THE PATH TO ART
The lyric poem is poised on a shoreless sea; its prime feature is
its indefiniteness; it leads on to the undetermined goal of mortal
mood. But harmony—that resting which satisfies itself—soon exhausts
itself. And, to repeat once more, undetermined mood may easily be
converted into monotony, or it may change to a chaotic ebb and flow
that connotes the surging of unanticipated floods rather than tidal
regularity. No “progressive” work of art revels in planlessness. The
sails in which the winds play, as an idle mood may dictate, do not
indulge in their seeming gaiety with impunity. Punishment of one sort
or another follows. The helm decides a certain course; in this course
lie the fruits of strength. In poetry, mood is routed by action. The
feelings remain the driving power. For when feeling and passion form an
alliance, “action” ensues.
A purely lyrical stage drama such as Anton Wildgans’s _Armut_
(“Poverty”) fails to produce the really deep echo: our sympathy,
rattling around itself as the sole pivot it can commandeer soon
runs out. The stage, which finds in the play of thoughts a rich
variety, needs nevertheless a will-power that guides and gives
direction to the stream that flows by. The motion picture, which is
much less gifted with wealth of color, labors under the coercion of a
strong action somewhat as violin playing labors under the coercion of
melody. There is no such thing as a lyric motion picture.
Now, this is of course old, gray theory which applies to the average
film, but which never applies to the exceptional creation of the
god-endowed genius. Such an exception, and one of marvelously subdued
and magic beauty, was _Honour thy Mother!_ This film had not one loud
tone apart from a single cry of wild anguish. Its action was the divine
mercy of a human heart.
This is all very well; one man could do it once. The Swedes, on the
other hand, have suffered pitiable bankruptcy with their lyrical
films, though some of them were of exceptional beauty. Success has
a better chance of realization when the action is a little robust,
strong-fisted. That excesses in this direction are fatal is shown by
the idiotic action of the Eddie-Polo films. In the film whose action is
benevolently vigorous the lyric element loses its independence. It is
dissolved in the action, comes to the fore every now and then in
individual places with renewed force, and has a subduing effect on the
flow of action. In this way, the moving picture becomes a cheerfully
moved and never breathless art. But if the poet throws discipline to
the winds and pours out his lyric gentleness over every single scene,
his action soon and inevitably sinks into an inert and dripping morass.
There is also no such thing as an epic motion picture; just as there
is no such thing as an epic stage play. The epic has an action—that
is, a general trend and direction of events, but it has no distinct
goal. Episode is concatenated with episode like pearls on a string.
In the last analysis, however, there is no such thing as pure epic.
When Ulysses the great sufferer is driven from shore to shore, there
is something more to his case than the mere driving. Back of his fate
stands a dramatic question: Will he return to Ithaca? Will Penelope
have remained true to him? Will he be able to overcome her wooers?
This being the case, the episodes of his unenviable existence are not
concatenated without plan; there is no aimlessness about his affair.
The incidents of his life are joined together into a complete circle;
they end with dramatic necessity, not with epic arbitrariness. The epic
of the _Nibelungs_ is dramatic to the core.
The Italian motion picture dangles about in epic robes, attaching,
or affixing, scene to scene with proverbial epic breadth. The real
action is included in just a few isolated scenes. The picture exists
for its own sake, and it is surrounded with perfectly colossal
decoration. We have but to think of the Dante film, or of _Cabiria_,
and to a degree of _Quo Vadis_.
The rest of the world does not feel in this way; and it does not feel
this way about the motion picture. The tense and rigid condensation of
the action, and its logical progress from scene to scene—this is the
desideratum of the German film. The fates we see all about us, and of
which we ourselves are so many living proofs, are not to glide by each
other and dissipate in the winds: they are to rebound against each
other, and end when their struggle is over. Moreover, such fate as
remains when the end has been reached is somehow to be transformed, and
bear the stamp of this struggle.
There was the case of _Golem_. It had in it the possibilities of some
tremendous dramatic action. But in the final scenes this potential
action was dissipated into an unintended and undesired epic flow: the
de-souled monster had again become a lump of clay and lay before us in
all its obvious impotency. Everything will turn out all right: the
houses that have been burned down will be rebuilt. And the Jews take
Golem on their shoulders and carry him off to the synagogue: “Hail
to thee, Rabbi Loew! He has saved the city for the third time!” Life
will now go on its usual course just as if nothing had happened. And
with this the whole affair is over; it is forgotten; and it has been
erased from the heart of the spectator. The play seemed to have to do,
not with the age of terror of Golem, but with the age of peace. We had
expected a tragedy—and we were given an episode.
