How intuitive is the grammar of cinema?

Cafe Society
1

As I was driving in to work today, I was thinking about what W. S. Gilbert would think if he could somehow see Mike Leigh’s Topsy-Turvy (which is a wonderful movie about the genesis of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado).

I’m sure he’d be indignant about inevitable errors of fact, and maybe bemused by how posterity sees him, and perhaps enthralled by the final aria scene…
…and then it occurred to me that he might not even understand it. Of course Gilbert was familiar with the stage. But cinema has a grammar, right? Long shot to establish the scene, then closeups of the actors; well, heck, that’s not too tough to understand, is it? But shimmery effects to show that we’re entering a dream, that’s sure not intuitive. Rapid cuts to show action and build tension–is our response to that innate, or learned?

So, would Gilbert understand the movie? Or would it just be disconnected snippets to him?

Would Thomas Jefferson?

2

Well, no one had to teach people how to view these when they first were invented. Birth of a Nation – which established most of the grammar of cinema – was released only three years after Gilbert’s death; certainly people of his generation saw it and understood it.

3

Cutaways would have initially bewildered Gilbert and his contemporaries. There really wasn’t any counterpart to it in 19th Century storytelling media. However, I don’t think it would take long for him to understand and appreciate that technique, though. A single viewing of The Great Train Robbery (1903) would have completed his education.

4

I think Jefferson would have been too busy admiring moving photography and artificial light to take much interest in storytelling technique.