A way to a documentary film by Rudolf Adler

some notions from that book:

A documentarist must know perfectly the subject matter - seeing, experience. (Robert Flaherty - Nanook of the North 1922). The experience is very important. The author's fascination of the subject matter is somehow projected into a form of a documentary. The documentary should evoke the same feeling in audience. It is an essential assumption for an imagination result which should call out catharsis in audience mind (edification, exoneration, relief).

Once an author deeply knows ambient (background) he can structure a theme because the subject matter - seeing reality is not a theme itself. In general, a theme is an author's idea which is formulated on a base of particular observation and experience of subject matter from an artistic point of view. (Robert Flaherty's theme in general: Humanistic theme of human dignity, sociability, solidarity and greatness. Luis Bunuel: His general theme was about human abasement, human dignity humiliation by physical or spiritual affliction etc.)

Both Flaherty and Bunuel fulfil the cathartic process through a strong aesthetic and emotional experience. Besides positive, enjoyable and noble things of the subject matter there should also be those dark, tragic and negative sides of life but it does not mean that the art is negative. (Aristotle and catharsis).

A thematic limitation of art creation within an area of positive life values with a recall on their noble function is a nonsense because the creation loses its philosophy depth and life trueness.

If the theme is an expression of an author's idea in general than the subject is a content concretization.

Exercise: De-edit a sequence - reconnected shots

I was successful to shorten the cuts mainly in shots where no dialogue was and where I was able to play with non-diegetic or off screen sound.

Shots cut down to the absolute bare minimum: I noticed some of them lost their tempo even the cut works well. Some shots have got feeling that something is missing. I was happy when some information was cut out and in the end it was not missing, e.g. Harry gets a coffee. I was not able to cut down some shots because there was a dialogue.

Answer:
1. The sequence still conveys the meaning. It is true that it looks somehow shorten and that something is missing. The flow of the story was damaged and there is a feeling that something must be repaired.

2. The feeling here is that something is missing like tempo and flow of story. The cutting is really important to tell the story to be believable. In my shortened version I cut down 30 second from original which is 4 minutes and 30 s long.

3. I think the feeling did not affected the meaning, still we can feel that Harry is an introvert and professional in his work. The mystery atmosphere is still there.

I did not uploaded the sequence because you-tube blocked some of previous sequences due to the rights.