Moving Picture World (Sep 1916)

1804 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD September 16, 1916 Creative Method— Ibsen By Louis Reeves Harrison THERE have been artistic representations of the Ibsen dramas on the screen, remarkable for accuracy of types, settings and atmosphere, but no attempt has been made to profit from the methods he used, at least not so as to obtrude upon attention. It is not to be greatly wondered at that American audiences have not been invariably enthusiastic about his dramas — he drew from the social ferment of his time and place — because of our optimism. People here are up against the same restraints of native ability as in older countries, but our general environment is broader, and our circumstances as a whole people offer greater opportunity for the individual and keep the fires of hope ever burning. Exactly the same spirit of protest may boil within us at times, human protest against wrong and injustice is universal among intelligent people, but we feel less hampered by institutions created in the past and unsuited to present social conditions. We feel a greater sense of freedom. Though we may not be free, the idea of liberty has been strongly planted in our hearts, and we know that is bound to grow in the sunshine of superior enlightenment. The Ibsen message has not been without effect — he was American in his faith — he did not place the instinct of self-preservation above that human love which reaches beyond self — but it is his technique that concerns us in this new art, his tremendously impressive method of mirroring contemporaneous life in dramatic form. The dominant note in that method is critical judgment, ability to discover and pass upon the merits and faults of our existence as organized. Whether in tragedy or comedy, or in the expanse between, the Ibsen method relies on social criticism and its impress is profound. Ibsen disassociated wealth from nobility, showing that large accumulations of money, when not resulting from chance or heredity, much the same thing, often grew out of avarice, cruelty and the meanest of human characteristics. That sweetness of compassion which makes life beautiful rarely grows in the gardens of the rich. Instead of attempting the hackneyed "situation" he depended upon penetrative interpretation of what he gathered from actual existence. Instead of reflecting the mere surface of human action and conduct, the theatrical method, he turned an X-ray on motive. Instead of devising a situation, as might be done in farce comedy, he sets out to reveal and redeem, as serious art must, and lets his high situation grow of the characters and their circumstances. This is the natural way and the easiest way. Given a motif and strong characters with motives at variance and the big situation comes of itself, granting that the author's character conceptions arc clear. What they have done in the past leads straight to a crisis so sure that it seems predetermined. Are we falsely interpreting the pretenses of certain men who mask their villainy with public exhibitions of benevolence? Ibsen turns on bis X-ray and shows them to be what they arc, and the deeds they arc covering furnish him with an abundance of interesting material. The successful dramatist musl perceive where others are misled by false lights on the shore, his aim that of science, to get at the truth, but this implies a mind capable of contemplating dispassionately the perplexities of conduct and the complexities of character. If each age is to improve its people, we must have men who combine in themselves clear understanding of the age and its needs, together with ability to reach the people through some powerful medium. "Not at all," says the young man who has picked up an idea marked 18-carat and imagines that there can be no false identification of value, "a play must not be a propaganda." He unconsciously propagates his own superficial grasp of the subject. Nearly every play called "great" has transmitted from the author to the people his doctrine, his belief, his system, his views of humanity as it is, or as it should be. Ibsen's announced ambition was "to depict human beings, human emotions, human destinies, upon a groundwork of certain of the social conditions and principles of today." Ibsen's method is to first set forth his doctrine in brief memoranda. That for "A Doll's House" is "Modern society is no human society; it is solely a society for males." His next step is to search his memory, or the experience of others, for some story which might be made to fit the leading idea. His mind now begins to gather characters for the story. Starting with a theme, he makes up his mind in a general way what his drama will be like. He next notes down certain main points he wishes to make. He next attempts a general characterization. He is to gather action around a woman of the day in "Ghosts." He says in a general way, "These women of today, ill-treated as daughters, as sisters, as wives, not educated according to their gifts, withheld from their vocation, deprived of their heritage, embittered in mind — these it is who furnish the mothers of the next generation. What will be the consequence?" Once his subject matter well in mind, — and here is where most dramatists fail, — he makes a synopsis, or a more elaborate memorandum, and begins to have an idea of his groundwork, but instead of driving straight at the play, he develops a scenario. An application of this method to the big screen story would be to write a rude scenario of the action. In the first act the characters do so and so, in the second so and so, and so on, to determine, if for no other purpose, whether or not there is sufficient material for five reels. The writer may otherwise reach his crisis long before the fifth reel with a resultant amplification in the wrong place. This skeleton libretto of the five acts would also make for better construction, one in which elements of suspense are carefully guarded. Ibsen worked in a purely scientific manner from his scenario forward to the first version of his play. The "scenario of acts" in the five-reel screen story would operate in the same way, though it might be subjected to radical modifications. It would foreshadow the action in a general way at certain periods. With the imagination aflame, one is apt to run over, or under, requirements, whereas creative ability would not be hampered by the necessity of limiting action, nor even by a needed amplification. The imagination can be trained to work in harness. In the last revision of a script. — and there should be at least one, — attention should be concentrated on the little revelations o\ mind and heart which greatly enhance the finished interpretation. This is also an Ibsen method worth trying. Ibsen felt thai he must know his characters down to the "last fold of their souls." Every author knows that he must actually live the lives of his principal characters, even through those experiences which precede action in the drama. Only through such an acquaintance can be attained intense dramatic effect.