Pictorial Beauty on the Screen

by Victor Oscar Freeburg

Some of the “stills” in this book give a hint of the sharp contrasts in the inferior films, but it is only a hint, because the white portions in those illustrations can be no whiter than the paper of the page, which is dull in comparison with the blaze on the screen. The movie theater is the best place to verify the theories which we are here trying to explain in words. Go to the movies. Whenever you find that you enjoy the films thoroughly, then by all means do not stop to analyze or criticise. If you enjoy any particular film so much that you are sure you would like to see it two or three times every year for the rest of your life, you may be happy, for you have discovered one of the classics of the screen. Do not analyze that film either, unless you are in the business of making pictures. But if a film makes you uncomfortable, or if it is so bad that you are quite disgusted with it, then, though you must become a martyr to do it, please stay and see it again. Compare the good parts of the film, if there are any, with the bad parts; study it in detail until you see where the trouble lies. And when you have discovered the real causes of ugliness in that film, wouldn’t it be a public service to express your opinion in such a way that the manager of your theater might hear it?

Thus far in this chapter we have discussed only a single operation of the eye, namely, the expanding and contracting of the pupils under the effect of darkness and brightness, but it is easy to understand now how such an apparently slight thing may seriously affect our enjoyment of the movies. Let the reader, when he is next displeased by a picture, test it for sharpness of contrast between white and black. He will probably not have to seek further for explanation of its ugliness.

Another operation which the eye-machine performs is the accommodation to color. It is somewhat similar to the accommodation to distance, which we shall describe, if the reader will help us by making an experiment. Close one eye and look steadily with the other at an object across the room. Now, without changing your gaze, hold up your finger in line with this object and about a foot away from your eye. The outline of the finger will be indistinct as long as you keep the eye focused on the remote object. Now, still keeping one eye shut, look at your finger until you can see the little ridges on it. The eye has changed its focus, and the remote object is now indistinct. What happens is that the lens within the eye changes its shape, bulging more for near objects and flattening again for distant objects. This work of the eye, called accommodation, is done by certain delicate muscles. A little of it may be stimulating, but too much will make the eyes tired.

Now it is a strange thing that certain colors affect the eyes in the same way as distances. Painters knew this fact for hundreds of years before the scientists were able to explain the reason. They knew that blue seemed farther away than red, and arranged the colors in their paintings accordingly. All artists have learned the trick, even some of our commercial artists, who make advertising posters for street cars. Blue makes the background fall back; red makes a figure stand forward. The reason for this illusion is that when the eye looks at red it adjusts itself exactly as if it were looking at a near object, and thus deceives the brain, so to speak; and when it looks at blue it adjusts itself as if it were looking at a distant object and again deceives the brain. Or, to state the fact more completely, a color from the red end of the color scale (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) seems nearer to the eye than one from the violet end, even though the colors are all placed equally distant from the eye.

Now we shall see that, although these effects of color are useful in a painting, they may be harmful in a motion picture. When we behold a painting in which colors ranging from red to yellow are contrasted with colors ranging from violet to blue, we may, indeed, get a pleasant sensation of the eye because of the stimulating activity in the work of accommodation. There is to most people a distinct pleasure, for example, in shifting the gaze from orange-yellow to blue, because those colors are felt to be “complementary.” But it must be remembered that the circumstances of looking at a painting are entirely different from those of looking at a motion picture.

Two differences are especially notable. The first difference is that when we look at a painting we ourselves are practically the choosers of when and how long to look at any spot, line, shape, or color. In other words, we ourselves practically decide on how much and what kind of work our eyes shall do; but when we look at a motion picture we never know at any instant what we may be called upon to do the next instant. That makes us nervous. We need to be constantly braced for the shock and, if we are not so braced, we must suffer when the shock comes.

The second difference is that everything in a painting is always actually at rest, while nearly everything in a motion picture is always in motion. If a painting, which does not move in any of its parts, can suggest movement to our imagination, or can make our eyes perform actual movements of vision, such movements, actual and imaginary, are pleasantly stimulating. The eyes enjoy the natural activity of their work, and we feel that there is life in the painting. But the motion picture, by its very nature, has as much life as it needs. It naturally gives the eyes all the work they can stand. Hence, if they need any stimulating change at all, it is rather the change from movement to repose.

Now let us go to the movie theater. Very likely before the show is over we shall be treated to a rapid shifting from the blue of some exterior scene in the moonlight to the orange-yellowish glow of some interior scene in lamplight. Our eyes, therefore, must accommodate their lenses to one of these colors again and again, only to receive a sudden demand for accommodation to the other color. We have no choice in the matter except to get up and go out. Our eyes, already busy enough, do not need the stimulation of any more activity, and our minds, already active enough, would prefer the relief of something more reposeful.

If the director must have this shifting from blue to orange to blue, etc., he might, at least, give us some warning, some softening of the shock, so to speak. For example, if there is to be a sudden shift from a yellowish lamp-light scene to a bluish night scene, a hint might be given by attracting our attention to a window, through which the blue of night is shown. And similarly in a bluish night scene our attention might be attracted toward the warm glow from a door or window as a warning that the next scene is to be flooded with that color. Thus in either case we would have a chance to prepare our eyes for the shift, and we would sense a better continuity of movement.

The subject of color in the movies will be discussed again in following chapters. It may be remarked in passing that, since color movies are still highly experimental, it is only to be expected that mistakes of many kinds will be made. Doubtless the leading directors can be trusted to learn from experience. Yet it behooves us who sit in the theaters to be as disapproving of new faults as we are exultant over new beauties.