In the neighbourhood of Wardour Street, where the princes of the film
hold their Court, a legislative code for film-making, a “Poetics” of the
film, by some _maestro di color che sanno_, has long been yearned for. If
only, they say, if only the _maestro_ himself, the great Aristotle, had
been alive to write it! After all, kinematograph is Greek, isn’t it? It
seems to cry aloud, somehow, for its code by the great Greek authority.
Well, they little knew what luck was in store for them!
To-day comes a startling piece of news from the East. A certain Major
Ferdinand M. Pinto, O.B.E., R.E., whether on military duty or on
furlough the report does not say, has been sojourning with the monks
of Mount Porthos, and, in the most singular manner, has discovered in
the possession of his hosts a precious treasure of which they were
entirely ignorant. It was a Greek manuscript, and, as the Reverend Prior
laughingly observed, it was Greek to them. It seems that—such is the
licence of modern manners even in monasteries—the monks have lately taken
to smoking, and to using what in lay circles are called “spills.” Now
on the spill which the Major was lighting for his cigar there suddenly
stared him in the face the words
ὥσπερ Ἀγάθων λέγει
and the name Agathon thrilled him with memories of a certain Oxford quad,
with dear “old Strachan” annoying the Master by wondering why Agathon
should have said anything so obvious as that “it is probable that many
things should happen contrary to probability.” To examine the spill,
all the spills collected, was the work of a moment. They proved, at a
glance, to be an entirely unknown MS. of the “Poetics,” more complete
even than the Parisian, and with new readings transcending even the
acutest conjectures of Vahlen. But, greatest find of all, there was
disclosed—though with unfortunate _lacunæ_ caused by the monks’ cigars—an
entirely new chapter inquiring into the structure of the Moving Picture
Drama. Through the courtesy of the Pseudo-Hellenic Society I am favoured
with a translation of this chapter, and a few passages, which seemed of
more general interest, are here extracted.
“As we have said,” the MS. begins, “it is a question whether tragedy is
to be judged in itself or in relation also to the audience. But it is
another story (ἄλλος λόγος) with the moving pictures. For it is not clear
whether they have an ‘itself’ at all, or, if they have, where this self
is to be found, whether on the screen, or in the lens of the camera, or
in the head of the photographic artist. Whereas there is no doubt (save
in very inclement weather) about the audience. They are to be judged,
then, solely in relation to the audience. And, for this reason, they do
not resemble tragedy, whose action, we said, must be whole, consisting
of a beginning, a middle, and an end. For the audience may arrive at
the end of a picture play, and though, in due time, the beginning will
come round again, the audience may not have the patience to wait for it.
Some audiences prefer to arrive in the middle and to proceed to the end,
and then to end with the beginning. By this means the general sense of
confusion in human affairs is confirmed in the picture theatre, and in
this sense, but only in this sense, the picture drama may be said to be,
like tragedy, an imitation of life.
“Nor can it be said of picture drama, as it was of tragedy, that the
element of plot is more important than the element of character. For
here neither element is important. The important element now is motion.
Any plot will serve the picture poet’s purpose (indeed most of them take
them ready-made from those prose epics known as ‘shockers’), and any
characters likewise (it will suffice if these be simplified types or
‘masks’). The essence of the matter is that all should be kept moving.
And as moving objects are best seen to be moving when they are moving
quickly, the picture poet will contrive that his horses shall always, as
Homer says, devour the ground and his motor cars be ‘all out.’... Unity
of plot—when there is a plot—does not, as some persons think, consist
in the unity of the hero. It consists in the final dwelling together in
unity of the hero and his bride. Final must be understood as posterior to
the pursuit of the bride by other men, who may be either white or red.
Red men are better, as more unbridled in their passions than white. As
Æschylus first introduced a second actor in tragedy, so an American poet,
whose name is too barbarous to be written in Greek, introduced the red
man in picture drama....
“With regard to the hero and his bride, though their characters should,
as in tragedy, be morally good (χρηστά), it is chiefly necessary that
their persons should be kinematographically good or good on the film.
For at every peripety of the action they must become suddenly enlarged
by the device of the photographer, so that every furrow of the knitted
brow and every twitch of the agitated mouth is shown as large as life,
if not larger. It is, in fact, by this photographic enlargement that the
critical turns of the action are marked and distinguished, in the absence
of the tragic element of diction. Where the tragic actor talks big, the
picture player looks big. Nevertheless, the element of diction is not
entirely wanting. Sentences (which should comprise as many solecisms as
possible) may be shown on the screen, descriptive of what the players are
doing or saying. But the more skilful players habitually say something
else than what is thus imputed to them, thereby giving the audience the
additional interest of conjecturing what they actually do say in place of
what they ought to have said.
... “Picture poetry is a more philosophical and liberal thing than
history; for history expresses the particular, but picture poetry the not
too particular. The particular is, for example, what Alcibiades did or
suffered. The not too particular is what Charlie Chaplin did or suffered.
But the moving pictures do to some extent show actual happenings, in
order to reassure people by nature incredulous. For what has not happened
we do not at once feel sure to be possible; but what has happened is
manifestly possible; otherwise it would not have happened. On the whole,
however, as the tragic poet should prefer probable impossibilities to
improbable possibilities, the picture poet should go, as Agathon says,
one better, and aim at improbable impossibilities.”...