Pictorial Beauty on the Screen

by Victor Oscar Freeburg

Such cluttering is common on the screen because of the many movie directors who either are afraid of simplicity, or lack the skill which is necessary to make complexity appear simple. In the scene just mentioned the safest course would be to leave out the waterfall, however much of a natural wonder it may be, and to let the bare cliff serve as the entire background for the Indian dance. But if this cannot be done because of the peculiar demands of the plot, then the picture might be balanced by introducing some additional motion in the right half, say a column of smoke rising from a camp fire. Thus even the careful addition of a new element would tend to bring unity and restfulness into the arrangement of parts. Just visualize that composition, the whitish water falling on one side, and the light gray smoke rising on the other, and you will feel a peculiar restful balance which could never be obtained by a mechanical pairing of two waterfalls or two columns of smoke.

As critics searching for beauty on the screen, we might even carry our demand for pictorial balance still farther. In some other picture we might demand that there be motions in the upper part of the composition to balance those in the lower part. To be sure, we would hardly look for such balance in a stage play, or in an ordinary cinema scene where the camera “shoots” in a level line, because in ordinary every-day life we see more motion near the bottom of our view than anywhere in the upper levels. Besides it is natural that weights should be kept low; any object is more likely to be in equilibrium when its center of gravity is low. But when we are shown a motion picture which has been made with the camera pointing downward, so that a level thing, like a plain or the surface of the sea, appears standing on end, then we like to see the points of interest so distributed that the various parts of the screen seem to be proportionally filled. Thus in a motion picture of a lake taken from a high cliff we are not pleased to see moving objects, boats, swans, etc., only in that area of the picture which comes near the lower edge of the frame. We realize instantly that the objects are not actually above or below each other in the air. And we forget, therefore, that the screen is really in a vertical plane and think of it rather as we would of a map lying before us. In fact, if there are swans in the near part of the lake view, then the distant surface of the lake will not appear to sink back into its proper level unless it bears some balancing weight and value, say, two or three small boats under sail.

However, even the best of balancing in a separate scene cannot insure a balance between that scene and the next one. Directors are often tempted to make shots from odd angles, straight up or straight down, and to scatter them through a film, showing, for example, a skyscraper lying down, or a city street standing on end. But the resulting series of scenes does not make a composition pleasing to the eye. It gives the effect of wabbling. Even if these oblique views show no moving things whatsoever, their combined effect is the opposite of restfulness.

Returning now to the subject of balance in separate scenes, we may consider depth, the third dimension of a cinema subject. This dimension is usually far greater than either the height or the breadth of that space which the camera measures off for us. And it is interesting to see what problems the cinema composer has in relating motions in the third dimension to those in the other dimensions of the picture. He often finds it hard, for instance, to compensate in the background for the movements in the foreground, without destroying the dramatic emphasis. The usual trouble in the movies is that, when the dramatic interest is in the foreground, the motions in the background nevertheless draw so much of our attention to that region that the picture becomes too heavy in the rear; while, on the other hand, if the dramatic interest is in the background, the motions in the foreground nevertheless become so heavy that the front of the picture falls into our faces.

These are common faults; yet they may be avoided by foresight and ingenuity. In the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” Rex Ingram reveals a sure sense of proportion in his control of the marching soldiers. If you turn to the “still” of a village scene from this photoplay, facing [page 133], you will get a suggestion of the equilibrium which is obtained for a time, at least, between the motions in various regions of the picture.

From The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The arrangement in this scene has interesting balance between the right and left halves of the picture, as well as between the foreground and the background, and there is a vigorous rhythm in the moving columns of soldiers. See [pages 120] and [132].

Let us say that the foreground of that scene extends from the camera to the cavalryman, that the middle ground is that area which is occupied by the buildings, and that the background is all the region which lies beyond the ruined tower. This picture has many distances, and yet they fuse together into a single composition. Equilibrium is maintained by the fact that the scattering figures near the fountain weigh against the marching soldiers to the left in the foreground, while the two sides find a center of balance in the quiet horseman and the three persons to whom he is talking. In the middle ground the same care has been shown, for the soldiers first swing to their left, past the tower, and then execute a balancing movement to their right. In the background there is a balance between those forces which are executing a “column right” and those which are proceeding down into the village street. And if we take the background of the picture as against the foreground, we shall find a balancing point in the narrowest part of the street. No undue attention is attracted to either side of this point, but the whole sweep of interest from front to back, or from back to front, is continuous and even. There is plenty of military movement here amid evidences of terrific bombardment, and yet, because of the artistic composition of the picture, we get from it all a momentary sense of repose, as though war itself were at rest.

Several details in this “still” are worth noting. For example, the comparatively few figures in the right side of the foreground are given additional weight by the whiteness of costume, as against the gray of the soldiers. Another interesting thing is the balance between the line described by the leading company of soldiers and the line of tree tops on the wooded hill, which begins near the upper right hand corner and extends to the castle. This relation can be clearly seen by holding the “still” upside down.

The reader must keep in mind, of course, that in a “still” the arrested motion has not the same weight as the actual motion on the screen, and consequently the fixed things get more than their share of weight. Therefore in this “still” from “The Four Horsemen” the jagged holes in the buildings attract more attention than they do on the screen, where the movement of the soldiers and civilians brings the whole composition into balance.