Pictorial beauty on the screen (1923)

98 BEAUTY ON THE SCREEN a picture is showing, any great work is necessary to "get the story across," that work should be done by the picture and not by the spectators. They want the story to be clear, and they want it to be impressive. In other words, they want beautiful and significant material presented with the fullest emphasis. Emphasis results when the attention of the spectator is caught and held by the primary interest in the picture, instead of the secondary interest. In paintings, or in "still" pictures, or in those parts of moving pictures which are held or remembered as fixed moments, a great number of devices may be used separately or together to control the attention of the spectator so that the main interest gets its full emphasis. Pictorial motions on the screen may also be so well organized that they will catch and control the spectator's attention, and will reveal the dynamic vitality of the pictorial content. The simplest principle of accent by motion is so obvious that we are almost ashamed to name it. It is' this, that if in the whole picture everything remains at rest except one thing which moves, that thing will attract our attention. Photoplays are full of mistakes which arise through the violation of this simple law. In many a scene our attention is drawn from the stalwart hero to a candle on the mantlepiece merely because its flame happens to flicker; or from the heroine's sweet face to a common bush merely because its leaves happen to quiver in the breeze; or from the villain's steady pistol to a dog's tail merely because the dog happens to wag it. It is no excuse to say that such motions are natural, or that they give local color. For, though a moving