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Page 25
As soon as we give any interest to this formal aspect of the
presentation, we must recognize that the photoplaywright has here
possibilities to which nothing corresponds in the world of the stage.
Take the case that we want to produce an effect of trembling. We might
use the pictures as the camera has taken them, sixteen in a second. But
in reproducing them on the screen we change their order. After giving
the first four pictures we go back to picture 3, then give 4, 5, 6, and
return to 5, then 6, 7, 8, and go back to 7, and so on. Any other
rhythm, of course, is equally possible. The effect is one which never
occurs in nature and which could not be produced on the stage. The
events for a moment go backward. A certain vibration goes through the
world like the tremolo of the orchestra. Or we demand from our camera a
still more complex service. We put the camera itself on a slightly
rocking support and then every point must move in strange curves and
every motion takes an uncanny whirling character. The content still
remains the same as under normal conditions, but the changes in the
formal presentation give to the mind of the spectator unusual sensations
which produce a new shading of the emotional background.
Of course, impressions which come to our eye can at first awaken only
sensations, and a sensation is not an emotion. But it is well known that
in the view of modern physiological psychology our consciousness of the
emotion itself is shaped and marked by the sensations which arise from
our bodily organs. As soon as such abnormal visual impressions stream
into our consciousness, our whole background of fusing bodily sensations
becomes altered and new emotions seem to take hold of us. If we see on
the screen a man hypnotized in the doctor's office, the patient himself
may lie there with closed eyes, nothing in his features expressing his
emotional setting and nothing radiating to us. But if now only the
doctor and the patient remain unchanged and steady, while everything in
the whole room begins at first to tremble and then to wave and to change
its form more and more rapidly so that a feeling of dizziness comes over
us and an uncanny, ghastly unnaturalness overcomes the whole surrounding
of the hypnotized person, we ourselves become seized by the strange
emotion. It is not worth while to go into further illustrations here, as
this possibility of the camera work still belongs entirely to the
future. It could not be otherwise as we remember that the whole moving
picture play arose from the slavish imitation of the drama and began
only slowly to find its own artistic methods. But there is no doubt that
the formal changes of the pictorial presentation will be legion as soon
as the photoartists give their attention to this neglected aspect.
The value of these formal changes for the expression of the emotions may
become remarkable. The characteristic features of many an attitude and
feeling which cannot be expressed without words today will then be
aroused in the mind of the spectator through the subtle art of the
camera.
PART II
THE ESTHETICS OF THE PHOTOPLAY
CHAPTER VII
THE PURPOSE OF ART
We have analyzed the mental functions which are most powerful in the
audience of the photoplay. We studied the mere act of perceiving the
pictures on the screen, of perceiving their apparently plastic
character, their depth, and their apparent movements. We turned then to
those psychical acts by which we respond to the perceived impressions.
In the foreground stood the act of attention, but then we followed the
play of associations, of memory, of imagination, of suggestion, and,
most important of all, we traced the distribution of interest. Finally
we spoke of the feelings and emotions with which we accompany the play.
Certainly all this does not exhaust the mental reactions which arise in
our mind when we witness a drama of the film. We have not spoken, for
instance, of the action which the plot of the story or its social
background may start in our soul. The suffering of the poor, the
injustice by which the weak may be forced into the path of crime, and a
hundred other social motives may be impressed on us by the photoplay;
thoughts about human society, about laws and reforms, about human
differences and human fates, may fill our mind. Yet this is not one of
the characteristic functions of the moving pictures. It is a side effect
which may set in just as it may result from reading the newspapers or
from hearing of practical affairs in life. But in all our discussions we
have also left out another mental process, namely, esthetic emotion. We
did speak about the emotions which the plot of the play stirs up. We
discussed the feelings in which we sympathize with the characters of the
scene, in which we share their suffering and their joy; and we also
spoke about that other group of emotions by which we take a mental
attitude toward the behaviour of the persons in the play. But there is
surely a third group of feelings and emotions which we have not yet
considered, namely, those of our joy in the play, our esthetic
satisfaction or dissatisfaction. We have omitted them intentionally,
because the study of this group of feelings involves a discussion of the
esthetic process as such, and we have left all the esthetic problems for
this second part of our investigation.
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