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Page 39
Two apparent exceptions seem justified. It is not contrary to the
internal demands of the film art if a complete scene has a title. A
leader like "The Next Morning" or "After Three Years" or "In South
Africa" or "The First Step" or "The Awakening" or "Among Friends" has
the same character as the title of a painting in a picture gallery. If
we read in our catalogue of paintings that a picture is called
"Landscape" or "Portrait" we feel the words to be superfluous. If we
read that its title is "London Bridge in Mist" or "Portrait of the Pope"
we receive a valuable suggestion which is surely not without influence
on our appreciation of the picture, and yet it is not an organic part of
the painting itself. In this sense a leader as title for a scene or
still better for a whole reel may be applied without any esthetic
objection. The other case which is not only possible but perfectly
justified is the introduction of letters, telegrams, posters, newspaper
clippings, and similar printed or written communications in a pictorial
close-up the enlargement of which makes every word readable. This scheme
is more and more introduced into the plays today and the movement is in
a proper direction. The words of the telegram or of the signboard and
even of the cutting from the newspaper are parts of the reality which
the pictures are to show us and their meaning does not stand outside but
within the pictorial story. The true artist will make sparing use of
this method in order that the spectator may not change his attitude. He
must remain in an inner adjustment to pictorial forms and must not
switch over into an adaptation to sentences. But if its use is not
exaggerated, the method is legitimate, in striking contrast to the
inartistic use of the same words as leaders between the pictures.
The condemnation of guiding words, in the interest of the purity of the
picture play as such, also leads to earnest objection to phonographic
accompaniments. Those who, like Edison, had a technical, scientific, and
social interest but not a genuine esthetic point of view in the
development of the moving pictures naturally asked themselves whether
this optical imitation of the drama might not be improved by an
acoustical imitation too. Then the idea would be to connect the
kinematoscope with the phonograph and to synchronize them so completely
that with every visible movement of the lips the audible sound of the
words would leave the diaphragm of the apparatus. All who devoted
themselves to this problem had considerable difficulties and when their
ventures proved practical failures with the theater audiences, they were
inclined to blame their inability to solve the technical problem
perfectly. They were not aware that the real difficulty was an esthetic
and internal one. Even if the voices were heard with ideal perfection
and exactly in time with the movements on the screen, the effect on an
esthetically conscientious audience would have been disappointing. A
photoplay cannot gain but only lose if its visual purity is destroyed.
If we see and hear at the same time, we do indeed come nearer to the
real theater, but this is desirable only if it is our goal to imitate
the stage. Yet if that were the goal, even the best imitation would
remain far inferior to an actual theater performance. As soon as we have
clearly understood that the photoplay is an art in itself, the
conservation of the spoken word is as disturbing as color would be on
the clothing of a marble statue.
It is quite different with accompanying music. Even if the music in the
overwhelming majority of cases were not so pitifully bad as it is in
most of the picture theaters of today, no one would consider it an
organic part of the photoplay itself, like the singing in the opera. Yet
the need of such a more or less melodious and even more or less
harmonious accompaniment has always been felt, and even the poorest
substitute for decent music has been tolerated, as seeing long reels in
a darkened house without any tonal accompaniment fatigues and ultimately
irritates an average audience. The music relieves the tension and keeps
the attention awake. It must be entirely subordinated and it is a fact
that most people are hardly aware of the special pieces which are
played, while they would feel uncomfortable without them. But it is not
at all necessary for the music to be limited to such harmonious
smoothing of the mind by rhythmical tones. The music can and ought to be
adjusted to the play on the screen. The more ambitious picture
corporations have clearly recognized this demand and show their new
plays with exact suggestions for the choice of musical pieces to be
played as accompaniment. The music does not tell a part of the plot and
does not replace the picture as words would do, but simply re�nforces
the emotional setting. It is quite probable, when the photoplay art has
found its esthetic recognition, that composers will begin to write the
musical score for a beautiful photoplay with the same enthusiasm with
which they write in other musical forms.
Just between the intolerable accompaniment by printed or spoken words on
the one side and the perfectly welcome rendering of emotionally fitting
music on the other, we find the noises with which the photoplay managers
like to accompany their performances. When the horses gallop, we must
hear the hoofbeats, if rain or hail is falling, if the lightning
flashes, we hear the splashing or the thunderstorm. We hear the firing
of a gun, the whistling of a locomotive, ships' bells, or the ambulance
gong, or the barking dog, or the noise when Charlie Chaplin falls
downstairs. They even have a complicated machine, the "allefex," which
can produce over fifty distinctive noises, fit for any photoplay
emergency. It will probably take longer to rid the photoplay of these
appeals to the imagination than the explanations of the leaders, but
ultimately they will have to disappear too. They have no right to
existence in a work of art which is composed of pictures. In so far as
they are simply heightening the emotional tension, they may enter into
the music itself, but in so far as they tell a part of the story, they
ought to be ruled out as intrusions from another sphere. We might just
as well improve the painting of a rose garden by bathing it in rose
perfume in order that the spectators might get the odor of the roses
together with the sight of them. The limitations of an art are in
reality its strength and to overstep its boundaries means to weaken it.
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