The photoplay; a psychological study (1916)

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THE PHOTOPLAY three feet from our eyes in the plate glass and we see it at -the same time six feet from our eye behind the glass. Both localizations take hold of our mind and produce a peculiar interference. We all have learned to ignore it, but characteristic illusions remain which indicate the reality of this doubleness. In the case of the picture on the screen this conflict is much stronger. We certainly see the depth, and yet we cannot accept it. There is too much which inhibits belief and interferes with the interpretation of the people and landscape before us as truly plastic. They are surely not simply pictures. The persons can move toward us and away from us, and the river flows into a distant valley. And yet the distance in which the people move is not the distance of our real space, such as the theater shows, and the per- sons themselves are not flesh and blood. It is a unique inner experience, which is character- istic of the perception of the photoplays. We have reality ivith all its true dimensions; and yet it Jceeps the fleeting, passing surface sug- gestion without true depth and fullness, as different from a mere picture as from a mere stage performance. It brings our mind into 56