PICTORIAL MOTIONS AT REST
That a moving thing may sometimes seem to be at rest is well known by
any one who has ever spun a top. The top spins itself to sleep. We gaze
upon it in a peculiar spell of restfulness, which is broken only when
the top wakes up and begins to wabble.
Now one trouble with the movies is that they often wabble when they
ought to spin. The motions in the picture too often lack a center of
balance, a point of rest. All of us have been annoyed by excessive
motions, jumbling, clashing, on the screen. But many of us have also,
in lucky moments, been delighted by sudden harmonies on the screen,
when the pictorial motions, without slowing up in the least, were
conjured into a strange vital repose. And afterward, when we recalled
the enthrallment of such moments, we became optimists about the future
of cinema art.
Surely this is one of the characteristic appealing things about
a motion picture, that it can show us motions doing the work of
pictorial expression, indulging in rhythmic play, and yet suggesting
a dynamic repose. Thus the youngest art can give us in a new way that
“stimulation and repose” which, psychologists say, is the function of
all arts. The painter who can suggest movement by means of fixed lines,
masses, and colors is no more of a magician than the cinema composer
who can make moving things suggest rest.
Let me propose the following as working theories to explain the effect
of reposefulness in organized pictorial motions: First, that the
separate motions are balanced against each other; Second, that the
significant motions are kept near to a center of rest within the frame
of the picture, are sometimes even limited to an exceedingly small area
of the screen; and, Third, that every significant motion is harmonized
in kind, direction, and tempo with everything else in the picture.
The balancing of pictorial motions does not imply that they must be
paired off in exact equals. Certainly we do not insist that a dramatic
scene be so composed that when, for example, a person rises from a
chair in one part of a room, some other person sits down in a chair
in the opposite part of the room. Such an effect would be highly
mechanical, like the teetering of a see-saw; and it is not possible
for a spectator to get a thrill of beauty while his attention is being
held down to mechanics. We mean rather to apply the same reasoning to
pictorial motions which we have in Chapter V applied to fixed lines,
shapes, and tones. In short, we want to see the values of pictorial
motions so well distributed over the screen, and so related to each
other, that they give the impression of being in perfect equilibrium.
Suppose we imagine a cinema scene which contains a waterfall in the
left half, and nothing in the right half except a dark, uninteresting
side of a cliff. That composition would be out of balance. And if a
band of Indians entered the scene from the left and did a war dance
directly in front of the waterfall, that would throw the composition
still more out of balance. Or if, at the opening of the scene, the
Indians appeared dancing in front of the bare cliff, and then gradually
moved over to a place in front of the waterfall, this cluttering of
motions would certainly unbalance the picture.
Such cluttering is common on the screen because of the many movie
directors who either are afraid of simplicity, or lack the skill
which is necessary to make complexity appear simple. In the scene
just mentioned the safest course would be to leave out the waterfall,
however much of a natural wonder it may be, and to let the bare cliff
serve as the entire background for the Indian dance. But if this
cannot be done because of the peculiar demands of the plot, then the
picture might be balanced by introducing some additional motion in
the right half, say a column of smoke rising from a camp fire. Thus
even the careful addition of a new element would tend to bring unity
and restfulness into the arrangement of parts. Just visualize that
composition, the whitish water falling on one side, and the light gray
smoke rising on the other, and you will feel a peculiar restful balance
which could never be obtained by a mechanical pairing of two waterfalls
or two columns of smoke.
