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Page 15
Surely the theater has no lack of means to draw this involuntary
attention to any important point. To begin with, the actor who speaks
holds our attention more strongly than the actors who at that time are
silent. Yet the contents of the words may direct our interest to anybody
else on the stage. We watch him whom the words accuse, or betray or
delight. But the mere interest springing from words cannot in the least
explain that constantly shifting action of our involuntary attention
during a theater performance. The movements of the actors are essential.
The pantomime without words can take the place of the drama and still
appeal to us with overwhelming power. The actor who comes to the
foreground of the stage is at once in the foreground of our
consciousness. He who lifts his arm while the others stand quiet has
gained our attention. Above all, every gesture, every play of the
features, brings order and rhythm into the manifoldness of the
impressions and organizes them for our mind. Again, the quick action,
the unusual action, the repeated action, the unexpected action, the
action with strong outer effect, will force itself on our mind and
unbalance the mental equilibrium.
The question arises: how does the photoplay secure the needed shifting
of attention? Here, too, involuntary attention alone can be expected.
An attention which undertakes its explorations guided by preconceived
ideas instead of yielding to the demands of the play would lack
adjustment to its task. We might sit through the photoplay with the
voluntary intention of watching the pictures with a scientific interest
in order to detect some mechanical traits of the camera, or with a
practical interest, in order to look up some new fashions, or with a
professional interest, in order to find out in what New England scenery
these pictures of Palestine might have been photographed. But none of
these aspects has anything to do with the photoplay. If we follow the
play in a genuine attitude of theatrical interest, we must accept those
cues for our attention which the playwright and the producers have
prepared for us. But there is surely no lack of means by which our mind
can be influenced and directed in the rapid play of the pictures.
Of course the spoken word is lacking. We know how often the words on the
screen serve as substitutes for the speech of the actors. They appear
sometimes as so-called "leaders" between the pictures, sometimes even
thrown into the picture itself, sometimes as content of a written
letter or of a telegram or of a newspaper clipping which is projected
like a picture, strongly enlarged, on the screen. In all these cases the
words themselves prescribe the line in which the attention must move and
force the interest of the spectator toward the new goal. But such help
by the writing on the wall is, after all, extraneous to the original
character of the photoplay. As long as we study the psychological effect
of the moving pictures themselves, we must concentrate our inquiry on
the moving pictures as such and not on that which the playwright does
for the interpretation of the pictures. It may be granted that the
letters and newspaper articles take a middle place. They are a part of
the picture, but their influence on the spectator is, nevertheless, very
similar to that of the leaders. We are here concerned only with what the
pictorial offering contains. We must therefore also disregard the
accompanying music or the imitative noises which belong to the technique
of the full-fledged photoplay nowadays. They do not a little to push the
attention hither and thither. Yet they are accessory, while the primary
power must lie in the content of the pictures themselves.
But it is evident that with the exception of the words, no means for
drawing attention which is effective on the theater stage is lost in the
photoplay. All the directing influences which the movements of the
actors exert can be felt no less when they are pictured in the films.
More than that, the absence of the words brings the movements which we
see to still greater prominence in our mind. Our whole attention can now
be focused on the play of the face and of the hands. Every gesture and
every mimic excitement stirs us now much more than if it were only the
accompaniment of speech. Moreover, the technical conditions of the
kinematograph show favor the importance of the movement. First the play
on the screen is acted more rapidly than that on the stage. By the
absence of speech everything is condensed, the whole rhythm is
quickened, a greater pressure of time is applied, and through that the
accents become sharper and the emphasis more powerful for the attention.
But secondly the form of the stage intensifies the impression made by
those who move toward the foreground. The theater stage is broadest near
the footlights and becomes narrower toward the background; the moving
picture stage is narrowest in front and becomes wider toward the
background. This is necessary because its width is controlled by the
angle at which the camera takes the picture. The camera is the apex of
an angle which encloses a breadth of only a few feet in the nearest
photographic distance, while it may include a width of miles in the far
distant landscape. Whatever comes to the foreground therefore gains
strongly in relative importance over its surroundings. Moving away from
the camera means a reduction much greater than a mere stepping to the
background on the theater stage. Furthermore lifeless things have much
more chance for movements in the moving pictures than on the stage and
their motions, too, can contribute toward the right setting of the
attention.
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