Pictorial beauty on the screen (1923)

146 BEAUTY ON THE SCREEN When we insist that the motions in a picture should be in harmony with each other because of the pictorial restf ulness which thus results, we do not forget that motions should also be in harmony with the meaning, the dramatic action, which the scene contains. Some red-blooded reader of this book might possibly have the notion that artistic composition of a# picture will rob it of its strength. Please may we ask such a person to read carefully Chapters II, IV, and VII of this book? We have maintained there that good pictorial composition can make any movie "punch" harder than ever. Let us illustrate that argument again. Suppose we "shoot" two brawny men in a fist fight. The motions of the men should have unity, even though their souls might lack it. It sounds like a contradiction, but the methods of the men fighting should harmonize in motion. If they do not, we cannot enjoy the fight. What would you think of ai fist fight in which one man had the motions of a windmill, and the other had the motions of a chicken? Many movie directors have had stage experience, either as actors or directors, and are instinctively able to harmonize the dramatic pantomime of actors or actresses, whenever this pantomime takes place in the midst of perfectly quiet surroundings, as is usual In the setting of the theater stage. But as soon as these directors take their troupe out "on location" they encounter difficulties, because the wind nearly always blows costumes, bushes and trees into motion, because there are nearly always animals or moving vehicles en the scene, and because the "location" is more likely than not to include such things as fountains, waterfalls, or sea beaches. They find therefore, that the