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Page 18
Have we not reached by this analysis of the close-up a point very near
to that to which the study of depth perception and movement perception
was leading? We saw that the moving pictures give us the plastic world
and the moving world, and that nevertheless the depth and the motion in
it are not real, unlike the depth and motion of the stage. We find now
that the reality of the action in the photoplay in still another respect
lacks objective independence, because it yields to our subjective play
of attention. Wherever our attention becomes focused on a special
feature, the surrounding adjusts itself, eliminates everything in which
we are not interested, and by the close-up heightens the vividness of
that on which our mind is concentrated. It is as if that outer world
were woven into our mind and were shaped not through its own laws but by
the acts of our attention.
CHAPTER V
MEMORY AND IMAGINATION
When we sit in a real theater and see the stage with its depth and watch
the actors moving and turn our attention hither and thither, we feel
that those impressions from behind the footlights have objective
character, while the action of our attention is subjective. Those men
and things come from without but the play of the attention starts from
within. Yet our attention, as we have seen, does not really add anything
to the impressions of the stage. It makes some more vivid and clear
while others become vague or fade away, but through the attention alone
no content enters our consciousness. Wherever our attention may wander
on the stage, whatever we experience comes to us through the channels of
our senses. The spectator in the audience, however, does experience more
than merely the light and sound sensations which fall on the eye and
ear at that moment. He may be entirely fascinated by the actions on the
stage and yet his mind may be overflooded with other ideas. Only one of
their sources, but not the least important one, is the memory.
Indeed the action of the memory brings to the mind of the audience ever
so much which gives fuller meaning and ampler setting to every
scene--yes, to every word and movement on the stage. To think of the
most trivial case, at every point of the drama we must remember what
happened in the previous scenes. The first act is no longer on the stage
when we see the second. The second alone is now our sense impression.
Yet this second act is in itself meaningless if it is not supported by
the first. Hence the first must somehow be in our consciousness. At
least in every important scene we must remember those situations of the
preceding act which can throw light on the new developments. We see the
young missionary in his adventures on his perilous journey and we
remember how in the preceding act we saw him in his peaceful cottage
surrounded by the love of his parents and sisters and how they mourned
when he left them behind. The more exciting the dangers he passes
through in the far distant land, the more strongly does our memory carry
us back to the home scenes which we witnessed before. The theater cannot
do more than suggest to our memory this looking backward. The young hero
may call this reminiscence back to our consciousness by his speech and
his prayer, and when he fights his way through the jungles of Africa and
the savages attack him, the melodrama may put words into his mouth which
force us to think fervently of those whom he has left behind. But, after
all, it is our own material of memory ideas which supplies the picture.
The theater cannot go further. The photoplay can. We see the jungle, we
see the hero at the height of his danger; and suddenly there flashes
upon the screen a picture of the past. For not more than two seconds
does the idyllic New England scene slip into the exciting African
events. When one deep breath is over we are stirred again by the event
of the present. That home scene of the past flitted by just as a hasty
thought of bygone days darts through the mind.
The modern photoartist makes use of this technical device in an
abundance of forms. In his slang any going back to an earlier scene is
called a "cut-back." The cut-back may have many variations and serve
many purposes. But the one which we face here is psychologically the
most interesting. We have really an objectivation of our memory
function. The case of the cut-back is there quite parallel to that of
the close-up. In the one we recognize the mental act of attending, in
the other we must recognize the mental act of remembering. _In both
cases the act which in the ordinary theater would go on in our mind
alone is here in the photoplay projected into the pictures themselves.
It is as if reality has lost its own continuous connection and become
shaped by the demands of our soul._ It is as if the outer world itself
became molded in accordance with our fleeting turns of attention or with
our passing memory ideas.
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