So sharp a contrast might have a certain dramatic, stirring effect, like the use of swear words in a prayer; the very hurt might bring a certain thrill. An original and ingenious man, Mr. Griffith, for instance, may choose to show us a close-up of a little girl smiling in wistful innocence, her pretty curls quivering in the light breeze, contrasted suddenly with a reeking flood of soldiers pouring into a city street. Striking? Yes, exactly. The device is so striking that Mr. Griffith himself has learned to use it with restraint. Because once upon a time he composed a photoplay called “Intolerance,” which was so full of striking contrasts that it failed. There were only a few thousand people in the world who could stand the strain of looking at it.
Thus as we analyze the optical aspects of a motion picture we are amazed at the number of things that may conspire to hurt our eyes, and we sympathize more than ever with the sincere cinema composer. He, the new hope of the movies, feels the need of other equipment than a line of talk and a megaphone. He no longer applies for a position in a studio on the strength of his record as an actor, as a stage director, as a city editor, as a college cheer leader, or as a drill sergeant in the army. He has begun to think in pictorial composition and not in words. He is never without his sketching pad and piece of charcoal, because, forsooth, his business is picture making. He makes hundreds of sketches by day, of shapes, and lines, and tones, and he goes over them again and changes them by night. His scenario contains almost as many drawings as words. He knows before he says “Good morning” to his queens and cut-throats just what places and spaces their figures will occupy during the pictorial climaxes, as well as during the movements to, and away from, those climaxes. He sits among miles of films which he cuts, joins, runs through his projecting machine, and cuts and joins again. He knows that pictorial beauty does not come to the screen merely because the camera itself is a wonderful instrument. He knows, what so many critics are beginning to discover, that “the photography” may be excellent in a film, while its pictorial composition is atrocious. He knows first and last and always that, unless he makes his photoplay fundamentally pleasing to the eyes of the spectator, he can never give it the magic power of graphic art.
CHAPTER IV
PICTORIAL FORCE IN FIXED PATTERNS
Frequently while a director is rehearsing a photoplay scene he will sing out the command, “Hold it!” indicating thereby that the player has struck an attitude, or the players have woven themselves into a pattern, which is so expressive and beautiful that it deserves to be held for several seconds. What the camera then records will be shown on the screen as a striking pictorial moment, and, while it lasts, will appear as fixed as a painting.
But it is a peculiar psychological fact that such pictorial moments seem to occur in every movement, whether the actors have paused or not, the spectator seeing and remembering these arrested moments as though they were fixed pictures. This peculiar fact, that we remember fixed moments among continuous movements, has been discussed at some length in Chapter III of “The Art of Photoplay Making,” and will, therefore, not be dwelt upon here. However, a single example may illustrate what we mean. Suppose we watch a diver stepping out upon a high springboard and diving into a pool. The whole feat is, of course, a movement without pause from beginning to end; yet our eyes will somehow arrest one moment as the most interesting, the most pictorial. It may be the moment when the diver is about midway between the springboard and the water, a moment when the body seems to float strangely upon the air. We are not unaware of the other phases of the dive, yet this particular moment impresses us; to it we apply our fine appraisal of form.
Similarly in a motion picture theater we unconsciously select moments from the action before us. These fleeting moments which fix themselves, so to speak, demand practically the same work (or shall we call it play?) from our eyes and minds as the momentarily fixed pictures which the director sometimes demands. At such times the whole pattern on the screen becomes as static as a painting, and its power or weakness, its beauty or lack of beauty, may be appreciated much as one would appreciate a design in a painting.
A painting enchants the beholder, not only by its color, but also by its lines and pattern. The peculiar power which resides in the arrangement of lines and masses has been studied by art critics for hundreds of years, and many of the principles which they have discovered might well be recalled by us in judging those moments of a motion picture which may be viewed as fixed designs. And what we learn by making such applications will help us greatly toward a better understanding of the beauty of pictorial motions on the screen.
By what visual processes do we grasp the meaning of a picture? What happens when we first look at the picture? And what happens as we continue looking? The answers, as nearly as can be ascertained, are as follows. When we face a picture our eyes first glance at some spot or region which is more attractive than all others, and then proceed to explore the whole picture, ranging over all of its parts, and returning again to the center of attraction. In certain compositions this whole tour of inspection may be accomplished in one trip, and may be repeated at will, while in other compositions the inspection may require various side trips away from the center of interest to the outlying districts and back again. Of course, we are not aware that our eyes are doing all these things when we are at the movies, but that is what happens, just the same.
These visual processes take place in an exceedingly short time, usually only a fraction of a second, but they are real physical processes, nevertheless, subject to the laws of physical comfort and fatigue, and capable of being tested by the ordinary laws of physical efficiency.