Hollywood Spectator (1937-39)

Page Four March 27, 1937 tain us. Making the policeman a fancy and the siren’s blast a fact, is a mixture of warring elements, an anachronism which derides screen art. We, so to speak, are as rigid as he is as he scans the valley beneath him ; and our hearts leap with his as he spies a path leading down. B JJT Hollywood laughs when you mention screen art. To it, making screen entertainment is strictly a business, as I have said. The business, however, is not being conducted by capable businessmen. The capable businessman shapes his product to conform to the demand of the market; his sole concern is to offer his customers what they will buy most readily, not to dictate to them what they shall buy. Hollywood does all the things the capable businessman carefully avoids doing; but it does them unconsciously. Never having understood why the public bought screen entertainment in the first place, being unaware of the element which made it marketable, it now, without knowing it, is trying to make over the market to conform to its product instead of studying the market to the end that it may give it what it will buy most readily. Obviously the impression of movement the screen conveys to its audience is the chief factor in its commercial success. That the impression is due to the rapid projection of a series of pictures, in which there is no movement, is of no concern to the audience; it is none the less movement to the eye, even though it is the product of persistence of vision making an impression appear as an actuality. Our artist who painted the tree leaning before the wind, can inspire imagination to ascribe movement to the leaves, but only the screen can show us the leaves actually trembling, can create in us the illusion that the photographed leaves have movement. w, 0 UR emotions keep the filmic motion intact. Our brain tells us the hunter is in no danger, that he is an actor pretending to be a hunter, that there is a camera crew close to him, that soon he will be in a comfortable motor on his way home; that his sweetheart is not his sweetheart, is in no danger, probably is at home, entertaining friends at tea. But so completely has the illusion of reality been created, so sympathetically have our emotions responded to its urge, we give no heed to the realities our cold brain tries to force upon our attention; we ignore its efforts to lead us from the inner world of the screen creation into the outer world of our daily, commonplace, routine actualities. It will be seen, then, that if a motion picture does not create an illusion of reality, it creates nothing; if it does not weave its elements into a continuous flow of filmic motion to keep our emotional reaction unchecked — in short, if it is not screen art — it cannot have entertainment value to assure its success at the box-office. And, as pointed out in a previous Spectator, these discussions are based on commercial considerations, on picture-making as a business, and screen art becomes a factor in them because, as the business is one of manufacturing and marketing art creations, it should follow that the degree of artistic perfection the creations attain must be reflected in the financial return they earn. w. ITH that as the starting point in their analysis of their product, one would think producers of screen entertainment would grasp the commercial wisdom of providing their market with as much movement as possible. In a screen offering there are two kinds of movement, physical and filmic, or objective and subjective. Of the two, filmic motion is the more important, if we differentiate them, as in reality physical motion is a part of filmic motion, the motion which makes the story interest continuous, which provides the maximum of entertainment in a given length of film. It is its entertainment content which determines the market value of a screen creation, consequently the first concern of the makers of pictures should be keeping intact the element upon which their commercial success depends. Even though it embraces it, filmic motion is not dependent for its integrity upon physical motion. A motion picture is a symphony of movement, our emotions the strings upon which it is played. Our emotions provide the continuity. They follow the physical action of a lost hunter in seeking desperately to reach a height from which he hopes to get his bearings, but when he attains the height, stands still and gazes anxiously into the distance, only his eyes alive, our emotions do not pause as his physical action ceases. Our anxiety for his safety increases, for the crucial point has been reached ; we know each hour is precious, that delay means peril to him and his sweetheart whom he must reach before disaster overtakes her. E have seen that the degree of merit a motion picture attains is determined by the degree in which the illusion of reality is developed and sustained. Obviously, the most disturbing factor in the integrity of an illusion must be the intrusion of reality. Another is the disturbance of the pictorial symphony’s harmony by one element’s bid for attention on its own account and at the expense of the rhythmic flow of the filmic motion. Let us first consider the one we place second. To be complete, our interest in a screen offering must be continuous. If into a scene which has been a legitimate element in the forward flow of filmic motion, comes a woman wearing a hat so striking it attracts attention to itself apart from the remainder of the composition, we have an abrupt check to the filmic motion and a letdown in audience interest by the intrusion of alien considerations. Where, in heaven’s name, did she get such a hat ? Does she imagine she looks well in it ? Or — what a stunning hat! I wonder who designed it. I will get one like it. Multiply the hat by hair-dresses, gowns, sets, all sufficiently striking to attract attention to themselves, and you find many cases of pictures being deprived of their maximum entertainment possibilities by a lack of understanding of their true inwardness on the part of those who make them. T HE gravest intrusion is that of the reality of audible dialogue and mechanically reproduced sounds in this art of the illusion of reality. As we consider it, however,