Pictorial Beauty on the Screen

by Victor Oscar Freeburg

A delightful picture in “Barbary Sheep,” directed by Maurice Tourneur, is the view of a flock of sheep moving slowly along from left to right. The animals are so crowded together that the mass as a whole has a textural quality. And yet it is not fixed texture, like that of cloth, because some of the sheep move faster and then again more slowly than the others, and thus, as in the case of the snow flakes, or the crowd in the street, give us a vital stimulus of change within the texture itself.

A somewhat similar sense of rest comes from watching those motions which arise and vanish within some given area of the screen. A cloud of cigarette smoke which floats and coils for a few moments and then fades into nothing, bubbles which rise in a pool and break into faint ripples that finally die on the glassy surface, the blazing and dimming of tones through the photographic device of the “fade-out” and the “fade-in”—all changes of this type we sense vividly as movements, and yet as movements in delightful repose.

At the beginning of this chapter we mentioned the spinning top as an example of motion that had the appearance of being at rest. To a certain extent all circular movement presents that appearance and may be very pleasing on the screen, providing it does not conflict with our desire for fitness and is not allowed to become monotonous. A fly wheel whirling may look like a disk at rest, but it is monotonous and entirely without artistic stimulation. The action within the ring of a circus presents a more stimulating show, and yet it is not quite satisfying as an artistic composition of motion, because we cannot help feeling that it is not natural, that it is unfit for a horse to turn forever within a forty-foot ring. In the æsthetic dance, on the other hand, a circling movement can always be of satisfying beauty, full of graceful vitality and yet delightfully reposeful, too, because it never flies away from its axis fixed within our area of vision.

Now, we cannot recommend that the players of a film story should always be shown running around in circles. And yet their separate actions, gestures and bodily movements in general, may often be so composed that they progress in a circular path, each movement tracing an arc of a circle which nowhere touches the frame of the picture. Such circularity of motions would give unity, balance, and repose. A good example of circularity may be seen in “The Covered Wagon” when the wagon train, just before coming to a halt, divides and swings into two large arcs of a circle, which slowly contract as the wagons turn inward toward a common center.

Another interesting example of circular balance may be seen in “One Arabian Night,” a German photoplay directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The scene is a court yard, viewed from on high. Looking down we see eight or ten servants running inward from all sides to a focal place, where they pile up cushions for the hero and heroine. Then they turn and run outwards to get more cushions. In a few moments they return, and finally they seat themselves in a circle about the central figures. Here is a charming combination of pictorial motion with a natural dramatic by-play, delighting the eye and lingering long as a pleasant motor image in memory. When we analyze this part of the picture we discover that the principle of balancing motions has been applied perfectly. To begin with, the design is kept in balance because the men enter at the same time from opposite directions and approach the center at equal speed. Thus, while they are separate figures moving over symmetrically arranged courses, they also form a circle which gradually contracts about a fixed center. This inward movement of the men is itself balanced by the corresponding outward movement when they go to get more cushions, which is in turn balanced when they come back. Finally this pattern of a circle contracting, expanding, and contracting again, harmonizes perfectly with the fixed circle which is formed when the men seat themselves. There is a further pleasing continuity in the composition when a woman enters the scene and dances over a circular path just within the ring formed by the servants.

To the so-called practical business man, whose artistic experience consists chiefly in drawing dollar signs, it may sound like sheer folly for us spectators to ask a director to spend valuable time in refining the art of pictorial motions by some of the methods above suggested. The money magnate may not realize that even a slight improvement, a delicate touch, may be as important in a picture as in the motor of his touring car. Yet he does know, of course, that in the world of industry the superiority of one article over another may lie in a secret known only to the maker, a secret perhaps never even suspected by the man who sells the article. We should be sorry indeed to lose credit with the man who can draw dollar signs, because we need his co-operation, and we hope, therefore, that he will not long remain blind to the fact that in art the superiority of one article over another may lie in a concealed design so skilfully wrought that neither the spectator nor the man who traffics in the spectator’s pleasure may suspect its presence.

Balanced motions and motions that are limited in area are valuable on the screen, we have said, because they can stimulate the spectator while giving him the satisfaction of repose. We come now to a third characteristic of motions that appear to be at rest, the fact that they are in perfect adjustment with everything else around them. Perfect adjustment means that all of the moving elements of a pictorial composition are at peace with the fixed elements, as well as with each other. It means harmony, the supreme quality of every art.

No other art, not even music, contains so great a number of varied parts as the motion picture. To fuse all of these parts into a single harmonious whole requires knowledge and skill and happy inspiration, yet fusion must take place in the cinema composition itself in order that the spectator may be spared the annoyance of trying to unify in his own mind the ill-adjusted factors on the screen.

The pleasing effect of motions in harmony can be illustrated by something with which we are all familiar from childhood, the display of sky rockets. The spray of stars, flaming up, burning bright lines in the sky, and fading out again into the darkness of night, exhibits a perfect harmony of kinds, directions, and rates of motions, as well as of changes in brightness. We have explained in Chapter III that things moving in similar directions are more pleasing than those crossing in opposite directions because they are easier for the eye to follow. And it is, of course, true that whatever hurts the eyes will probably not seem beautiful. But a picture must please our emotions as well as our eyes. We must feel that it is good, that it is in order, that it obeys some law of harmony. In the case of the sky rocket we do feel that there is unity and not discord, rest and not warfare. Though we may not stop to analyze the matter, we feel that at any one moment all of the burning elements are in perfect agreement, obeying the same law of motion.

Now let us recall some familiar movie subjects, and test them for harmony. A common picture is that of a horse and an automobile racing side by side. Here there is similarity of direction, but there is no similarity of motion. The car glides; the horse bounds. The changing pattern which the horse describes with legs and neck and back and tail finds no parallel in the moving panel of the car. Besides, we feel that there is antagonism between the two. They hate each other. Their histories and destinies are different. They are not in harmony. A much better subject is a huntsman galloping over the countryside with a dog at the horse’s heels. Every action of the one animal is somewhat like every corresponding action of the other animal. One might even say that the horse is a large kind of dog, while the dog is a small kind of horse. And, as they cross the fields in loyalty to the same master, their motions harmonize.