Another altogether undramatic film was _Dr. Caligari_. It consisted of
a series of gruesome things which, to make matters worse, proved in
the end to be the fancies of a madman. The play had action; but it had
no goal, no dramatic tension or suspense. The spectator was left in
a cloud of uncertainty and doubt. “What is this all about?” he asked
himself.
Dramatic suspense is the anticipation of events from which there can
be no reasonable escape. Anything that is tossed into our laps, as it
were, suddenly and without due motivation appeals to us as irrational,
senseless and unnecessary. We know that it all might have been so
different.
The film, having, as it certainly does, fewer means of expression at
its immediate command than the legitimate stage, and depending
for its appeal upon an audience that is, as a rule, less cultured,
dare not overlook, slight, or neglect a single means that might help
it in its effort to bring out strong effects. Is dramatic suspense or
tension inartistic? Quite the contrary; it is the best proof we have
of artistic ability, for we may search the art canons of the civilized
world and we will never find a rule to the effect that art must be
tiring and tiresome. Suspense is artistic, and the greater the effect
of it upon the spectator the more artistic it is. One must not fancy,
however, that the suspense of Eddie-Polo, or of the sensations of
Luciano Albertini are really and finally effective. In the movie of
the Apaches, to which the visitor is admitted for the smallest coin
known to the mint, this suspense is quite popular, because the nerves
of these people have become so blunted and so crude that they have
quite lost all appreciation of finer effects. Fortunately, however, the
general film public, the one that patronizes the average and paying
motion picture, is essentially more refined than the Apache. The more
refined spectator cannot be ♦captivated so easily and persistently
by the sensational tension that lasts for a moment as he can by the
pleasure derivable and derived from lengthier and more enduring
amusement. He is more interested in the suspense that is spread
out over an entire action, the tension that gives greater evidence of
human shrewdness, and is consequently more agreeable to men of like
characteristics and qualifications.
♦ “capitivated” replaced with “captivated”
Dramatic suspense is not a whip which the poet swings over the heads of
his characters. The fact is, one picture should not be made to tumble
over another, following the command of “On, on and more of the same
kind!” Being driven forward in this fashion can only result in what one
instinctively feels is a pursued and persecuted, art, an hysterical
art, and in externalities nothing can arise from it but the ♦pouncy
art of the criminal film. No, this is not suspense. Suspense is rather
the calm, serene hand of the poet that guides the work he is creating.
It is this that enables one to feel that the poet is leading his
creation along past all potential hindrances straight to a premeditated
goal. The man who is unable to cause to arise, through each picture
that he presents, the question, what is going to happen next? is
doomed to failure from the very outset. Provide him with the most
glorious decoration imaginable and all his work will be in vain, and
his decorations will vanish as thin air. In the _Indisches Grabmal_,
the Prince led his English guest around for a quarter of an hour on
the screen. The splendor of an Oriental temple, the half of a
whole army, was conjured up and visualized—but there was no suspense.
We smiled at the pomp of it, and remained perfectly cool and calm. If
the people _en masse_ cry for a gala scene in every other picture,
well and good. Give it to them! It is your duty and your task. But do
what lies in your power to animate even these scenes; try to make even
these fit into the action, just as a powerful crescendo movement of the
orchestra fits into the music that is being played. In the average film
every group scene—parades, carnivals, mysteries—is a stop-gap of the
action.
♦ “pouncey” replaced with “pouncy”
Suspense has nothing to do with decoration or scenery. The gigantic
raging of gigantic battle scenes is very rarely a source of dramatic
suspense. As a matter of fact, strategy is quite rarely effective in a
film. Suspense is almost always concentrated in or around just a few
individuals.
[Illustration: Fig. 21. Scene from _The Nibelungs_.
[_See p. 91_]
]
That suspense which is produced through external, unpsychic means is
generally pretty cheap. One runs for his life; ten are after him.
Will he escape? If he can run faster than the ten, yes. If he can
shoot into the whole group of his pursuers and locate his shots with
efficiency, yes. But when this sort of means is resorted to, the motion
picture degenerates into art, not for the masses, but for the
rabble, in whom the basest of instincts are satisfied in the basest way.
The suspense of the motion picture does not wait for words, but for
deeds. It depends upon changes that must come about and definitive
results that must be achieved. And when such deeds are conditions
upon the soul’s being shaken to its very depths, and when the outcome
and goal are fixed by the feelings, then such suspense as the motion
picture may properly indulge in has been achieved, and achieved in
accordance with the laws of motion picture art.
