The secret of all dramatic effects is emotional impression on the audience. To endure, such an impression must contain a big dramatic idea; one that involves an emotional experience that, under the given circumstances, might happen to anybody anywhere. Love, Sacrifice, Honor, Reconciliation, Re-union and Retribution are a few of the great themes that never fail to stir the hearts of audiences the world over. The success of the photoplaywright lies in his dramatic skill and originality in weaving new situations from old relationships.
Addison’s statement of the nature and qualifications of drama still stands: “First, there must be one action; secondly, it must be an entire action; thirdly, it must be a great action.”
Melodrama is pure drama exaggerated. The hero and the heroine are very, very good; the villain and the adventuress are very, very bad; their manner is extraordinarily violent; their method is to startle both the audience and each other by their actions and deeds; all emotion with them is passion; they accomplish superhuman tasks and are generally untrue to all conception of real life. Daring spectacle is one of their favorite resources.
Actions are only the Alphabet of Drama, which must be spelt into critical Words of Emotion and coherent Sentences of Suspense before they express Deeds—the common Language and Bond of all human heart Interest.
CHAPTER II
Dramatic Expression
THE LAWS OF MOVEMENT AND ACTION; CHARACTER AND MOTIVE; RELATION TO AUDIENCE AND CHARACTER; DRAMATIC VERSUS DYNAMIC; REALISM, ROMANTICISM AND IDEALISM.
IN drama we make no attempt to reproduce facts, but to induce reality. Illusion is all things. The dramatist deliberately sets about to make the hour that an audience gives to seeing his play become one of the greatest events in their emotional history. He does not merely imitate or mimic life, he lives the life, and then, thru his dramatic and technical skill—or Art—translates it into such familiar terms that all who see can understand.
Strictly speaking, action is but the external conduct of the characters, or actors. Great danger lies in the playwright’s failure to understand and appreciate the marked difference between movement and action. Movement is the internal undercurrent of real dramatic progression. That actors come and go rapidly across the screen, or that their actions shall be violent or punctuated with gestures, is not by any means sufficient. Actions must express and portray an internal struggle with which the audience is in sympathetic understanding. There must be an underlying emotional meaning for every prominent action that is displayed on the screen. Thus the dramatic element is perceived by the audience thru its effect upon the characters and their consequent actions. This is called motive, as well as movement; it begins and continues in the guise of cumulative insinuations from the very first scene, reaching its full stage of development in the climax. This requires the most skillful and technical execution on the part of the playwright, who must throw his whole soul into it without once showing his hand. In other words, dramatic effects must come about as naturally as the normal actions of the characters. Too often photoplays are nothing more than a series of continued pictures, anyone or more of which might be cut out without affecting the final scene. To the contrary, drama is a living thing, and amputation will either maim, or mar, or kill it outright.
(EXAMPLE 66.) A single scene from a play in which a girl who has discovered and developed a talent in a man is thrown off by him in the moment of his triumph, shows the difference between Movement and Action: (Action) Forbes is standing in the center of the room, the lion of the hour; ladies crowding around him in excited contest; one seems to get the major share of attention. (Movement) Alica, the heroine, enters with joy and pride on her face; steps forward to shake his hand; at first he pretends he does not know her; then accompanies his handshake with a curt nod; turning away almost rudely to the other woman.... Showing that the chief difference lies in action affecting the character and movement affecting the audience.