CHAPTER X
MASTERY IN THE MOVIES
Who is the legitimate master in movie making? It is, of course, the director, and he should take complete command over the plot action of the photoplay, over the players and their accessories, over the settings and those who make the settings, over the camera men, over the cutters, joiners, and title writers; in short, over all those who are co-workers in photoplay making. If this mastery cannot be obtained; if writers and players and scene painters will not agree to shed their royal purple for the badge of service; if all those who co-operate in making a photoplay cannot see that the product must be judged by its total effect and not by mere details of performance, then, of course we shall never have art upon the screen.
But it is usually very difficult for the director to take and keep complete command. Among the first rebels against his authority is the writer of the story which is to be filmed. It would be best, of course, if the director could originate his own plot, as a painter conceives his idea for a painting, or if he could, at least, prepare his own scenario as studiously as the painter makes his own preliminary sketches for a painting. But, under the present system, these two tasks of movie making can only in exceptional cases be performed in detail by the same person. The next best thing, then, is for the writer to limit himself to the bare subject matter of a picture, that is, the general action in which the characters are involved, while the director takes the responsibility for the pictorial treatment of this subject matter.
Now comes an interesting question. Which has the more artistic weight on the screen, the treatment of the subject, that is the presentation of the story pictorially, or the subject as such regardless of its presentation? The same question may be asked of any masterpiece of art; is it distinctive because of the subject matter or because of what the artist has done to that subject matter? In other words, would the subject matter remain distinctive even if it were badly treated?
There are sometimes happenings in real life that can hold one’s unwavering attention, no matter how poorly presented in language or picture. For example, if a panic-stricken idiot were to rush to you and say, “It were quick, oh, explosion by Wall Street and lots of fellers shut up dead and J. P. Morgan’s windows all over bloody men every way,” you would be shocked—not amused—and you would not stop to consider the ridiculous language of the report. And if by some strange coincidence a camera man had secured a motion picture of that explosion in Wall Street, you would be curious to see that picture, and would undoubtedly be impressed by it, no matter how ineffective might be its photography or pictorial composition.
In fiction there may be certain chains of incidents, such as the action of a detective story, which might carry a strong dramatic appeal, even though the language of the narrator were crude, confused, obscure, weak, and of no beauty appropriate to the thing expressed. “There may be,” we say; but all self-respecting writers will agree with us that language-proof stories are extremely rare. The story is usually impressive because of the telling, and not in spite of it.
In the motion picture, naturally, the telling is not in words, but in arrangements of lines and shapes, of tones and textures, of lights and shadows, these values being either fixed or changing, and exhibited simultaneously or in succession. Whatever arrangement the director makes comes directly to us in the theater. Barring accident we see it unchanged on the screen, and, as far as we are concerned, it is the only treatment which the story has.
It is true, of course, that cinematographic treatment may be vaguely suggested by written or spoken words; it may be more definitely suggested by drawings; but it can never actually be given either by words or drawings. Even the director himself cannot know definitely, in advance of the actual rehearsing and taking of the picture, just what the composition will be. He may plan in advance, but he does not actually compose until the players are on the scene and the camera “grinding.” During those moments are created the actual designs which become fixed permanently in the film.
Turning from pictures for a moment, let us consider the relation between plot and treatment in literary art. It is interesting to study Shakespeare’s attitude toward the material which he borrowed for his plays. Glance through the introduction and notes of any school text, and you will see that the plot which came to his hand ready-made was not held sacred. He twisted it, tore out pieces from it, or spun it together with other plots similarly altered. And even then the altered plot, though an improvement over the raw material, was not a masterpiece; it was only a better framework for masterly treatment.