Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1916)

The Glory Road 121 direction. He knew too well the facta of wavering policy, stupidity, office intrigue, dishonesty, and the fact that many com panies did not know a good story when they saw one, or would not pay adequate!) for one if they found it. In his present work Briscoe was not presenting so much a new type ,of stor) as trying to evolve a new method oi presentation. He did not Batter himself thai he was going to revolutionize the business; be knew he was only groping in what he felt to be a right direction toward the permanency, dignity and beauty of the photoplay; and he expected execration and possible failure. lie would have preferred to hire a company and go off into some far corner o( the world to experiment, but of COUrse this was OUt Of the question. The chief novelty in Briscoe's improved method lay in the acting, and this was practically a real return to pantomime — an art as yet little observed in the AngloSaxon photodrama. Violent facial contortion and overacting already stand as axioms of bad taste and direction, yet they are far from extinct even among the film favorites ; while those few who practice restraint tend to the wooden and unyielding — at least the ungraceful. It was to steer between these extremes that Briscoe aimed. To this end June had worked so hard before her mirror. She had learned not only to express the faintest shades of emotion but also to convey the most powerful feeling by slight but unmistakable means. Especially bad Briscoe insisted on the psychologically correct transition from one emotion to another. For instance, in her new play there was one long scene, almost a "close-up." which showed her watching through curtains what was taking place in the next room between her husband and her sister. It was Briscoe's idea to reveal to the audience the full story of that next room by the play of emotion on June's face, rather than by the usual method of a separate scene between the pair. It followed, therefore, that the director did not depend for his effects upon the play of the features alone. He emphasized greatly the position and motions of the head, hands, arms, and of the whole body when possible. He knew that to an alert, intelligent audience a certain slope of the shoulder might convey laughter, and the strange position of a head on its neck, creeping horror. Pantomime La pan racial. He aimed at suggestion raised to tin nth power, for though emotions may l)c as hi! nl and violent as a volcanic eruption, to e\ presa them so makes them merely ridi< ulous. So Briscoe was working up a means of "getting over" to the audience what his characters felt hv showing alterations in the color or shape of objects and environ inent at the moment of their inteiisest eino tions, something along the line of the Mnn sterberg idea. A natural corollary to all this was the almost complete elimination from the lihn of sub titles and spoken titles. These, then, were the bask ideas underlying Briscoe's attempt, and. as always with pioneers, he had to make his own trail. As a result, for the sake of better concentration and protection from prying eves, he had his sets built at one end of the long open-ak stage and screened with "flats" of scenery. In addition his people, from the "grips" up through Tim Barr, were enjoined to silence. The only judgable results of bis efforts were the scenes shown every few days on the projection room screen to the members of the company, Holt, and the other Graphic directors. And with the first, there was a significant lack of spontaneity in the favorable comment. Holt wisely held his counsel, but Briscoe's colleagues out of consideration tried to praise, and only succeeded in damning, for, like normal human animals, each without intentional malice resisted any innovation not his own. Alone together, however, or in their private opinions expressed to Holt, they united in rejecting Briscoe's theories and scorning his results. Both the director and June could not avoid consciousness of this, and the latter's feeling was particularly acute since the success of the attempt depended so largely upon her work. She was, of course, merely obeying direction, but she knew to • what extent her future depended upon success. f~\ X E day it seemed as if she could do nothing as Briscoe wanted it done. They were rehearsing the scene in which June peered through the curtain, and in order to help her the two other characters were acting out their parts. But today she felt dead, unresilient, without response, and Briscoe finally perceived the fact. At three