Pictorial Beauty on the Screen

by Victor Oscar Freeburg

There would be unity of a similar kind in a picture of an automobile and a railroad train racing on parallel roads. Although they are two separate machines, their motions fuse into one thing, which we call a race. If the roads are not perfectly parallel but swing slowly away from and toward each other again, we get a pleasing rhythm of motions, yet, because the directions and speeds are similar, the unity still remains.

But if we imagine the train dashing by a farmstead where a Dutch windmill sweeps its large arms slowly around, we would feel again a lack of unity between the two kinds of motions. The impression upon our minds would be confused; it would not be a single impression, because the moving objects show two different kinds of patterns, with rates of speed that are not sufficiently alike to be grasped as a unity. A better picture would be that of an old Dutch mill on the bank of a river whose sluggish waters flow wearily by. Perhaps even an old steamboat with a large paddle wheel might be so introduced that the revolutions and patterns of the two wheels would be similar, while the forward thrusts of the boat and the current would also be similar, all four movements blending together into a single harmony, like the music of four different instruments in an orchestra.

The orchestration of motions is, in fact, the proper work of the cinema composer. If he cannot control the objects which move before him, he is in as bad a way as the director of an orchestra who cannot make the musicians do his bidding. We can sympathize with the movie director, because some of the things he wants to bring into a picture are not so easily controlled as musicians. One can talk to a fiddler, but one cannot waste time talking to a brook or to a Dutch windmill. However, if a windmill will not behave itself, it can be dismissed no less promptly than a fiddler.

The average photoplay seen in the theaters to-day could undoubtedly be improved by retaking it with at least half of the material omitted from every scene. The simplicity thus obtained would help to give a more unified effect, would be less of a strain on the eyes, and would require less effort of the mind. But simplicity is worshiped by only a few of our best directors. The average director who is asked to film a scene of a country girl in a barnyard, a scene in which simplicity itself should predominate, will produce a conglomeration of chickens fluttering, ducks waddling, calves frisking, a dog trotting back and forth, wagging his tail and snapping his jaws, gooseberry bushes shaking in the wind (always the wind), a brook rippling over pebbles, and, somewhere in the center of the excitement, the girl herself, scattering corn from her basket while her skirts flap fiercely about her knees. From such a picture the spectator goes out into the comparative quiet of crowded Broadway with a sigh of relief, thankful that he does not have to live amid the nerve-wracking scenes of a farm.

When we insist that the motions in a picture should be in harmony with each other because of the pictorial restfulness which thus results, we do not forget that motions should also be in harmony with the meaning, the dramatic action, which the scene contains. Some red-blooded reader of this book might possibly have the notion that artistic composition of a picture will rob it of its strength. Please may we ask such a person to read carefully Chapters II, IV, and VII of this book? We have maintained there that good pictorial composition can make any movie “punch” harder than ever. Let us illustrate that argument again. Suppose we “shoot” two brawny men in a fist fight. The motions of the men should have unity, even though their souls might lack it. It sounds like a contradiction, but the methods of the men fighting should harmonize in motion. If they do not, we cannot enjoy the fight. What would you think of a fist fight in which one man had the motions of a windmill, and the other had the motions of a chicken?

Many movie directors have had stage experience, either as actors or directors, and are instinctively able to harmonize the dramatic pantomime of actors or actresses, whenever this pantomime takes place in the midst of perfectly quiet surroundings, as is usual in the setting of the theater stage. But as soon as these directors take their troupe out “on location” they encounter difficulties, because the wind nearly always blows costumes, bushes and trees into motion, because there are nearly always animals or moving vehicles on the scene, and because the “location” is more likely than not to include such things as fountains, waterfalls, or sea beaches. They find therefore, that the movement of the actors during any one moment of the picture is likely to be discounted by the gamboling of a lamb or the breaking of a sea wave during the next minute.

The sea and surf possess a perfectly rhythmical motion which one may watch for hours without becoming weary. And the effect of that motion may well be heightened by composing it with other moving objects so that the various motions taken together will harmonize in directions, shapes, and velocities. Such composition was very well done in the climactic scenes of “The Love Light,” the Mary Pickford play directed by Frances Marion, who also wrote the story. Views of the sea breaking on the shore are shown time and again throughout the play, but the most impressive scenes are near the end where a sailing party lose control of their sloop in a storm and are shipwrecked on the shoals. Here the principal moving objects partake of the movements of the sea and therefore harmonize with it in tempo. The vessel rises and falls with the waves. The people above and below decks sway and lurch with the same motion. The water which breaks through the hatches and trickles down the companionway describes the same shapes and flows with the same rate as the water which breaks over and trickles down the rocks. The total effect is a single impression of motion in which the separate parts parallel and reinforce each other. And this total impression is sustained through many scenes, even though the position of the camera is often shifted and the subject is viewed from many angles. This cinematic climax is a good example for readers to keep in mind when they set out through the movie theaters in search of cases where the motion of nature has been successfully harmonized with those of other motions demanded by the action of the story.

One of the ugliest of pictorial conflicts occurs when false motion and real motion are projected together upon the screen. Who has not been annoyed by the typical “follow” picture in which a lady is shown ascending a flight of stairs, while the stairs themselves (because the camera has been swept upward during the exposure) flow swiftly downward across the screen? The “follow” or “panoram” picture of moving things is usually bad because it falsifies real motion and gives the appearance of ugly motion to things which actually are at rest. An atrocious picture of a horse race, exhibited not very long ago, had been taken by carrying the camera on a motor car which had been kept abreast though not steadily abreast, of the horses. The result was that the grand stand, guard rails, and all fixed objects flew crazily from left to right, and that, because of the irregular swinging of the camera, the horses sometimes seemed to drop back together, even though they had clearly not slackened their speed.

We have been discussing in the above paragraphs the harmony of pictorial motions which occur together at a given moment. They may have a harmony like that of musical notes struck in a chord. But pictorial motions come in a procession as well as abreast, and these successive motions may have a harmony like that which runs through a melody in music.

In a stage play it is not difficult to organize simultaneous or successive actions so that the total action will produce a single effect, because all the movements of human performers are naturally very much of the same style. The gestures and postures of a performer in any given action are very likely to be followed by similar gestures and postures at frequent intervals during the play. Stage directors have developed their traditions of unity and harmony through centuries of theatrical history. They have learned to preserve, not only the “key” of the action, but the “tempo” as well. If they strike a certain pace at the beginning of the act or play they will maintain that pace with practically no variation to the end.