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Page 16
But we know from the theater that movement is not the only condition
which makes us focus our interest on a particular element of the play.
An unusual face, a queer dress, a gorgeous costume or a surprising lack
of costume, a quaint piece of decoration, may attract our mind and even
hold it spellbound for a while. Such means can not only be used but can
be carried to a much stronger climax of efficiency by the unlimited
means of the moving pictures. This is still more true of the power of
setting or background. The painted landscape of the stage can hardly
compete with the wonders of nature and culture when the scene of the
photoplay is laid in the supreme landscapes of the world. Wide vistas
are opened, the woods and the streams, the mountain valleys and the
ocean, are before us with the whole strength of reality; and yet in
rapid change which does not allow the attention to become fatigued.
Finally the mere formal arrangement of the succeeding pictures may keep
our attention in control, and here again are possibilities which are
superior to those of the solid theater stage. At the theater no effect
of formal arrangement can give exactly the same impression to the
spectators in every part of the house. The perspective of the wings and
the other settings and their relation to the persons and to the
background can never appear alike from the front and from the rear, from
the left and from the right side, from the orchestra and from the
balcony, while the picture which the camera has fixated is the same
from every corner of the picture palace. The greatest skill and
refinement can be applied to make the composition serviceable to the
needs of attention. The spectator may not and ought not to be aware that
the lines of the background, the hangings of the room, the curves of the
furniture, the branches of the trees, the forms of the mountains, help
to point toward the figure of the woman who is to hold his mind. The
shading of the lights, the patches of dark shadows, the vagueness of
some parts, the sharp outlines of others, the quietness of some parts of
the picture as against the vehement movement of others all play on the
keyboard of our mind and secure the desired effect on our involuntary
attention.
But if all is admitted, we still have not touched on the most important
and most characteristic relation of the photoplay pictures to the
attention of the audience; and here we reach a sphere in which any
comparison with the stage of the theater would be in vain. What is
attention? What are the essential processes in the mind when we turn our
attention to one face in the crowd, to one little flower in the wide
landscape? It would be wrong to describe the process in the mind by
reference to one change alone. If we have to give an account of the act
of attention, as seen by the modern psychologist, we ought to point to
several co�rdinated features. They are not independent of one another
but are closely interrelated. We may say that whatever attracts our
attention in the sphere of any sense, sight or sound, touch or smell,
surely becomes more vivid and more clear in our consciousness. This does
not at all mean that it becomes more intense. A faint light to which we
turn our attention does not become the strong light of an incandescent
lamp. No, it remains the faint, just perceptible streak of lightness,
but it has grown more impressive, more distinct, more clear in its
details, more vivid. It has taken a stronger hold of us or, as we may
say by a metaphor, it has come into the center of our consciousness.
But this involves a second aspect which is surely no less important.
While the attended impression becomes more vivid, all the other
impressions become less vivid, less clear, less distinct, less detailed.
They fade away. We no longer notice them. They have no hold on our
mind, they disappear. If we are fully absorbed in our book, we do not
hear at all what is said around us and we do not see the room; we forget
everything. Our attention to the page of the book brings with it our
lack of attention to everything else. We may add a third factor. We feel
that our body adjusts itself to the perception. Our head enters into the
movement of listening for the sound, our eyes are fixating the point in
the outer world. We hold all our muscles in tension in order to receive
the fullest possible impression with our sense organs. The lens in our
eye is accommodated exactly to the correct distance. In short our bodily
personality works toward the fullest possible impression. But this is
supplemented by a fourth factor. Our ideas and feelings and impulses
group themselves around the attended object. It becomes the starting
point for our actions while all the other objects in the sphere of our
senses lose their grip on our ideas and feelings. These four factors are
intimately related to one another. As we are passing along the street we
see something in the shop window and as soon as it stirs up our
interest, our body adjusts itself, we stop, we fixate it, we get more
of the detail in it, the lines become sharper, and while it impresses us
more vividly than before the street around us has lost its vividness and
clearness.
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