 10(a). We hear the music gradu-
ally slipping out of an ordinary C-major world at the beginning of
233
accel.
'
'-
/' f .}
mlto dim.
l-3
_
the piece and into a day-dream world. The moment of deepest
day-dreaming occurs with the arrival of Ab in the bass in m. 37,
shown in Example 10(b). Here, the "main theme" of the move-
ment returns; we hear the trite figuration from m. 1, now trans-
formed via transposition and augmentation into an expressive
gesture in which each note carries melodic weight. In the Etude,
which is likewise grounded in C major, the other-world repre-
sented by Ab is simultaneously present from the very beginning;
the Ab interrupts the white-note world already in m. 2. While
"Doctor Gradus" presents the unfolding of a classical narrative
structure, in which the moment of furthest remove is reached via
the gradual and progressive development of motivic material, the
Etude expresses a more "life-like" representation of the distracted
piano student, at least in terms of the cinematic representational
codes that were available to the composer. Black-note/white-note
superimpositions continue throughout the first 30 measures of the
234 Music Theory Spectrum

Example 10(a). Children'sCornerSuite, "DoctorGradusad Pamassum,"mm. 1-5

)I i_ _Tr

Example 10(b). Children'sCornerSuite, "DoctorGradusad Parnassum,"mm. 30-40: the "dream-world"

Retenu

o_______dim._ _ ~dim.

Tempo y 0

ic
33

...-: rrr .-4 r r [ 4

p expressif pi Pl -----

( SS -
7
-

i
e
J; ;:
1 J 1

Anime un peu

r r r r r r r
expressif
PP expressif expressif

Z A; 3()- "
(fSblbLb ': $ A ^
 Debussy's Late Style and the Devices of the Early Silent Cinema
piece, as Debussy sustains a cinematic portrayal of the ongoing
tension between tedious technical labor and the play of the imagi-
nation. Debussy's superimpositions encourage us to consider the
five-finger white-note exercises and the Ab within the black-note
world as starting points for two parallel, ongoing processes that
we can continue to trace throughout the piece.
As the piece proceeds, Debussy turns to techniques of "direct
cutting" between the two musical worlds juxtaposed in the open-
ing measures. Example 11 shows a passage from the middle of the
Etude in which occurs a sudden change of register, pitch collec-
tion, texture, and dynamics. In the segment marked X, the left
hand isolates motive M from within the previous gesture, marked
as Y. The way in which X is framed here by Y recalls a cinematic
"cut-in"-a close-up view, usually of a character's face, interpo-
lated between two shots taken from a greater distance. Example
11 presents a musical device whose cinematic counterpart in-
volves a sudden focus on a detail within the cinematic space. In
the Etude, the equivalent of a cinematic background is suddenly
removed at X, and the motive M occupies the resultant musical
vacuum. This detail is subsequently taken up as the generative
motive of the passage beginning at m. 48. In silent films, the
close-up frequently reveals a character's subjective reaction to a
situation; the audience is given an opportunity to read the charac-
ter's face, and to identify with that character's subjective position
in the narrative.Debussy's closing in on motive M and the subse-
quent development of that idea express a similar sense of marked
interiority,recalling the intimacy of the cinematic closeup.
The filmic situation of switch-back editing can inform our un-
derstanding of a passage shown in Example 12, where the alter-
nating segments A, B, and C recall the alternation of images in a
film. As would be the case in a "rescue" or "chase" film, this pas-
sage occurs towards the end of the work. The duration of each of
the separate "images" fluctuates in interesting ways in this pas-
sage; the "editing rhythm" accelerates as the music progresses,
much the way it would in a D. W. Griffith film. Beginning in m.
91, the size of the grouping units reduces to one beat, with beats 1
and 3 representing one tonal space (six flats) and beats 2 and 4
235
representing another (white notes). At the same time there is a
more literal acceleration-poco a poco accelerando e cresc.-and
the passage culminates in a reprise of the etude's original tonality,
C major, in m. 97. The analogy with cinematic cross-cutting sug-
gests an analytical approach in which we could identify several
different processes going on at the same time, all converging to-
wards the same goal. For example, we catch intermittent glimpses
of an ongoing process in the events (labeled B in the example) at
mm. 72, 79, 83, and 85. This process may be furtherextended, via
the T5 relation that obtains between mm. 79 (an Ab harmony)
and 83 (Db), to the downbeats of m. 91 and following (Gb). At the
same time, a second simultaneous process is represented by the
intervening measures. It is, in part, the association between cine-
matic cross-cutting and the last-minute rescue that imbues the
Etude's conclusion with its sense of urgency.
CINEMA AND DEBUSSY'S NATIONALISM
The emblematic shot, the dream balloon, the dissolve, direct
cutting, and switchback editing are a repertoire of compositional
techniques that early film-makers developed for connecting differ-
ent kinds of shots. These devices could be employed to convey
temporality and spatiality in unique ways. Consequently, the cin-
ema, with its ability to juxtapose disparate images in this fashion,
was frequently seen as an exemplary medium for artists at the turn
of the century, particularly those active in France, who were at-
tempting new types of temporal and spatial representation. The
enthusiastic Emile Vuillermoz, who urged poets to take an interest
in the cinema, claimed that film could express a uniquely modem
conception of space and time, comparable with and even surpass-
ing the latest trends in painting and in poetry:
The cinema'smiraculousgift of ubiquity,its powerof immediateevoca-
images are all neededto executethis
tion, its wealthof interchangeable
tourde force.Thousandsof tiny framesin a movingfilmstripact like the
cells of the humanbrain:the same overwhelmingrapidityof perception,
the samemultiplicityof many-facetedmirrorswhicheffortlesslyjuxtapose
the farthesthorizons,suppressdistances,abolishthe bondageof time and
236 MusicTheorySpectrum

