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pure fantasy. They have little relationship to flesh-and-blood realities, but are definite creations of the imagination. If an actor appeared (as inevitably he would) in such a grotesque or imaginative film, with an ordinary make-up, and surrounded by the paraphernalia of the star system, all sense of fantasy would be dispelled, for the essence of fantasy lies, as has been said, in its separation from the everyday world, and actors (being what they are) are very much of the world of every day. The illusion would have vanished, and it is here that modern art can come to the aid of naturalism.
Masks are the finest symbols obtainable for the elimination of the human, and the deeper conveyance of a sense of the unreal, and should be used extensively in experimental films. Light and shadow must also play a very important part, and an intelligent use of symbolic backgrounds, such as those of Miro, would be of invaluable help. Gesture and movement are of primary artistic importance, and only the actor who could express himself throughout the medium of his whole body could be utilized. The significance achieved by such mime has already been seen at its best in the Ballets Russes productions of "Choreartium" and "Les Presages."
The entire film need not be pure mime, but all talk would have to be incorporated into the movement, and not allowed to escape as an individual aberration from the complete design. Music and sound effects could be made by illusion to emanate from various points of the action. The endeavour would be, in other words, to generalize speech effects, and localize music and sound effects, using all such as definite accent notes, but not obtrusive attractions. Tremendous use could be made of the revolving light and wheel, and it would be expedient to employ an inclined stage of perhaps one in eight or one in ten. The essential purpose behind all such abstraction of the human would not be the elimination of the flesh-and-blood actor, as such, but the attempted intensification of symbolic effect.
The Greek play is perhaps a convincing illustration of the whole theme. We all know how the orthodox cinema would tackle such a play, and yet the essential quality in a Greek play is precisely this absence from naturalism. Its beauty is an elusive one of the spirit and the mind, and it is in this world of inner significances that the experimental cinema, with a developed capacity for fantasy, will perhaps find its widest scope.
The naturalistic play has its unquestionable place in the life of cinematic art. It presents the human problem in a comprehensible form to the mass of the people. Its appeal rests primarily on the personality of the actor, and the authenticity of the emotions he is interpreting, but the experimental cinema has the unique oppor
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