As critics searching for beauty on the screen, we might even carry our
demand for pictorial balance still farther. In some other picture we
might demand that there be motions in the upper part of the composition
to balance those in the lower part. To be sure, we would hardly look
for such balance in a stage play, or in an ordinary cinema scene where
the camera “shoots” in a level line, because in ordinary every-day
life we see more motion near the bottom of our view than anywhere in
the upper levels. Besides it is natural that weights should be kept
low; any object is more likely to be in equilibrium when its center of
gravity is low. But when we are shown a motion picture which has been
made with the camera pointing downward, so that a level thing, like a
plain or the surface of the sea, appears standing on end, then we like
to see the points of interest so distributed that the various parts of
the screen seem to be proportionally filled. Thus in a motion picture
of a lake taken from a high cliff we are not pleased to see moving
objects, boats, swans, etc., only in that area of the picture which
comes near the lower edge of the frame. We realize instantly that the
objects are not actually above or below each other in the air. And we
forget, therefore, that the screen is really in a vertical plane and
think of it rather as we would of a map lying before us. In fact, if
there are swans in the near part of the lake view, then the distant
surface of the lake will not appear to sink back into its proper level
unless it bears some balancing weight and value, say, two or three
small boats under sail.
However, even the best of balancing in a separate scene cannot insure
a balance between that scene and the next one. Directors are often
tempted to make shots from odd angles, straight up or straight down,
and to scatter them through a film, showing, for example, a skyscraper
lying down, or a city street standing on end. But the resulting series
of scenes does not make a composition pleasing to the eye. It gives the
effect of wabbling. Even if these oblique views show no moving things
whatsoever, their combined effect is the opposite of restfulness.
Returning now to the subject of balance in separate scenes, we may
consider depth, the third dimension of a cinema subject. This dimension
is usually far greater than either the height or the breadth of that
space which the camera measures off for us. And it is interesting
to see what problems the cinema composer has in relating motions
in the third dimension to those in the other dimensions of the
picture. He often finds it hard, for instance, to compensate in the
background for the movements in the foreground, without destroying the
dramatic emphasis. The usual trouble in the movies is that, when the
dramatic interest is in the foreground, the motions in the background
nevertheless draw so much of our attention to that region that the
picture becomes too heavy in the rear; while, on the other hand, if the
dramatic interest is in the background, the motions in the foreground
nevertheless become so heavy that the front of the picture falls into
our faces.
These are common faults; yet they may be avoided by foresight and
ingenuity. In the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” Rex Ingram reveals
a sure sense of proportion in his control of the marching soldiers.
If you turn to the “still” of a village scene from this photoplay,
facing page 133, you will get a suggestion of the equilibrium which is
obtained for a time, at least, between the motions in various regions
of the picture.
[Illustration: From _The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse_. The
arrangement in this scene has interesting balance between the right and
left halves of the picture, as well as between the foreground and the
background, and there is a vigorous rhythm in the moving columns of
soldiers. See pages 120 and 132.]
Let us say that the foreground of that scene extends from the camera to
the cavalryman, that the middle ground is that area which is occupied
by the buildings, and that the background is all the region which
lies beyond the ruined tower. This picture has many distances, and yet
they fuse together into a single composition. Equilibrium is maintained
by the fact that the scattering figures near the fountain weigh against
the marching soldiers to the left in the foreground, while the two
sides find a center of balance in the quiet horseman and the three
persons to whom he is talking. In the middle ground the same care has
been shown, for the soldiers first swing to their left, past the tower,
and then execute a balancing movement to their right. In the background
there is a balance between those forces which are executing a “column
right” and those which are proceeding down into the village street. And
if we take the background of the picture as against the foreground,
we shall find a balancing point in the narrowest part of the street.
No undue attention is attracted to either side of this point, but the
whole sweep of interest from front to back, or from back to front, is
continuous and even. There is plenty of military movement here amid
evidences of terrific bombardment, and yet, because of the artistic
composition of the picture, we get from it all a momentary sense of
repose, as though war itself were at rest.
Several details in this “still” are worth noting. For example, the
comparatively few figures in the right side of the foreground are given
additional weight by the whiteness of costume, as against the gray of
the soldiers. Another interesting thing is the balance between the line
described by the leading company of soldiers and the line of tree tops
on the wooded hill, which begins near the upper right hand corner and
extends to the castle. This relation can be clearly seen by holding the
“still” upside down.
