Francisco Ayala: Cinematic techniques in literature

Abstract:

Spanish writer Francisco Ayala’s book, Cazador en el alba (Hunter in the Dawn, 1930), takes

inspiration from the new phenomenon of cinema that was so popular in the 1930s. In keeping

with the avant-garde style of the time, Ayala’s book pushes the boundaries of literature through

the incorporation of cinematic techniques into his writing. The study of “Hora muerta”, “Polar,

estrella” and “Cazador en el alba”, three stories from the book, demonstrates how profoundly

cinematic ideology has penetrated Ayala’s style and emphasises the long-reaching

consequences that the invention of cinema caused in the art world. This results in a graphic and

captivating style that actively pushes the reader to visualise the written word.

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Francisco Ayala and the generation of ’27 found themselves in an era in which many

technological changes took place. Cinema, without doubt, was one of the most important

developments for the art world, allowing people to create things that were not previously

possible. We therefore see many examples of how this phenomenon influenced literature at the

time in both content and style. Miguel Pérez Ferrero wrote of Ayala’s work that “La narración

se ha escrito […] con técnica de cinema” and by looking at “Hora muerta”, “Cazador en el

alba” and “Polar, estrella” it can be seen how cinematic techniques are used to a great extent

throughout the texts.

The aim of the avant-garde was to break with tradition and create something new. All

three of the stories that are to be focused on are written in an unusual style which invites the

reader to really visualise the events of the book and uses cinematic style to disorientate and

encourage a new perspective. The very substance of the stories is either cinematically based, as

in “Polar, estrella,” or focuses on a somnambulistic story where cinematic style serves to

enhance the form of the narrative, as in “Cazador en el alba.” Román Gubern wrote that

“Cazador en el alba está diseñado como la transcripción literaria de un film visto en la pantalla

o imaginado en la mente.”1 In relation to this, the texts contain a lot of film terminology used at

the time such as au ralenti or écran. Ayala uses parenthesis and short, staccato sentences to

represent changes of scene or jump shots in the story, for example, “Transición.”2 These

stylistic devices are only the beginning of the techniques employed to create the unique form of

the texts and, as will be studied in the following essay, Ayala uses many other techniques that

make them read like a film script, not traditional literature.

Gubern quotes Oscar Barrero Pérez’s statement: “muchas de sus páginas parecen estar

filmadas al mismo tiempo que son escritas, como si el narrador estuviera provisto de pluma en

una mano y cámara en otra” (Gubern, pp.131-132). This is demonstrated in “Cazador en el

alba” when the doctor’s advance to Antonio’s bed is described: “El rostro del médico

avanzaba, todo raso, impecable, como el anuncio de un jabón de afeitar. Se fue acercando,

hasta asomarse al suyo, pálido, con el ademán de quien se asoma a un estanque” (Ayala, p.19).

Reminiscent of a close-up or a zoom shot, this description gives the reader the impression that

the character that is gradually nearing the camera. The point of the story in which Antonio

1 Román Gubern. Proyector de luna. La generación del 27 y el cine. Barcelona: Anagrama, 1999, p.131. All future

references to the book - hereafter abbreviated to Gubern - will be to this edition, with the corresponding page number

indicated in brackets. 2 Francisco Ayala. Cazador en el alba. Madrid: Alianza, 2002, p.90. All future references to the book - hereafter

abbreviated to Ayala - will be to this edition, with the corresponding page number indicated in brackets.

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looks at Aurora’s body also demonstrates this point: “Su expresión genuina se había disipado

de la cara, y vagaba por todo su cuerpo, como un ave fatigada que no encuentra dónde posarse:

a veces, insinuada en una rodilla; a veces, temblando en un pecho” (Ayala, p.41). The reader is

shown, as if it were being filmed, how the camera would represent Antonio’s gaze travelling

over Aurora: only one part is described at a time as if it were progressing through the different

frames on screen.

