Pictorial Beauty on the Screen

by Victor Oscar Freeburg

Now it may seem a vain task to analyze or try to define so delicate a thing as rhythm, because all of us can be carried away by rhythm without saddling it with a formula. Yet analysis will serve a useful purpose if it can help the director to avoid motions which are not rhythmical and if it can help the thoughtful spectator to fix the blame for the jumble of unrhythmical motions which he now so often sees on the screen.

Suppose we make a few tests upon the horseman coming down the hillside. If he moves in a perfectly straight line at a perfectly steady pace, the action will seem to be a forced, hard effort exerted without variety. No rhythm will be there. But if he moves, even without change of pace, along a path of flowing curves, we will sense a rhythm of direction, providing the horse seems to follow the winding path freely and without undue effort.

If, without change of direction, the horse frequently alters his gait from a gallop to a walk and back to a gallop again in equal periods of time, say half a minute each, it will be apparent that ease and variety are utterly absent from the movement. And even if the horse follows a winding path and changes gait at such regular intervals the rhythm in direction will be neutralized by the lack of rhythm in velocity. If, however, there is a progression of varying directions, varying gaits, and varying durations of time which appear to be spontaneously and easily performed, a progression, moreover, in which both the similarities and the differences of the various phases can instantly be perceived by the spectator, he will immediately experience the emotion of rhythmical movement.

The above example illustrates how a single spot can move rhythmically over the area of a picture. A moving line, say a column of soldiers on the march, may have still more rhythm. We get a hint of this from the “still,” facing [page 133]. It represents a scene from the Metro production of Ibanez’s “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” which was directed by Rex Ingram. We see there that the soldiers describe a path of alternate curves, instead of the straight lines and square corners which a less imaginative director would have ordered. Mr. Ingram has further heightened the rhythm by placing gaps here and there in the main column, and by introducing a secondary movement in the detachment which turns off from the road just before reaching the village. These movements are truly pictorial in composition; yet their meaning is none the less military and dramatic.

In the scene just described the various motions are similar, and the handling of them is therefore comparatively easy. But it is very difficult to make a rhythmical combination of motions which differ widely in character. In “The Dumb Girl of Portici,” for instance, we are shown Pavlowa dancing on the beach, while the stately waves and pounding surf of the ocean fill most of the area of the screen. But there is no rhythm in the combined movements of that picture. The dancer without the sea, or the sea without the dancer, might have been perfectly rhythmical. But when we try to view them together in this photoplay we get only the strong clash between their movements, and we feel no pleasure when shifting our gaze from one to the other.

Perhaps the picture might have been a success if the dancer’s ground had been a bank sufficiently high to mask the severe effect of the surf, yet permitting a view of the incoming waves, and if the stately variety in the movement of the sea had been taken as a key to a sympathetic movement of the dancer. We might then get a harmonious, alternating flow of the two movements, our eyes might play easily from one to the other, and the total pictorial effect might arouse the emotion of rhythm.

In a similar way any of the movements of nature, such as the effect of wind on cloud, or tree, or field of grain; the fall or flow of water; the flight of bird or characteristic movement of beast, movements which, once admitted to the scene, cannot easily be controlled, might be taken as keys in which to play those movements which can be controlled.

Some practical-minded person may suggest that instead of worrying about the composition of “unnecessary” motions, it would be better to omit them. But such a person overlooks the natural human desire for richness in art. We are so constituted that we crave lively emotional activity. We love rich variety, and at the same time we enjoy our ease. When we listen to the music of a pianist we are not satisfied if he plays with only one finger, even though he might thus play the melody correctly, because the melody alone is not rich enough. We want that melody against all its background of music. We want those musical sounds so beautifully related to each other that their harmony may arouse our feelings without unduly straining our attention.

A splendid example of secondary motion may be seen in the light draperies of a dancer. Even in the elementary movement of a few leaps across the stage we see the delicate rhythm of a scarf which is at first retarded by the air, then follows the dancer gracefully, and at last gently overtakes her.

Between the movements of body and scarf there is a charming play. They are pleasantly similar, yet they are pleasantly different. And there is a distinct feeling of progression in the various phases of this similarity and this difference. As spectators we catch this progression without any effort of the intellect and are instantly swept into its rhythm.