The reader must keep in mind, of course, that in a “still” the arrested
motion has not the same weight as the actual motion on the screen, and
consequently the fixed things get more than their share of weight.
Therefore in this “still” from “The Four Horsemen” the jagged holes in
the buildings attract more attention than they do on the screen, where
the movement of the soldiers and civilians brings the whole composition
into balance.
When the whole picture is deep, as in the example just discussed,
it offends us if some of the moving objects come near the camera,
because this produces two pictures within a single frame, namely, a
close-up and a long shot. The effect is as bad as that of listening
to an orchestra so placed that some of the instruments are five feet
away from our ears while the others are seventy-five feet away. In
either case there comes a sense of violence instead of restfulness. The
close-up superposed on the long shot is a common fault in photoplays.
But we are often annoyed by the opposite fault also, that of jumbling
two sets of actions which are going on in adjoining areas, one just
beyond the other. In such a case the director should contrive to make
the vertical planes seem farther apart than they really are; and it can
easily be done without cleaving the picture in two.
To prove this let us imagine a cabaret scene containing prominent
persons of the play sitting at tables near the camera, and a number
of couples dancing on a floor farther away. In such an arrangement
it is probable that the diners have more dramatic value than the
dancers; yet the dancing figures are likely to distract attention
from those seated at the tables, and thus throw the picture out of
balance. Mr. Ingram in “The Four Horsemen” had this very problem, and
he solved it in a very simple and convincing way. He allowed a thick
haze of cigarette smoke to envelop the dancers till they seemed dim
and distant. Or, rather, he used the smoke as a transparent curtain
which separates the diners from the action in the background. Thus
balance was restored and the spectator could follow the action in the
foreground without a sense of disturbance.
A separation of planes somewhat similar to this was skilfully effected
by Allan Dwan in “Sahara.” One of the settings is a luxurious tent in
the desert. The front of this tent had a wide opening over which hung
a veil of mosquito netting. Viewed from within the tent, this veil
became a soft background against which the figures moved, while at the
same time it served as a thick atmosphere to give dimness and distance
to the figures which were just outside the tent. By this device, which
is as natural and unobtrusive as the smoke screen described above,
Mr. Dwan, besides providing a peculiar pictorial quality of gradated
tones, kept two sets of figures separate and yet combined them in rich
restfulness.
When a director is composing a scene in which there is a single moving
element with a very short path of motion and no strong fixed interests
to counter-balance it, he should remember that an object tends to
shift the weight of interest somewhat in advance of its own movement.
Therefore, a picture will seem to be in better balance if a movement
begins near one edge and ends near the center, than if it begins at
the center of the picture and passes out at one side.
This observation regarding the shifting of balance during pictorial
action raises the question whether it is a practical possibility to
keep the composition of a cinema scene steadily in equilibrium for
minute after minute. Since the fixed accents do not change their
positions and the moving accents do, one might suppose that the scene
must sooner or later fall out of balance. But this is not necessarily
so. It is true that if, for example, there is a group of fixed accents
in the left half of the picture, and a single figure starts from the
center and passes out of the scene at the right, it would tend, first,
to over-balance the right side of the picture, and then suddenly to
leave it without weight. But this tendency may be counter-acted by
swinging the camera slightly to the left without stopping the exposure.
Such an expedient would shift all of the fixed accents together, though
at the cost of introducing a momentary false motion. The ingenious
director may find other means by which to compensate for the changes
which must of necessity come about in a cinematic composition. However,
when it is not possible to have good proportion and balance at more
than one moment of a changing scene, that moment should be at the
pictorial climax, the crucial point of that scene, the instant when
the spectator is to receive the strongest impression, the greatest
stimulation and yet the most perfect repose.