This is seen in “Hora muerta” as well, when the reader’s attention is brought to Anita’s

socks, demonstrating a close-up, focusing intensely on one part of the image rather than the

whole picture: “Anita – de blanco – saltando a la comba. Calcetines a rayas: ondas

eléctricas…” (Ayala, p.76). Another example is found in “Polar, estrella,” when the protagonist

looks at the negatives of the film: “el rostro de Polar en gran plano, gustando matices

insignificantes en la escala micrométrica de su sonrisa” (Ayala, pp. 88-89). This creates the

impression that the face of Polar is filling the whole screen, giving the reader the notion of a

cinematic shot, rather than being written from the point of view of a character or a narrator.

The idea of drawing attention to the framing of images in the texts creates a very strong

connection to the cinema as it makes the reader think of the story on screen. Many different

objects are used throughout the three texts to create the feeling of the frame of a shot, for

instance, the depiction of the landscape at the start of “Polar, estrella,” where the window is

used as an outline: “Pasaban por la cristalera nubes peregrinas, desdoblándose con lentitud de

colchas” (Ayala, p.87). The description of Polar when she is called a “sirena en la orilla del

espejo” (Ayala, p.91), uses the mirror as a frame for the shot and, in “Cazador en el alba,” it is

again a window that creates the outline of the scene: “Dentro del marco de la ventana se veía su

cabeza, planeta fiel alrededor de la bombilla” (Ayala, p.37). These constant reminders of the

screen create the overall impression that the stories are filmed rather than just written.

C.G Morris states that Ayala, at the start of “Hora muerta,” is: “Emulating the technique

of the panning, panoramic shot, he picked out the salient physical features of the city as it spun

like a globe before his bewildered gaze.”3 The section, as described above, reads very much

like the transcription of a film sequence: “Estación. Pista. Fábrica. Velódromo. Universidad.

Circo. Gimnasio. Cine” (Ayala, p.74). The reader finds themself envisaging the idea of the

protagonist spinning and, seen from the point of view of that character, or the camera that

3 C.B. Morris. This Loving Darkness:. The Cinema and Spanish Writers 1920-1936. University of Hull / OUP, 1980,

p.147. All future references to the book - hereafter abbreviated to Morris - will be to this edition, with the corresponding

page number indicated in brackets.

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would film it, the image comes alive. Later on in the text, the introduction of the various

characters in the city follows this style of writing: although described one after the other, there

is no interaction between them and each one is described individually (Ayala, pp.74-76). This

again creates a cinematic style of writing as it is reminiscent of a jump-cut sequence, as seen

through the eyes of the camera, and only for the eyes of the audience, to set the scene for the

story.

Time is an important aspect which Ayala manipulates in the stories, another cinematic

technique as it was films that created the idea of slow-motion and freeze-frame. Gubern says

that “Hora Muerta utilizaba sorprendentemente, además, el efecto de inversión

cinematográfica del movimiento al escribir” (Gubern, p.90). All three stories contain

references to the immobility of time, illustrated in “Cazador en el alba,” when Ayala describes:

“Las horas elásticas, los minutos, se alargaban hasta lograr delgadeces increíbles” (Ayala,

p.21), which creates an effect similar to slow motion. The same thing is found in “Polar,

estrella” when again time is described as slowing down: “Le subían los segundos por el alma,

como hormigas, y provocaban frecuente parpadeo” (Ayala, p.88). Ayala even uses

freeze-frame in “Cazador en el alba” when he says: “De pronto, todo quedó inmóvil, parado.

(Un film que se corta.)” (Ayala, p.24). Here we have a direct reference to film as an explanation

for the nature of the description, reinforcing even further the connection to the cinema world.