For that species of suspense which proceeds from soul to soul quite
without visible effect can hardly be attained by the motion picture.
And yet, the tonic power, the ability of the spectator to undergo
suspense, and to feel it, can hardly be overestimated. We have already
become quite familiar with the mimic situation; we are now able to
see and feel in the slightest movement the condition of the actor’s
wishes. He lifts an eye, and we know what he wants. In the _Bull of
Olivera_, Jannings played the rôle of a French general who deserts his
passionately loved Spanish friend. He stands by the door with his hand
already on the knob. His back is turned to the spectator; we can see
his body quiver: “Shall I remain? Shall I go?” It was brilliant.
And, truth to tell, that kind of brilliancy can be met with more
frequently in the motion picture than we would be at first inclined to
believe.
There was an altogether captivating moment of suspense in _Schloss
Vögelöd_. It was entitled in the text “A Confession.” We saw a great
spacious hall; it was deserted, except for two perfectly motionless
human beings who were separated from each other by the width of the
hall (Illustration No. 18). But such suspense, in which the most
sensitive æsthete might take extreme delight, is not for the masses.
For them it has to be laid on thick. The really clever motion picture
actor will always make it a point “to bring something to a great many,”
to use Goethe’s words. To the few he will offer a tension of refined
nature and subtle explanation; to the many he will offer a tension that
is sturdy, robust, plain as a pike-staff.
The poet handles his suspense in a calm way. With him, suspense is
clarity in spiritual intoxication; it is the sculptor’s chisel marks of
complete control. It is from it that force ensues and action acquires
its sense of goal. Where there is no suspense there is a chaotic
draining off of episodes that sink into the sand without leaving a
trace.
The motion picture actor, who thoroughly understands his business,
guarantees to his art the befitting title of “Dramatic.” It is a title
of honor, and will be bestowed when won. In the matter of technical
composition and artistic development, the stage and the screen follow
the identical course. But from the point of view of significance, they
are widely divergent arts. The value of each to, and the effect of each
on, striving humanity is poles removed, the one from the other.
Let us repeat—the film is not an art of the intellect but of the soul.
It does not serve ideas; it serves feelings. The greatness of the
stage actor lies in and is measured by the circle of his thoughts. The
greatness of the film actor lies in and is measured by the warmth and
depth of his heart, and by the gracious power through which he seizes
the spectator and convulses his soul.
The stage actor transforms the cool intellect into warmth. He who, in
his own world, is a superman of the spiritual soul carries us along
with him; we cannot resist him. The film actor transforms close and
sultry sensuality into warmth. He who, in his own world, is a superman
of the sensual soul finds his way to our hearts; we cannot resist him.
From such glowing action as is incorporated in _Madame Recamier_,
or _The Orphan_, or _Honour Thy Mother!_ or the _Nibelungs_, there is
but one moral to be drawn, and that is the moral of the feeling that
is as strong as the greatest organ of the greatest cathedral and as
impressive. From such motion pictures it is quite impossible to concoct
a purely intellectual extract. But it may be that the moral of the
great soul represents and signifies the highest morality of all art,
and that any other or further symbolism is nothing more than a mantle
that wraps itself about this kernel.
Many of our modern and contemporary art critics suffer from an
overestimation of the value and significance of thought _qua_ thought.
But the rigidly intellectual has just as little to do with real art as
has the purely sensual, and it is not until both have been baptised,
dipped deep indeed, into the warm depths of feeling ♦that arises
which we call art. And neither the intellectual nor the sensual can be
set up as a standard by which to weigh art and determine its ultimate
value. It is the psychic power of expression that passes enduring
judgment on the creations of the artist.
♦ “that that” replaced with “that”
Is there not something in music that concerns us all, that is a
symbolic incarnation of our life of feeling, but which no thought
of ours is strong enough to capture on the wing? All the riddles of
our soul—call them Happiness, Heart, Love, God, or what you will, are
solved in and through our feelings. It is our feelings that make us
familiar with them, and intimate part of ourselves. They mock at the
mind; they deride the intellect, which can do nothing more than brood
in hopelessness, whereas the soul blindly resigns and thus comes to
understand.
Thus it is that music is the eternal soul, the symbol of all souls—of
the unthinkable, the indescribable, the unspeakable. From the voices
of the violin, the bass viol and the flute there breathes but one
thing—the soul.
