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Page 38
Nobody denies that the photoplay shares the characteristic features of
the drama. Both depend upon the conflict of interests and of acts. These
conflicts, tragic or comic, demand a similar development and solution on
the stage and on the screen. A mere showing of human activity without
will conflict might give very pleasant moving pictures of idyllic or
romantic character or perhaps of practical interest. The result would be
a kind of lyric or epic poem on the screen, or a travelogue or what not,
but it would never shape itself into a photoplay as long as that
conflict of human interests which the drama demands was lacking. Yet, as
this conflict of will is expressed in the one case by living speaking
men, in the other by moving pictures, the difference in the artistic
conception must surely be as great as the similarity. Hence one of the
supreme demands must be for an original literature of real power and
significance, in which every thought is generated by the idea of the
screen. As long as the photoplays are fed by the literature of the
stage, the new art can never come to its own and can never reach its
real goal. It is surely no fault of Shakespeare that Hamlet and King
Lear are very poor photoplays. If ever a Shakespeare arises for the
screen, his work would be equally unsatisfactory if it were dragged to
the stage. Peer Gynt is no longer Ibsen's if the actors are dumb.
The novel, in certain respects, fares still worse, but in other respects
some degrees better. It is true that in the superficial literature
written for the hour the demarcation line between dramatic and narrative
works is often ignored. The best sellers of the novel counter are often
warmed over into successful theater plays, and no society play with a
long run on Broadway escapes its transformation into a serial novel for
the newspapers. But where literature is at its height, the deep
difference can be felt distinctly. The epic art, including the novel,
traces the experiences and the development of a character, while the
drama is dependent upon the conflict of character. Mere adventures of a
personality are never sufficient for a good drama and are not less
unsatisfactory for the plot of a photoplay. In the novel the opposing
characters are only a part of the social background which is needed to
show the life story of the hero or heroine. They have not the
independent significance which is essential for the dramatic conflict.
The novel on the screen, if it is a true novel and not the novelistic
rendering of what is really a dramatic plot, must be lifeless and
uninspiring. But on the other hand the photoplay much more than the
drama emphasizes the background of human action, and it shares this
trait with the novel. Both the social and the natural backgrounds are
the real setting for the development of the chief character in the
story. These features can easily be transferred to the photoplay and for
this reason some picturized novels have had the advantage over the
photoplay cut from the drama. The only true conclusion must remain,
however, that neither drama nor novel is sufficient for the film
scenarios. The photopoet must turn to life itself and must remodel life
in the artistic forms which are characteristic of his particular art. If
he has truly grasped the fundamental meaning of the screen world, his
imagination will guide him more safely than his reminiscences of dramas
which he has seen on the stage and of novels which he has read.
If we turn to a few special demands which are contained in such a
general postulate for a new artistic method, we naturally think at once
of the r�le of words. The drama and novel live by words. How much of
this noblest vehicle of thought can the photoplay conserve in its
domain? We all know what a large part of the photoplay today is told us
by the medium of words and phrases. How little would we know what those
people are talking about if we saw them only acting and had not
beforehand the information which the "leader" supplies. The technique
differs with different companies. Some experiment with projecting the
spoken words into the picture itself, bringing the phrase in glaring
white letters near the head of the person who is speaking, in a way
similar to the methods of the newspaper cartoonists. But mostly the
series of the pictures is interrupted and the decisive word taken
directly from the lips of the hero, or an explanatory statement which
gives meaning to the whole is thrown on the screen. Sometimes this may
be a concession to the mentally less trained members of the audience,
but usually these printed comments are indispensable for understanding
the plot, and even the most intelligent spectator would feel helpless
without these frequent guideposts. But this habit of the picture houses
today is certainly not an esthetic argument. They are obliged to yield
to the scheme simply because the scenario writers are still untrained
and clumsy in using the technique of the new art.
Some religious painters of medieval times put in the picture itself
phrases which the persons were supposed to speak, as if the words were
leaving their mouths. But we could not imagine Raphael and Michelangelo
making use of a method of communication which is so entirely foreign to
the real spirit of painting. Every art grows slowly to the point where
the artist relies on its characteristic and genuine forms of expression.
Elements which do not belong to it are at first mingled in it and must
be slowly eliminated. The photoplay of the day after tomorrow will
surely be freed from all elements which are not really pictures. The
beginning of the photoplay as a mere imitation of the theater is nowhere
so evident as in this inorganic combination with bits of dialogue or
explanatory phrases. The art of words and the art of pictures are there
forcibly yoked together. Whoever writes his scenarios so that the
pictures cannot be understood without these linguistic crutches is an
esthetic failure in the new art. The next step toward the emancipation
of the photoplay decidedly must be the creation of plays which speak the
language of pictures only.
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