ABSTRACT
One of the unique advantages of film is its malleability—its capacity to respond to corrective measures, to create perfect fragments that can be welded into a perfect whole. How ideal—and how impossible. Because, of course, there are a number of limiting factors; the quality of the story, the personalities and talents of the actors, the temperament, skills, and intuition of the director, the competence of the crew, the ability of the film editor, whoever it might be, the time and money available to accomplish the work, and a host of lesser hurdles. One cannot arrive at an equation, construct a theory or even a concept of filmmaking without taking all these variables into account. The difficulty is that there are so few constants to work with.
