Movement in two dimensions : a study of the animated and projected pictures which preceded the invention of cinematography (1963)

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MOVEMENT IN TWO DIMENSIONS Karagoz's own humble abode, an arbour surrounded by flowering bushes, and an Ah Baba vat to hide one of Mrs. Karagoz's lovers, all designed in much the same large, robust, naive spirit as the ornament on early Staffordshire pottery. The Turkish figures are smaller than the Javanese puppets, usually about 9 in. high, although one of the characters, a dwarf, is smaller still, not more than 5 or 6 in. tall. They are made of camel-skin which has been treated until it is softly translucent like a piece of very fine jade or palest cornelian still salty from the sea. The forms are firmly outlined in black and richly coloured, the faces a warm flesh, the hair jet, the clothing, often patterned with motifs like those on Turkish pots, deep glowing red, plum, apple-green, cobalt, and yellow. This fine colour, like that of the Chinese shades, shines through the screen when the figures are in action. All the puppets are in complete profile and for the most part are jointed only at the waist and sometimes at the knees. Occasionally the head also is articulated and in some instances a figure is provided with two heads, one hanging down and the other in position, and in a transformation scene these will be quickly reversed. The Karagoz figure of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is usually given one long arm jointed at the shoulder and elbow, and one of the characters in The Boat, a toper with a gun, also has a long, jointed arm. This long arm is deliciously eloquent; with it Karagoz will cross himself on the bosom with an effect which always produces laughter from an audience very fond of using this gesture. But in general the Turkish shades are remarkable for their extraordinarily short arms, held close to the body, and for their minute feet. They are manipulated by means of one or, occasionally, two horizontal rods fitted into little sockets. The waist joints are loose and when the figures are in action they dart about the screen with all the skipping, bowing, swaying, jerking movement of the spritely dialogue. They have none of the elegance of the Chinese puppets and none of the intense, romantic poetry of the Javanese silhouettes, but they are extraordinarily lively and convincing with their large almond eyes — the whites of which are cut away so that the pupils appear startlingly black upon the screen — and the caricature-like treatment of the large heads. Originally the shadows were projected by the uncertain light of torches and the performance was accompanied by several musicians playing drums and flutes. Now the action is usually supported by gramophone music, except for 62