J. Stuart Blackton.
The coarse passion of the Crowd constitutes “What the public wants” in the way of productions; the refined emotion of the artist must discipline, guide and gratify it by his appealing creations.
FOREWORD
WRITERS of fiction and dramatic literature have been less apt to respond to the call of a new literary vocation, than a world-wide public has been ready to flock to the appeal of a new dramatic art.
A wonderful event has come to pass in the annals of dramatic literature thru the development of cinematography. So wonderful indeed was this new addition to the art of effective dramatic expression, that even after a decade of existence, scarcely a dozen successful writers of literature had realized its potentiality and had allied themselves with the new drama.
The public’s first recognition of cinematography was as a novel diversion. People flocked to see these presentations that crudely reproduced not merely static likenesses, but moving realities, just as they had appeared before the camera. In those early days only the elemental reproduction of moving objects was attempted. The photography was miserable; the presentation itself a blurred, eye-racking ordeal.
Luckily for the waning novelty, the possibilities for the trick picture were suddenly realized and cinematography took on a new lease of life. But once the wonder, amazement and speculation that surrounded the unnatural phenomena of these animated photographs wore off, they became deadly monotonous for the mature mind. Once again cinematography hovered near the abyss of oblivion.
Something significant, however, had transpired: the trick picture had blundered, as it were, into the realms of misadventure and laughter. Slap-stick farce supplemented and finally succeeded the trick picture. Cinematography as an entertainment acquired a tremendous commercial impetus immediately. In less than a year the puling infant became a healthy youngster, and the five-cent theater began to take its rightful place as “the poor man’s playhouse.”
Thus we have arrived at the beginnings of a need for a literature to provide for the screen portrayals. What had previously been the device of a moment or the conception of an hour, on the part of some ingenious—or ingenuous—director, together with the combined aid of all concerned, now became a matter of serious consideration in order more nearly to meet and to co-operate with the mechanical requirements of length of film, speed of operation and duration of projection. All products were “home-spun” and in no way belied their crude sources. In a very short while it was discovered that there were surprisingly few funny ideas and situations in real life. The comedy personalities of clever actors were worked to death trying to put something new into old, frowsy and threadbare saws.
But a world-old, child-young desire had been awakened. The now vast audiences wanted to be told a story—logical, dramatic, gripping, living! They did not quite realize—as they never do—what they were clamoring for, and the producers had paused aghast, as tho conscious of the new and Silent Drama that stood at that moment on the threshold of cinematography.