We do not feel entirely familiar with the figures of the motion
picture; the _Tua res agitur_ rings out, as yet, only faintly and
rarely reaches our ears. But this whole art is so elementary, and is
so capable of reflecting the unthinkable fineness of the feelings,
that one thing is certain: the time will come when we will be in
appreciative accord with the most perfect figures of the motion
picture. The union between them and us will be happy, and it will be
perfect.
The legitimate stage represents a defection from sensuality, and a
hopeless brooding over the eternal riddles of life. But viewed in the
proper light, a defection from sensuality may be a striving after
the wish-figures of the motion picture—a home-coming to the soul, a
deep baptism in the mysterious fullness of the human breast. Just how
high the motion picture will rise, the extent to which it may succeed
in going, no man knows. But it will reach the soul. Music originated
from sensuality—from a union of rhythm and euphony. Music, too, has a
sensual soul the very psychic power of which burns away all sensuality.
To place relative estimates on the value of each of the arts is an
irrational undertaking. On the flowery tree of humanity each art has
its mysterious meaning—over which we should not brood: cold intellect
cannot solve such problems as are associated with this indubitable fact.
I have examined the motion picture from its various angles. I have
shown what it is like, explained its fundamental nature, commented
on the forces that impel it, discussed the wishes at which it aims,
elucidated its origin, and set up its goal. My purpose has been to
detach the motion picture from technique, and to make it serviceable
to art and culture. I have endeavored to proclaim the mission of the
motion picture artist.
No one people, taken as a whole, has _Kultur_. It is only the
purest, the noblest, the best of a given people from whose splendor
there radiates a remote luster that finds its way to the active life of
the masses. If properly applied, and molded by the proper people, the
motion picture will be a potent factor in this act of purification. It
will deepen our world of feeling and make it more cordial, warmer. Do
you recall hearing that anyone ever blamed a given instrument because
so many bunglers play on it?
From the motion picture there will flow forth a fruitful stream. All
poetic creations of the sensual soul find now their original art.
Liberated from them, the poem in words will serve the intellectual soul
more joyfully than ever. The time will come, too, when it will be shown
that in the motion picture there is either no art at all, or only great
art. There are abysses all along the road; each step is threatened; but
ingenious security will find its way past all these dangers.
One thing is certain: the motion picture, in its inseparable union with
technique, is one step more away from _Kultur_ and toward civilization.
The inventions of civilization endure; they connote the inescapable way
of humanity. Just as cannon and railroads, electricity and air ships,
can no longer be struck from the book of life of coming generations by
the willed and willful act of individuals, parties, or the whole
human race for that matter, just so is it true that the technical
invention of the motion picture belongs forever to the conditions
upon which the future will be predicated. We can no longer turn this
stream aside; to swim against it would be an imbecilic undertaking. To
allow oneself to be driven along by it would be distinctly immoral.
Shrewdness and morality make it imperative that we constitute ourselves
the advance waves of this stream, so that it may be made to flow in the
right and proper channels to the end that its goal may be noble, its
course one of generous service to human kind.
For the task of the coming centuries will be the reconciliation of
_Kultur_ and civilization. The motion picture—never as a unit or a
totality, always as reflected in the possibilities suggested by its
rarest fruits—is a powerful sign that this reconciliation will be a
complete success.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
Non-printable characteristics have been given the following
Italic text: --> _text_
* * * * * indicates a thought break (extra
blank vertical white space).
Illustrations are indicated by: [Illustration: caption or
descriptive text].
Missing full-stops and abbreviation stops silently added.
The paragraph ending on page 136 with “loses itself in moral
fustian” probably is missing the word “melodrama” at the end.
Misspelled words have been corrected. Obsolete and alternative
spellings are left unchanged (e.g. ascendent, dilettant, etherial,
heterogenous, Shakespearian). Spelling and hyphenation has not been
standardised.
Illustrations within paragraphs are placed either before or after
the paragraph.
Corrections (“Edit Distance” refers to the Levenshtein Distance.):
page Source Correction Edit
Distance
3 attendent attendant 1
22 dilettanteish dilettantish 1
41 obtrustively obtrusively 1
44 charcater character 2
74 docorations decorations 1
100 Liliputian Lilliputian 1
102 extaordinarily extraordinarily 1
110 words word 1
119 aristrocratic aristocratic 1
121 unobstrusive unobtrusive 1
125 adventursome adventuresome 1
126 titulation titillation 2
129 gruesomness gruesomeness 1
158 capitivated captivated 1
159 pouncey pouncy 1
164 that that that 5