Equilibrium is reposeful because it is characteristic of a thing at
rest. To say that another characteristic of a thing at rest is that
it stays where it is, may sound like an Irish bull; but we say it,
nevertheless, in order to make another point in our argument that
pictorial motions may sometimes be in dynamic repose. It is quite
possible for a pictorial motion to give a sharp impression of power,
weight, and velocity, and yet stay practically where it first appears
on the screen. An express train, for example, may be shown in a
“long shot” starting several hundred yards away from the camera and
continuing for miles into the distance, and yet the actual moving
image on the screen might cover an area less than two feet square, and
might, from beginning to end of the scene, never come near the frame
of the picture. Thus the train, without losing any of its impressive
character, would provide a reposeful motion for the eye to gaze upon.
Surely such an effect would be better than to show the train as a
close-up on a track at right angles to our line of sight, with the
locomotive crashing in through the frame at the left of the picture and
crashing out through the frame at the right.
The reposeful quality of restricted movement on the screen is due
partly to the fact that the flicker and the eye movement is thus
reduced, as we have said in Chapter III. In the case just described
it is due also to the contrast between the slight movement which we
actually _look at_ and the large movement which we really _perceive and
feel_. We look at inches and perceive miles. Thus we see very much with
extreme ease.
We have remarked in preceding chapters that every picture has four
lines, those of the frame, which the composer must always consider. He
could, it is true, soften the sharp boundaries of the picture by using
some masking device with the camera, but this is not usually done.
The four corners of the frame are always strongly emphasized, because
of the crossing of lines at right angles. To lead another strong line
into one of the corners would surely result in undue emphasis and lack
of balance, because of the power of converging lines. It is almost as
bad to lead a strong line squarely into the frame between the corners,
because such a meeting creates two more right angles to attract
attention. Of course, there may be certain lines in a composition,
such as the line of the horizon, which cannot stop short of the frame.
In such a case it is well to have some other strong accent not far
from the center of the picture in order to keep the attention of the
beholder within the frame.
What is true of the relation between fixed lines is also true of the
relation between paths of motion and fixed lines. It is rather annoying
to watch a continuous movement continually being cut off by the frame;
and it is especially annoying when one sees that such a composition
might have been avoided. In a waterfall, for example, the points of
greatest interest are the curving top and the foaming bottom, and we
like to see both at the same time and wholly within the frame. A motion
shown entirely surrounded by things at rest is reposeful on the screen
as well as in nature. Like a fixed object it stays where it is.
There are certain pictorial motions, however, such as the falling of
snow, which must always either begin or continue outside of the frame.
But even when we view such a motion on the screen or in nature we get
a feeling of repose, because our eyes do not perform any following
movement; we do not, in watching a snow storm through a window,
pick out certain flakes and follow them from a height until they
strike the ground; but rather we keep our line of sight steady upon a
certain spot while the changing texture slips by. One can get the same
effect by looking down from a tall building into a crowded street.
The individuals are no longer thought of as separate moving objects,
because they weave themselves into a broad band of moving and changing
texture. Here we get the feeling of restfulness, of motion in repose,
in contrast to the feeling of restless motion when we ourselves become
part of that crowd.
A delightful picture in “Barbary Sheep,” directed by Maurice Tourneur,
is the view of a flock of sheep moving slowly along from left to right.
The animals are so crowded together that the mass as a whole has a
textural quality. And yet it is not fixed texture, like that of cloth,
because some of the sheep move faster and then again more slowly than
the others, and thus, as in the case of the snow flakes, or the crowd
in the street, give us a vital stimulus of change within the texture
itself.
A somewhat similar sense of rest comes from watching those motions
which arise and vanish within some given area of the screen. A cloud
of cigarette smoke which floats and coils for a few moments and then
fades into nothing, bubbles which rise in a pool and break into faint
ripples that finally die on the glassy surface, the blazing and dimming
of tones through the photographic device of the “fade-out” and the
“fade-in”--all changes of this type we sense vividly as movements, and
yet as movements in delightful repose.
