Pictorial beauty on the screen (1923)

142 BEAUTY ON THE SCREEN of pictorial motions by some of the methods above suggested. The money magnate may not realize that even a slight improvement, a delicate touch, may be as important in a picture as in the motor of his touring car. Yet he does know, of course, that in the world of industry the superiority of one article over another may lie in a secret known only to the maker, a secret perhaps never even suspected by the man who sells the article. .We should be sorry indeed to lose credit with the man who can draw dollar signs, because we need his co-operation, and we hope, therefore, that he will not long remain blind to the fact that in art the superiority of one article over another may lie in a concealed design so skilfully wrought that neither the spectator nor the man who traffics in the spectator's pleasure may suspect its presence. Balanced motions and motions that are limited in area are valuable on the screen, we have said, because they can stimulate the spectator while giving him the satisfaction of repose. We come now to a third characteristic of motions that appear to be at rest, the fact that they are in perfect adjustment with everything else around them. Perfect adjustment means that all of the moving elements of a pictorial composition are at peace with the fixed elements, as well as with each other. It means harmony, the supreme quality of every art. No other art, not even music, contains so great a number of varied parts as the motion picture. To fuse all of these parts into a single harmonious whole requires knowledge and skill and happy inspiration, yet fusion must take place in the cinema composition itself in order that the spectator may be spared the