Example 11. "Pourles 'cinq doigts'-d'apres MonsieurCzemy,"mm. 43-50: The Cut-in,which focuses on a detail within the frame

'Y Iy
'M

I
X

fM
,F ri
// .
47 /a r ritI // Mouvement

'' I-___---- -- bbb^

\dim. PP leggierissimo
-rrrf dim.
^mT__ rf:yz:-m
VI
-_
^
rR;r r ~ ,.n imm^~s~ b^&^-
I I
,.Rm
x

space, embraceall the cardinalpoints [of the compass]simultaneously,
and transportus in a fractionof a secondfrom one extremepoint in the
universeto another!... Herethereare subtletiesand ingenuitiesof edit-
ing thatconfirmthe infinitesupplenessof cinematographictechniqueand
its astonishingattribute-whichone couldcall "symphonic"-ofcombin-
ing chordsof impressionsand writinga kind of visual counterpointfor
severalinstruments.32
32Vuillermoz1917. Quotedin Abel 1988, 133-4.
These remarks indicate how easy it would have been at this
time for an artist to consider film, painting, and music as capable
of expressing the same essential formal qualities. Indeed, the idea
that a composer could translate cinematic devices into musical
ones, or vice versa, is similar to the Symbolist poets' idea of
mysterious correspondences among objects and images and
musical sounds found in the writings of Mallarm6 and Poe. The
Symbolists, with whom Debussy was involved, tended to ascribe a
 Debussy's Late Style and the Devices of the Early Silent Cinema 237

Example 12. "Pourles 'cinq doigts'-d'apres MonsieurCzerny,"mm. 70-98: Switchbackediting

A R A

Rubato ( Mouvt Rubato

ti9~~~~~~~~~:7
r=-r~~~~~~r-fj fb-Jr.-*H~~~~~~~~~
#Q~ #
or

c
Cedez
74 Mouvt Poco meno mosso . . 1

piutp pp sempre

B C
Tempo (meno mosso) Cedez
79 ^^ ^ ^ ^ , & ^ ^^:

K _pi_
pip pp
_

3vblb,' D- ?L D- 6 --
 !

238 Music Theory Spectrum

Example 12. [continued]

B C B

83 Tempo (meno mosso)

r= Y C-IK *1

m _~ S-
;i _-
:.n

pia p

8 w K tJ i K 7 R J J J j J J J

~86;;1~~
7'
zsfz $: 7 4 9: sD

89 . f: sfz ~ poco a poco accelerando

\ P^^ga P P -n=======^?^ -p ^ZZ==========-

PPP poco a poco crescendo /
~ ~~~
*l..~9:Iocrs ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ p