At the beginning of this chapter we mentioned the spinning top as
an example of motion that had the appearance of being at rest. To a
certain extent all circular movement presents that appearance and may
be very pleasing on the screen, providing it does not conflict with
our desire for fitness and is not allowed to become monotonous. A fly
wheel whirling may look like a disk at rest, but it is monotonous and
entirely without artistic stimulation. The action within the ring of
a circus presents a more stimulating show, and yet it is not quite
satisfying as an artistic composition of motion, because we cannot help
feeling that it is not natural, that it is unfit for a horse to turn
forever within a forty-foot ring. In the æsthetic dance, on the other
hand, a circling movement can always be of satisfying beauty, full of
graceful vitality and yet delightfully reposeful, too, because it never
flies away from its axis fixed within our area of vision.
Now, we cannot recommend that the players of a film story should always
be shown running around in circles. And yet their separate actions,
gestures and bodily movements in general, may often be so composed that
they progress in a circular path, each movement tracing an arc of a
circle which nowhere touches the frame of the picture. Such circularity
of motions would give unity, balance, and repose. A good example of
circularity may be seen in “The Covered Wagon” when the wagon train,
just before coming to a halt, divides and swings into two large arcs
of a circle, which slowly contract as the wagons turn inward toward a
common center.
Another interesting example of circular balance may be seen in “One
Arabian Night,” a German photoplay directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The
scene is a court yard, viewed from on high. Looking down we see eight
or ten servants running inward from all sides to a focal place, where
they pile up cushions for the hero and heroine. Then they turn and
run outwards to get more cushions. In a few moments they return, and
finally they seat themselves in a circle about the central figures.
Here is a charming combination of pictorial motion with a natural
dramatic by-play, delighting the eye and lingering long as a pleasant
motor image in memory. When we analyze this part of the picture we
discover that the principle of balancing motions has been applied
perfectly. To begin with, the design is kept in balance because the
men enter at the same time from opposite directions and approach the
center at equal speed. Thus, while they are separate figures moving
over symmetrically arranged courses, they also form a circle which
gradually contracts about a fixed center. This inward movement of the
men is itself balanced by the corresponding outward movement when they
go to get more cushions, which is in turn balanced when they come
back. Finally this pattern of a circle contracting, expanding, and
contracting again, harmonizes perfectly with the fixed circle which
is formed when the men seat themselves. There is a further pleasing
continuity in the composition when a woman enters the scene and dances
over a circular path just within the ring formed by the servants.
To the so-called practical business man, whose artistic experience
consists chiefly in drawing dollar signs, it may sound like sheer folly
for us spectators to ask a director to spend valuable time in refining
the art of pictorial motions by some of the methods above suggested.
The money magnate may not realize that even a slight improvement, a
delicate touch, may be as important in a picture as in the motor of his
touring car. Yet he does know, of course, that in the world of industry
the superiority of one article over another may lie in a secret known
only to the maker, a secret perhaps never even suspected by the man who
sells the article. We should be sorry indeed to lose credit with the
man who can draw dollar signs, because we need his co-operation, and we
hope, therefore, that he will not long remain blind to the fact that in
art the superiority of one article over another may lie in a concealed
design so skilfully wrought that neither the spectator nor the man who
traffics in the spectator’s pleasure may suspect its presence.
Balanced motions and motions that are limited in area are valuable on
the screen, we have said, because they can stimulate the spectator
while giving him the satisfaction of repose. We come now to a third
characteristic of motions that appear to be at rest, the fact that
they are in perfect adjustment with everything else around them.
Perfect adjustment means that all of the moving elements of a pictorial
composition are at peace with the fixed elements, as well as with each
other. It means harmony, the supreme quality of every art.
No other art, not even music, contains so great a number of varied
parts as the motion picture. To fuse all of these parts into a single
harmonious whole requires knowledge and skill and happy inspiration,
yet fusion must take place in the cinema composition itself in order
that the spectator may be spared the annoyance of trying to unify in
his own mind the ill-adjusted factors on the screen.
