Moving Picture World (April-June 1915)

Mav 22, 1915 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD Skeleton and Soul' 1233 THE scenario of a photodrama has been very reasonably compared to the foundation and framework of a house — even in its simplest form it is the basis on which the visualized story is built, and a genuine working scenario rises so high as to establish the entire general design. No matter how elaborate and beautiful the finished structure, its character is bound to be deeply affected by what gave it configuration, but it might be nearer the truth to call it a skeleton. It is a dead thing in physical appearance, must be covered with the pulsing flesh of life before it is particularly attractive, but with it goes that invisible spirit which is only manifested in the complete form, the soul of the story. Strip a popular novel of its highly-colored verbiage ; denude it of those words which control the writer's flights of imagination ; remove superfluous traces of the medium through which he has given his ideas expression, even to his literary tricks of exciting curiosity and fanning the flame of suspense, and it is possible to reach a scenario of the book. There remains the motive, the characters, the situations, the incidents illustrating motive and character, and, if it is a story worth screen visualization, one dominating throught. These materials newly arranged in a continuous succession of dramatic scenes, by methods either analytic or synthetic, can be brought into an entirely new unity of narrative for direct presentation to the eye. This new arrangement is so far removed from being that of stage plays, and to a less degree from most narrative arrangements of prose fiction, that it is perilous to quote from governing laws of the older arts. There is also a danger of imposing restrictions, the risk of replacing spontaneous coinposition with that of ineffective artificiality. But all story telling mediums are more or less akin, and what applies to one often applies to all, the adjustment of background to character, the focussing of attention upon people and events destined to play the leading parts in reaching desired results. People sitting in the semi-obscurity of a motion-picture theater cannot lay aside the five-reel screen story and take it up again. They cannot refer back to what has not been made entirely clear to them. They are to watch the performance without intermissions. There must be a concentration of action and characterization in what is shown. Diversions so dear to the dramatist and to the novelist are worse than confusing — they are destructive to sustained interest. Pretty little side stories of subordinate characters' are not for the screen. A handful of main characters is enough for practical as well as for artistic reasons — close up scenes are in very small scope, and the average mixed audience becomes easily confused in attempting to follow what is happening to more than five people in the swiftly changing scenes. The opening pictures may well be devoted to the characterization of one or more principals, even if their lives are moving in widely-separated channels. The hero may be a soldier dominated for the moment by war lust, the heroine a hospital nurse, saving life while he is bent on destroying it. He may be a gentle clergyman expounding on faith, she a girl of the slums, an unconscious Christian in good deeds. One whole reel of a strong play was effectively devoted to the characterization of a two-sided man about whom leading events clustered. The audience knew him when he came to be the important factor in all that transpired. 'Copyright, 1915. Louis Reeves Harrison, By Louis Reeves H.'\rrison. Prompt characterization not only wins sympathetic interest, but it aids in making a logical series of events plausible. During this preparation, in itself a delicate forewarning of complications to follow, there should be an equally delicate intimation of the story's trend, just a few notes of the theme may be sounded. There is a wrong being done ; there is a complication set up which is bound to result in cross purposes or a clash of individual desires ; there are entanglements to be straightened out ; there is a theory to be proven ; there is a problem to be solved — whatever the eventual scenes of tension, however, the main action should be preceded by an unfolding of the minds and hearts of those who interpret that action. What are the people in the story? What are their relations to one another? What compelling influences are bringing them together? What needs readjustment in their conduct ? Intense drama is concerned largely with those forms of evil which grow out of ignorance, principally our ignorance of one another. We lead up to a crisis, an effect of which lack of enlightenment is usually the cause. False ideas in the mind of one cause the mental suffering of others. Out in the audience pur sympathies are enlisted, and, from our superior .^tandpoint, we enjoy having error punished as an example for certain people we know. Having introduced the characters and opened up a possibility of struggle between the opposing forces, during three or four reels, we begin somewhere about half past four an exciting promise of consequences. That promise must be fulfilled. If the story becomes eritongled, there can be no shirking of responsibility by dying confessions — the situation should be worked out with the same skill that worked it up, else fine structure and artistic treatment are in vain. We have built a noble house and covered it with a leaky roof. It is not fair to judge any art by its immature examples, else we would infer from screen stories that the sole object of following a pictured narrative to the end is that of watching two young people embrace just as the orb of day sinks behind distant hills, or the fire in the grate grows dim. Of course the human race must be perpetuated, but an audience may grow skeptical if Washington is shown crossing the Delaware that Jennie may be enfolded in the arms of Jim. Nine out of ten screen stories" do not end that way — they subside. The scenario writer who offers such a spineless compromise after a crisis of definite and logical conclusion lacks craftsmanship if not artistic conscience. With a definite theme in mind, with salient qualities of leading characters defined, the author of a five-reel story has time to dispose of minor conclusions on his way to the main point. As far as it is posssible to do so, he should clear his path of lesser issues on approaching the plot culmination, so that it may immediately precede his final scenes. That pictured stories so often suffer from one form or another of anticlimax is largely due to the absence of a complete working scenario in the beginning — an ineffectual attempt is made to replace forethought with badly articulated afterthought. Above all things should a scenario convey the spirit of the story, even if this has to be done by e.xplanatory foot notes. That people sit emotionless before screen portrayals is less due to faults of the medium than to false use of it. Failure of the author's creative imagination far more than faulty instrumentality or inadequate interpretation is accountable for soulless photodrama.