WEALTHY SOCIETY WOMAN LEARNS SHE HAS MARRIED BOGUS BARON
Scene (Continued)
Shelburne thoughtful. Mary steals in and places her hand over his eyes. The fact disclosed in the item wiped out all the past that stood between Mary and Shelburne. The library scene was made more natural by the reading of the paper and what followed was inevitable. Neither the sense of the scene nor any conceivable action alone could have told adequately what really transpired. An insert alone filled the purpose.
Perhaps the most effective use of the insert is to establish the premise of the plot, to cover the causes leading up to the opening of the play and possibly the relationship of the characters:
(EXAMPLE 17.) “Dear George:—As I write this I am preparing to run off with the Baron Komiskey. To be frank, I’ve gotten tired of not seeing you take any interest in anything. Forgive your former fiancée,
PETRONELLA.”
In which we see the characters of both Petronella and George laid bare, besides furnishing a motive for George’s change of character and future actions. This insert breaks the first scene.
The theory of breaking scenes with inserts has been discussed and has grounds for objections from an optical point of view only. The argument advanced against their use is based on the persistence of vision with which the eye retains for a considerable period the image of that which has passed before it, obscuring that which follows. This theory would become seriously operative when applied to inserts should we look upon them as extraneous matter—as for example the vaudeville acts that intervene between the parts of the long photoplays produced in many of the variety theaters. But, far from it, the ideal insert is contributory dramatic material that rather precludes a possibility of gaps, jumps or discontinuity of dramatic sequence. The perfect insert emphasizes an otherwise too modest period of action. Optical delusion is a negligible quantity in the face of dramatic illusion, which sweeps everything mechanical before it.
To speak of inserts as explanatory matter is objectionable, because of the natural inference that the story is to be interrupted and the audience button-holed while a formal explanation is inserted. Unless an insert becomes essential interpretive material, quickening the movement of the play and heightening the interest in the story, something must be wrong with the construction. Inserts should be classed with all other forms of essential interpretive material, such as expressive action, gestures and attitudes; logical characters and effective settings; and should be mercilessly dispensed with unless they fulfill a specific mission in carrying the story forward toward an inevitable climax.
The term, close-view, makes a finer distinction, signifying that an object or a portion of it is magnified, or that a close-view of a segment of the action is seen on the screen at close range by itself.