The pleasing effect of motions in harmony can be illustrated by
something with which we are all familiar from childhood, the display of
sky rockets. The spray of stars, flaming up, burning bright lines in
the sky, and fading out again into the darkness of night, exhibits a
perfect harmony of kinds, directions, and rates of motions, as well as
of changes in brightness. We have explained in Chapter III that things
moving in similar directions are more pleasing than those crossing in
opposite directions because they are easier for the eye to follow. And
it is, of course, true that whatever hurts the eyes will probably not
seem beautiful. But a picture must please our emotions as well as our
eyes. We must feel that it is good, that it is in order, that it obeys
some law of harmony. In the case of the sky rocket we do feel that
there is unity and not discord, rest and not warfare. Though we may
not stop to analyze the matter, we feel that at any one moment all of
the burning elements are in perfect agreement, obeying the same law of
motion.
Now let us recall some familiar movie subjects, and test them for
harmony. A common picture is that of a horse and an automobile racing
side by side. Here there is similarity of direction, but there is no
similarity of motion. The car glides; the horse bounds. The changing
pattern which the horse describes with legs and neck and back and tail
finds no parallel in the moving panel of the car. Besides, we feel
that there is antagonism between the two. They hate each other. Their
histories and destinies are different. They are not in harmony. A much
better subject is a huntsman galloping over the countryside with a
dog at the horse’s heels. Every action of the one animal is somewhat
like every corresponding action of the other animal. One might even say
that the horse is a large kind of dog, while the dog is a small kind
of horse. And, as they cross the fields in loyalty to the same master,
their motions harmonize.
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.
It would be most desirable if unity of motion could be sustained
throughout the entire length of a photoplay, as in a stage play or in
a musical composition. There should be a real continuity of pictures,
as there is supposed to be “continuity” of actions described in a
scenario. But such continuity is hard to find on the screen. In “The
Love Light,” for instance, the film which we have just discussed, there
is little unity of motion except in the climactic scenes. The very
action from which the title “The Love Light” is derived, is botched
in composition. The light is that of a lighthouse and the heroine
manipulates it so as to throw a signal to her lover. This action
is shown in a series of cut-backs from a close-up of a girl in the
lighthouse to a general view of the sea below and to a close-up of the
hero. But the lantern with its apparatus of prisms makes a cylindrical
pattern which does not harmonize in shape with the long white pencil of
the searchlight sweeping the sea. Nor does it harmonize in motion, for
the simple reason that the sweeping ray moves clock-wise, in spite of
the fact that the girl rotates the lantern counter-clock-wise.
Two other discrepancies in these scenes may be noted. One is that in
the close-ups the lantern does not appear to be lighted, and the other
is that lighthouses do not, as a rule, send out light in pencil-like
shape.
The scene above cited lacks pictorial unity, in spite of the fact that
the neighboring scenes are in perfect unity of dramatic meaning. This
illustrates the dangerous difference between saying things in words
and saying them in pictures. If we write, for example, “she swings
the lantern around slowly, etc.,” no reader is likely to question
whether the lantern is lighted or not, or whether it is rotated in one
direction or the opposite. But the camera impolitely tells the whole
truth. And some truths are full of fight when they are brought face to
face with each other.
The suddenness with which one scene leaps to the next on the screen
is a factor which many directors and most scenario writers fail to
reckon with. In Chapter III we have discussed at some length the effect
which these sudden jumps have upon our eyes. It remains now to see how
the “flash” from one scene to another affects our minds. In “Barbary
Sheep,” directed by Maurice Tourneur, there is bad joining which may
be illustrated by naming a succession of three scenes. They are: (1) A
picture of a mountain sheep some distance away on the edge of a cliff,
sharp against the sky, an excellent target for a hunter. (2) The hero
out hunting. He sees something, aims his gun obliquely upward. Our eyes
follow the line of the gun toward the upper left-hand corner of the
frame. (3) Some society ladies in a room.
