Pictorial Beauty on the Screen

by Victor Oscar Freeburg

A peculiar type of visible motion is that which we have elsewhere called “moving texture.” Examples in nature are the changing texture of falling snow, the stately coiling of clouds, and the majestic weaving of ice floes in a river. In the movies the effect of moving texture is produced whenever the elements of the subject are so many and so small that we view them rather as a surface than as a design or pattern. It may be seen, not only in subjects from nature, but also in such things as a mob of people or a closely packed herd of cattle viewed from a high position. Mr. Griffith has a good eye and taste for the composition of moving textures, and has furnished interesting examples in nearly all of his larger productions.

Now let us see how far we have gone. We have defined four different types of pictorial motion, namely, the moving spot, the moving line, the moving pattern, and the moving texture. They may appear singly or grouped. For example, in a picture of the old-fashioned water wheel we have a combination of the moving line of the stream with the moving pattern of the wheel. And in a picture of a small motor boat, seen from afar, speeding over a lake the composition contains a moving spot, the changing pattern of the wake, and the changing texture of the water. If we add to this picture a long train on the bank, trailing a ribbon of smoke, an airplane in the sky, and a sailing yacht on the lake, we have a subject which is difficult indeed to analyze, and infinitely more difficult to compose into pictorial beauty. Yet those are the very kinds of motion which a motion picture director must compose in every scene that he “shoots.”

But we have not yet completed our analysis of the nature of pictorial motion. It has still another property, which we shall call “changing tonal value.” Changing tonal value depends upon changes in the amount and kind of light which falls upon the subject, and upon changes in the surface of the subject itself. For example, the shadow of a cloud passing over a landscape gives a slightly different hue to every grove or meadow, to every rock or road. To watch these values come and go is one of the delights of the nature lover.

Nature’s supreme example of the beauty of changing values may be seen in a sunset playing with delicate splendor on sea and sky. And if this beauty defies the skill of painters it is because they have no means of representing the subtle changes which run through any particular hue as the moments pass by.

The beauty of a sunset may long, perhaps forever, elude the cinematograph, but this machine can produce tonal changes in black and white at the will of the operator by the familiar trick of “fading in” and “fading out.” This camera trick is of great service for dramatic effects, such as the dissolving of one picture into another; but it has a greater power, which has not always been appreciated and taken advantage of by directors, the power of producing for the eye a pictorial rhythm of tonal intensities. This effect is somewhat like the “crescendo” and “diminuendo” in music.

From The Covered Wagon. Distinctive rhythm of moving lines, interesting changes in pictorial pattern, and harmonious play of light and shade are skillfully used in this photoplay to intensify its dramatic meaning. See [pages 9], [66] and [140].

When we consider that changing tonal value may be combined with changing direction, as well as with changing velocity, of moving spots, moving lines, moving patterns, and moving textures, we realize more keenly the problems of the cinema composer. His medium is at once extremely complex, extremely flexible, and extremely delicate.

But we have not yet revealed all of the strange qualities of the motion picture. A unique power of the screen, which can never be utilized by any other graphic art, is that which gives motion to things that are themselves absolutely at rest and immovable. Even the pyramids of Egypt can be invested with apparent motion, so that their sharp lines flow constantly into new patterns. It can be done by simply moving the camera itself while the film is being exposed. The appeal of apparent motion in natural setting is familiar to any one who has ever gazed dreamily from the window of a railroad car or from the deck of a yacht sailing among islands. Apparent motion on the screen makes a similar appeal, which can be enhanced by changing distance and point of view and by artistic combination with real motions in the picture.

Still other fresh means of pleasing the eye may be found in the altering of natural motions, as by the retarding action of the slow-motion camera, which can make a horse float in the air like a real Pegasus; or by the cinematographic acceleration of motion which can out-rival an Indian conjuror in making a tree rise, blossom, and bear fruit while you are watching.