An elementary study of painting must convince any one that the colors which the artist puts on the canvas are really only suggested by the model or subject, and that his arrangement of them is inspired by an ideal personal conception, rather than a desire to reproduce something with absolute accuracy. Therein lies creation and mastery. Hence, there is no artistic advantage to a cinema composer in having machines which can make a green dress appear green, and a red rose, red, on the screen, unless that particular green and that particular red in that particular combination really add beauty to the picture.
The “tinted” scenes, usually blue or orange, which are so familiar in the movies, are not color photographs, since they are produced by immersing an ordinary black and white film in a bath of dye. But from an artistic point of view they are better than color photographs. In the first place, the value of the tint can be controlled by the director, or at least by the person who does the tinting. And in the second place, although the lights of the film take the strongest tint, the shadows are also affected by it; and the entire picture, therefore, gets a tonal unity which is never present in color photography. However, even “tinted” scenes should be used with caution, because, when they are cut into a film which is elsewhere black and white, they break the unity of tonal flow, and usually get far more emphasis than their meaning in the story demands. The effect is almost as bad as that of the old family photograph which baby sister has improved by touching up a single figure with pretty water colors.
Thus we have indicated the many departments and stages of development in a photoplay composition, the many pictorial forces which should be controlled by a single hand. That single hand holds the reins of many powers. And, if those powers cannot be so guided that they pull in the same direction, with similar speeds, and with balanced efforts, then their combination is disastrous, however elegant and blue-ribboned any individual power may be. In the photoplay neither the plot action, nor the acting, nor the setting, nor the cutting and joining, nor the titles, nor the coloring, nor any other element can be allowed to pull in its own wild way. And in any single section of the motion picture the fixed design and the movement, the accentuation and the harmony, the work and the play, must be co-ordinated and all this technique must itself be subordinate to spontaneous enduring inspiration. Without such mastery no movie-maker can ever win to the far goal of art.
CHAPTER XI
THE MYSTERIOUS EMOTIONS OF ART
The end of all aspiring mastery in the movies is to provide for every beholder the thrills of art. These thrills are not like the emotions which are aroused by other experiences of life, by sports, for example, or adventure, or amusements, or industry, or war. They are stirring experiences quite different from those of him who makes a “home run” or a “touch-down,” or “loops the loop” in the air, or sinks a submarine, or has a play accepted, or discovers a new way of evading some obnoxious law. It is true that the dramatic content of a photoplay may sometimes seem so real that the beholder forgets where he is and responds with such natural feelings as fear and triumph, love and hate, pride, selfish desire and hope; but it is also true that the pictorial form of a photoplay, that is, the mere arrangement of the substance, considered apart from its meaning, can arouse strange, pleasurable emotions which are peculiar to the enjoyment of art.
When we recall the masterpieces of painting which have thrilled us we must admit that much of their appeal came from other factors besides the content of the picture. Think of a portrait of some Dutchman painted by Rembrandt. The painting stirs you as the Dutchman himself in real life never could have stirred you. You may be impressed by the likeness of the portrait, by the engaging character of the person portrayed, and by some significant truth expressed in that portrayal. But that is not all. You are also stirred by the colors in the painting, by the peculiar arrangement of lines and shapes. That emotion which you get from the form and medium itself, rather than from the subject, is a characteristic art-emotion.
From The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. A remarkable example of “stylization” in the movies, showing how setting, figure, and action may be harmonized to express the dominant mood of the photoplay. See [pages 165] and [180].
We are not now speaking of such qualities as unity, emphasis, balance, and rhythm. They are indeed fundamental needs in pictorial composition, and yet a photoplay may have all of those qualities without possessing any strong appeal as art. A motion picture, like a painting, must possess other, more subtle, qualities if it is to make any lasting impression upon our souls. What these mysterious qualities really are, we do not presume to know. At the same time we believe that a discussion of them will be stimulating and helpful both to “movie fans” and movie makers. Suppose we endeavor to isolate four of these mysterious qualities in art and call them poignancy, appeal to the imagination, exquisiteness, and reserve.