According to Morris, “In 1929 Ayala enthused about the writer’s chance to create ‘a

beautiful mosaic’ and illustrated the inexhaustible permutations of images on the screen by

visualising ‘a dawn alongside a twilight; a snatch of music next to a woman’s arm; the image of

a bottle next to the sensation of perfume’” (Morris, p.142). The most obvious case of this is in

“Cazador en el alba” when Antonio’s perception of the world is described: “Pero el presente se

componía de dos planos cinematográficos: un gran plano con el rostro de Aurora y, a través de

él, todo el paisaje en movimiento” (Ayala, p.48). It is split into a montage of foreground and

background, a technique undoubtedly inspired by the overlay of image upon image found in the

cinema. There are other instances of this in “Cazador en el alba,” such as the description of

what Antonio sees: “sus descabalados trozos de film, desplegó ante su vista sus catálogos y le

ofreció a prueba sus mercancías” (Ayala, p.18). Again, Ayala uses direct reference to film as

part of the description of the changing images running over the “screen.”

“Hora muerta” demonstrates this point when the protagonist, whilst looking at

something in the present, sees it in relation to his past: “Y hasta se producen escenas de

sugestión rural: ese mecánico – tendido en el suelo – que agota la ubre de su automóvil” (Ayala,

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p.74). This description portrays the two things to be as one, as if it were a dissolve in a film.

When the protagonist’s tears change into roses, it again shows a dissolve in cinematic terms:

“Mis lágrimas – florecidas – saltaron de alegría sobre un plato. Seis rosetas” (Ayala, p.79).

A key part in the text “Polar, estrella,” which is loaded with cinematic technique and

use of superimposed images is when the protagonist commits suicide. Morris states that “the

cinema stage-manages his death in the same way as it had warped his life; […] by recounting in

cinematic terms his climb and his leap to his death” (Morris, p.150). Firstly, Ayala describes

the protagonist’s view of the city as if it were superimposed with scenery from a film set: “La

cuidad le iba cuajando paisajes de cine en planos superpuestos” (Ayala, p.95). The description

of his trip to the bridge continues with the change of the setting from colour to black and white:

“Los colores se apagaban, unos en dirección al negro, otros al blanco” (Ayala, p.95). Both of

these techniques would have been some of the new developments seen in cinema at the time

and are used to bring a film-like quality to the scene. Continuing the account, his fall from the

bridge demonstrates the different angles that a camera would film from and is also in slow

motion: “El dios del cinema tenía dispuesta su caída au ralenti […] Horizontal. Vertical.

Inclinado. Los pies deivergentes. Atrás, los brazos de nadador…” (Ayala, p.95). This whole

section is heavily layered with cinematic technique used to create the notion of a cinematic

sequence.

The style in which the sounds are described in the texts creates the impression that they

are also from a film. Instead of in depth description the reader is told there are sounds but

without further development: “Cables musicales” and “Ruidos” are found in “Hora muerta”

(Ayala, p.74). Further on, his descriptions of sounds created by the characters, “Yo respiraba

con fatiga de locomotora” (Ayala, p.84), create the impression of sound without actually

stating that it is there. Another example is found in “Polar, estrella” when the protagonist hears

music: “Oyó caer un torrente de música escandalosa, húmeda y sentimental.”(Ayala, p.92) All

of these moments form the same idea of a soundtrack in the texts as there would be in a film.

In conclusion, Ayala undeniably employs many different cinematic techniques in his

texts “Hora muerta,” “Cazador en el alba” and “Polar, estrella.” Through the use of close-ups,

zoom, jump cuts and camera angles, as well as carefully chosen vocabulary to frame the stories

as if they were filmed, the author succeeds in creating a new form of literature that, for the

reader, captivates the essence of cinema in text form.

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Bibliography

Ayala, Francisco. Cazador en el alba. Madrid: Alianza, 2002.

Gubern, Román. Proyector de luna: La generación del 27 y el cine. Barcelona:

Anagrama, 1999.

Morris, Cyril Brian. This Loving Darkness: The Cinema and Spanish Writers

1920-1936. University of Hull / OUP, 1980.