An Observation from Comrade Pudovkin

"Remember the early days of the cinema, when directors were afraid to cut up the visual movement on the screen, and how Griffith's introduction of the close up was misunderstood and by many labelled an unnatural and consequently inadmissible method. Audiences in those days even cried WHERE ARE THEIR LEGS!!?"

from FILM TECHNIQUE AND FILM ACTING, by V.I. Pudovkin, 1929, Moscow