Perhaps the reader can guess, even from this incomplete description in
words, how sudden and complete was the shock of scene 3 coming after
the preparation of scene 2. There was a complete violation of unity of
meanings, as well as of motions. We cannot say who was to blame for
this bad art, whether it was the director, or some one in the “cutting
room.” Possibly some motion picture operator had mutilated the film
in the theater. The fact remains that this part of the picture as it
reached the audience was badly composed. The promise of one scene was
not only ignored but ridiculed in the next scene.
An excellent illustration of how the promise made by a scene can be
beautifully fulfilled for the eye by a following scene may be found
in Griffith’s “The Idol Dancer.” Incidentally the joining shows how
false motion may be harmonized with real motion. Let the reader
imagine himself looking at a motion picture screen. The setting is a
New England country road in winter. Into the picture from the lower
right side of the frame comes a one-horse sleigh, which, as it glides
along the road, describes a curving motion over the screen, first to
the left and then upward to the right. It then begins curving to the
left again, when the scene is suddenly cut. The effect on our eyes at
this moment is such that we expect a continuation of motion toward
the left, a completion of the swing. And this is just what we get in
the next picture, which shows, not the sleigh at all, but the motion
of the landscape gliding by, from right to left, as the sleigh-riders
themselves might have seen it. We feel a pleasure of the eye somewhat
akin to the pleasure of our ears when a musician strikes a note which
the melody has led us to expect. Griffith’s touch of art in this
joining is especially delightful because it is so subtle that any
spectator, though he would surely feel it, would not observe it unless
he were especially occupied in the analysis of motion on the screen.
Sometimes two scenes may be joined in perfect harmony of motions and
yet show a conflict of meanings. In “The Love Light,” above mentioned,
we have one scene where the hero is about to take refuge in the cellar
beneath the room occupied by the heroine. He raises a trap door, goes
down the steps, and, as he descends slowly, closes the door behind
him. This downward-swinging motion of the door is in our eyes when the
scene is cut, and the next instant we see the outer door of the house
swinging open suddenly as the heroine rushes out into the yard. The
motions of the two doors are in perfect unity and balance, but we are
shocked nevertheless, because, since our minds and eyes were on the
hero in the cellar, we had expected another view of him beneath the
trap door.
But there are worse compositions than this in the movie theaters.
Sometimes whole plays are out of unity from beginning to end. A
notorious example was a photoplay called “The Birth of a Race,” which
began with Adam and Eve and ended up with visions of the future,
touching as it ran such things as little Moses and the Daughter
of Pharaoh, the slave drivers of Egypt, the exodus of Israel, the
crucifixion of Christ, the three ships of Columbus, the signing of the
Declaration of Independence, Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation,
the World War, German spies, steel works in the United States, a strike
of the workers, etc., etc. All of these scenes were badly joined, but
the greatest shock of all came when the action jumped in a flash from
Christ and the two thieves writhing in crucifixion to the three ships
of Columbus heeling gracefully in a light breeze.
Merely to hint at the contents of such a play is, we hope, sufficient
criticism. Without harmony of subject matter there certainly can be
no harmony of treatment. And if the director of “The Birth of a Race”
offers as his defense that he did not write the story, we can only
retort that he should not have picturized it. Even when the subject
matter is in continuous unity it requires a skillful, painstaking,
sincere director to weave its various materials into a single harmony
of impressiveness.
Perhaps we have continued long enough the discussion of the many-sided
nature and the artistic value of pictorial motions at rest. Let us
simply add that the kind of rest we have in mind is never the rest of
inaction, of sleep, or of death; it is rather a dynamic repose. Just
as the still portions of the motion picture may be active upon the
spectator’s mind, so the motions may be reposeful while they are both
at work and at play. Such harmony of pictorial motions on the screen
is not too high an ideal for the lovers of the cinema. The glimpses we
get of that ideal now are enough to assure us that as time goes on more
and more directors will be filled with inspiration and will achieve
triumphant expression through their chosen art.