The photoplay; a psychological study (1916)

Record Details:

Title:
The photoplay; a psychological study
Date:
1916
Publisher:
New York [etc.] D. Appleton and company
Volume:
The photoplay; a psychological study
Leaf #:
000203
Language:
English
Collection:
Books
Format:
Books
Contributor:
Cornell University Library
Sponsor:
MSN
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
Date Added:
July 19, 2022
Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

THE PHOTOPLAY tained in tlie lines. In tlie photoplay tlie whole emphasis lies on the picture and its composition is left entirely to the producing artist. But the scenario writer must not only have talent for dramatic invention and construc- tion; he must be wide awake to the imique- ness of his task, that is, he must feel at every moment that he is writing for the screen and not for the stage or for a book. And this brings us back to our central argument. He must understand that the photoplay is not a photographed drama, but that it is controlled by psychological conditions of its own. As soon as it is grasped that the film play is not simply a mechanical reproduction of another art but is an art of a special kind, it follows that talents of a special kind must be devoted to it and that nobody ought to feel it beneath his artistic dignity to write scenarios in the service of this new art. No doubt the moving picture performances today still stand on a low artistic level. Nine tenths of the plays are cheap melodramas or vulgar farces. The question is not how much larger a per- centage of really valuable dramas can be found in our theaters. Many of their plays 194