Close Up (Jul-Dec 1929)

CLOSE UP a free hand to create from beginning to end a finished scenario complete in all its details. That sort of solo work passed out a decade ago. Strictly speaking, there is to-day no such profession as scenario writing — that is, in the sense that we speak of writing a novel or a play, wherein an author prepares a finished work directly for presentation to the public. Jeanie Macpherson, Cecil de Mille's scenarist, is the only remaining member of the one-time flourishing profession of scenario writing. She alone continues to write directly and completely for the screen, beginning with the originating of the story and following through in every detail to the writing of the final " Fade-out " of the continuity. Despite the obvious facts to the contrary, we hear it perennially stated that the day of the original screen writer is dawning ; that the Shakespeare of the screen is about to make his advent. It sounds learned and prophetic and serves to hearten the trusting outlander. But it is merely one of those handy cliches that do service in a pinch for the want of something wiser to say. It has had a special revival since the advent of the talkies, due to the confusion of ideas created by the seeming correspondence between the speaking photoplay and the stage drama. Time will very clearly demonstrate that such correspondence is only suppositious, or superficial at most. Intrinsically there is no identity or dependency between these two forms of dramatic expression. Their respective media distinctly differentiate them. And this differentiation will grow and become increasingly evident as the talkie develops. There will never be a Shakespeare of the photodrama, for the simple reason that it is essentially a composite and 223