V -,
l *7
9:hhrn z
r
________1 1
11____,_____ -* P -W
~ Lj *f i
 Debussy's Late Style and the Devices of the Early Silent Cinema
Example 12. [continued]
955
I 5
f5
'4^8L 5
?i ^i
musical value to poetic images, and they deliberately cultivated a
confusion among the perceptions of the various senses.33
330ne artistwho actively sought to combine Symbolist ideals with cinema
was Leopold Survage, a Russian-bornpainterwho came to Paris in 1908. In
1913 and 1914, Survageexhibited his work with the Cubists at the Salon des
Independents.His 1914 article"Le Rythmecolore"outlines a projectfor a film
based on animatedabstractimages. "The fundamentalelement in my dynamic
art is colored visual form, which plays a part analogous to that of sound in
music."Like many of his contemporaries,Survageconceives of image, sound,
and motion as inextricablylinked with one anotherand with the psychological
states of the artist. He goes on to say that these non-representationalmoving
images, by virtue of the fact that they are moving, would somehow evoke the
changing emotional state of the artist. For Survage, Vuillermoz, and others,
music and cinema are distinguished by being temporal phenomena, and, as
such, both cinema and music are thoughtto be "life-like,"expressinga kind of
mutability comparableto the workings of real human perception and intra-
psychic experience.Survage 1914 is quotedin Abel 1988, 90.
239
Mouvt
> tk
5
5 5 V
ff
^ 5
^
It is clear from the attention that prominent music critics like
Vuillermoz were giving cinema that it represented something
much more than a fad or novelty, and that film was acquiring con-
siderable cultural importance in France. Certainly, the cinema en-
joyed a high public profile, not only as a fascinating new popular
entertainment, but also as particularly French technology, one
which occupied a significant position within the national econ-
omy. In the first decade of the twentieth century, several large film
companies with control over all levels of production, distribution,
and exhibition began to replace the early artisan-based outfits like
those of Lumiere and M6lies. In the years before the outbreak of
the First World War, accepted statistics of the time claimed that
ninety percent of the films seen around the world were produced
in France. Between 1905 and 1914, the two largest French film
companies, Pathe-Freres and Etablissements Gaumont, produced
240 Music Theory Spectrum
films and film-making equipment on a vast scale, and even con-
ducted experiments with color processing and sound synchroniza-
tion.34
Cinema thus came to serve as a locus for nationalistic pride,
providing manifest evidence of French ingenuity and creativity.
Because the cinema was perceived as something particularly
French, as a medium in which the French had a superior expertise,
it was often invoked by artists and critics with nationalistic lean-
ings. Modelling one's art or poetry on the devices of the cinema
represented a way in which artists could be modern and, at the
same time, uniquely and essentially French. To these artists, there-
fore, it was a matter of national disgrace when, with the declara-
tion of war in August of 1914, the lucrative French film industry
immediately collapsed. As film historian RichardAbel reports:
All branchesof the industryimmediatelyclosed down.The generalmobi-
lization emptiedthe studios of directors,actors,and technicians.Even
the Frenchfilm star,Max Linder,althoughrejectedby the army,left for
the frontto delivermilitarydispatchesbeforegoing off to makefilms in
the UnitedStates.The desertedspaces of the studioswere requisitioned
for militarystoresandhorsebarns,andPathe'sfilm-stockfactoryat Vin-
cennes was transformedinto a war plant. The cinemas, along with all
othershows,closedtheirdoorsin the nationalinterest.35
of peoplein theirstudiosanddistri-
34These employedthousands
companies
bution centers throughoutEurope and North America. At its height, Pathe-
Freres employed around5,000 people in France, while Gaumont,its largest
competitor,had over 2,000 employees aroundthe world. Chains of cinemas
sprangup; Gaumont'schain includedthe grandGaumont-Palacein Paris with
seating for 3,400 spectators.At the same time, many smallercompanies were
able to specialize within particularareas of the industry,like the productionof
newsreels.A small but prestigiouscompany,Film d'Art, producedfilms featur-
ing Comedie Franqaiseactors and directors in original scenarios written by
Comedie Francaise dramatists.A subsidiarycompany of Pathe-Frerescalled
the "Societe cinematographiquedes auteurset gens des lettres"(S.C.A.G.L.)
produced adaptationsof literary classics for the screen. In contrast to their
Americancontemporaries,who mainly targeteda vaudevilleaudience,the first
Frenchfilm-makersproducedfilms for a wide varietyof audiencetypes across
the social spectrum.
35Abel1984, 9.
As the war dragged on, cinemas were eventually reopened, but,
because the whole structure of French film production was no
longer in place, it was imported American films that largely filled
the theatres. The French industry never recovered its losses, and
by 1919, at most only about 15% of the films seen in Paris were
French-made. It was claimed in the journal Mon-Cine in 1919 that
