ABSTRACT
Before the advent of film schools most of the terms used by theorists and academicians were quite unknown to the great majority of Hollywood filmmakers. Buster Keaton, one of comedy’s greatest technicians, never learned the rules of grammar, let alone the principles of cinematic syntax. And even today expressions like parallel action, separation, multi-angularity, Z-axis, and more than a few of their kin are rarely heard on a set or in a cutting room.* But they do serve a purpose; they point to the fact that a great deal of what is considered to be the art of the cinema has little to do with substance or performance,- the maxims of the art are discovered primarily through study of the film editing process.
