STYLE AND TECHNOLOGY IN TROUBLE IN PARADISE: EVIDENCE OF A TECHNICIANS' LOBBY?

[...]looking at Trouble alone would suggest that some technical factor, such as noise associated with the moving camera or microphone, might have discouraged Lubitsch from using the moving camera to follow moving actors as they speak.1 However, an examination of Lubitsch's earlier sound films, coupled with an examination of technical developments during the early 1930's, quickly dispels the notion that a technical problem like noise inhibited the use of trucking shots with synch dialogue. According to George Folsey, keeping everything in a straight line means that a dolly could be used rather than a boom, which would be used for moving at different angles, and which would require a larger crew and more coordination than the simpler move. The general fluidity of the moving camera is greater in Design than in Trouble or previous films, if we consider all the shots in which the camera moves, regardless of whether they include synch sound. Besides the greater number of camera moves, their variety of execution is also greater: in several instances the camera moves faster than we have seen it move before, and in contrast to the prominent straight-in or straight-back pattern seen in Trouble and most of the other early sound films, in Design we see a relatively greater number of lateral moves, or moves made at an angle. [...]powerful is the classical paradigm that it regulates what may violate it" (81). [...]the case of Lubitsch and Trouble in Paradise suggests one further dimension of the classical paradigm, beyond its capacity to sustain periodic authorial challenges.