"the French cinema is stripped of its glories, it will perish, and we
will have to resign ourselves to being a country that no longer
makes good films."36
The prestige and the nationalistic associations of the early cin-
ema would have made it all the more attractive to Debussy as a
model for musical forms. Debussy's own crusade for a nationally
distinct musical tradition, with himself playing the role of the ex-
emplary musicien francais, becomes most pronounced in his later
career. His desire to express what he felt to be a uniquely French
kind of lyricism is perhaps best achieved in these late works,
which also, I believe, most clearly capture the spirit of cinema.
Perhaps Debussy's deployment of filmic devices, his cultivation of
the modes of cinematic editing and its special temporal and spatial
associations, was motivated by a sense of the cinema as a particu-
larly French art. And this awareness of cinema's "Frenchness"
was probably most acutely felt with the demise of the French film
industry in 1914. At a time when Debussy's work becomes most
self-consciously French, the cinematic aspects of his style become
most pronounced.
But before the attempt to claim film as a French art, cinema of-
fered to all tur-of-the-century artists the means to make a radical
break from previous modes of representing time and space. The
techniques of the cinema, as I have suggested, are the filmic ana-
log to the formal discontinuities embraced by these artists, not the
least of whom was Debussy. Thus, recognizing a relationship
between filmic and compositional techniques can create a new un-
derstanding of his music, particularly in the analysis of his con-
spicuous techniques of formal enchainment, which can be contex-
36Quotedin Abel 1984, 6.
 Debussy's Late Style and the Devices of the Early Silent Cinema
tualized within the "modes of continuation" peculiar to a co-
emergent narrative medium such as film. The silent cinema's
montage of shots and perspectives, its reconfiguration of narrative
time, and its multiplicity of "viewing views" give Debussy's formal
procedures a particularly modem cast. May we, long-accustomed
to the techniques of film, appreciate these procedures anew.
LISTOFWORKSCITED
Abel, Richard. 1984. French Cinema: The First Wave, 1915-1929. Prince-
ton UniversityPress.
. 1988. French Film Theory and Criticism: A History/Anthology,
volume1: 1907-1929. Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress.
Berman, Lawrence. 1980. "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faune and Jeux:
Debussy's Summer Rites." 19th Century Music 3: 225-38.
Bottomore,Stephen.1990. "Shotsin the Dark."In EarlyCinema:Space,
Frame, Narrative.Edited by Thomas Elsaesser and Adam Barker.
London:BritishFilmInstitutePublishing.
Burch,Noel. 1990. Life to those Shadows.Translatedby Ben Brewster.
Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress.
Forte,Allen. 1988. "Pitch-classSet Generaandthe Originof the Modern
Harmonic Species." Journal of Music Theory 32: 187-279.
. 1991."Debussyandthe Octatonic."
MusicAnalysis10: 125-69.
Newcomb, Anthony. 1987. "Schumannand Late Eighteenth-Century
Narrative Strategies." 19th Century Music 11: 164-74.
Parks, Richard. 1989. The Music of Claude Debussy. New Haven: Yale
UniversityPress.
Rank, Otto. 1971. The Double: A Psychoanalytic Study. Translated and
editedby HarryTucker,Jr.ChapelHill: Universityof NorthCarolina
Press.
Salt, Barry. 1990. "Film Form 1900-1906." In Early Cinema:Space,
Frame, Narrative. Edited by Thomas Elsaesser and Adam Barker.
London:BritishFilmInstitutePublishing.
241
Smith,RichardLangam.1973. "Debussyand the Art of Cinema."Music
and Letters 54: 61-70.
. 1977. Debussy on Music. New York:A. A. Knopf.
Sobchack,Vivian. 1991. "TheActive Eye: A Phenomenologyof Cine-
matic Vision." Quarterly Review of Film and Video 12/3: 25.
Survage, L6opold. 1914. "Le Rythme color6." Les Soirees de Paris 26-7
(July-August): 426-7.
Vuillermoz, Emile. 1916. "Devant l'6cran." Le Temps,29 November: 3.
.1917. "Before the Screen: Les Freres corses." Le Temps, 7
February:3.
Watkins, Glenn. 1994. Pyramids at the Louvre: Music, Culture, and
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Yhcam. 1912. "Le Cin6matographe."Cine-Journal, 4 May: 16-17.
ABSTRACT
The articlesituatesDebussy'slate workswithinthe contextof the tech-
nologies of the early silent cinema. Cinematic techniques developed by
French film-makers during Debussy's lifetime can provide the basis for a
model of continuityand successionin this music and suggest some new
ways of approachingform in his late style. Cinemawas of considerable
consequence in France during Debussy's mature career, and the technical
devices of the cinema constituted a markedly new way of representing
time and space. Very few of the films from the late 1890s and early 1900s
have survived, but the extant film reviews and contemporary criticism pro-
vide a vivid sense of the early cinema, its reception, and its characteristic
devices. Particular cinematic editing techniques are noted as models for
Debussy's own characteristic repertoire of musical devices. Finally, some
of the connections are made between cinema and Debussy's nationalism
in the years surroundingthe first world war.