The art of sound pictures (1930)

100 THE ART OF SOUND PICTURES tion, you can put over the same essential story values in a small fraction of the space required for the literary form of the story. For instance, it is sometimes quite possible to take a story wherein the characters travel all over Europe, have submarine fights in the Atlantic, and end in a New York night club, and tell essentially the same story for picture purposes in a locale consisting of a farmyard in the Middle West. This may seem exaggerated, but we have personally observed the adaptation of a story which was actually changed for the screen as indicated. CHARACTER AND CHARACTER PORTRAYAL The task of depicting character in the sound picture is, in one sense, far easier than in the silent picture. The latter, being essentially pantomime clarified with titles, is cruelly restricted as a medium of depicting human nature. Few of us express ourselves in postures and gestures. Our natural manner finds itself freer and surer in spoken words and, most of all, in decisive acts involving such forms of language as promises, commands, prohibitions, and so on, all of which readily lends itself to reproduction in talk and scene combined. To this extent, character drawing in soimd pictures seems to offer pretty much the same opportunities and difficulties as in the drama of the Broadway stage. But a closer study brings out the somewhat startling fact that a sound picture, skillfully handled, can reveal more of a personality than any other device of art or science. The actor on the stage can talk, gesticulate, and move to and fro; but there his powers end. The actor of the talking