Pictorial beauty on the screen (1923)

156 BEAUTY ON THE SCREEN guage of the narrator were crude, confused, obscure, weak, and of no beauty appropriate to the thing expressed. "There may be," we say; but all self-respecting writers will agree with us that language-proof stories are extremely rare. The story is usually impressive because of the telling, and not in spite of it. In the motion picture, naturally, the telling is not in words, but in arrangements of lines and shapes, of tones and textures, of lights and shadows, these values being either fixed or changing, and exhibited simultaneously or in succession. Whatever arrangement the director makes comes directly to us in the theater. Barring accident we see it unchanged on the screen, and, as far as we are concerned, it is the only treatment which the story has. It is true, of course, that cinematographic treatment may be vaguely suggested by written or spoken words ; it may be more definitely suggested by drawings ; but it can never actually be given either by words or drawings. Even the director himself cannot know definitely, in advance of the actual rehearsing and taking of the picture, just what the composition will be. He may plan in advance, but he does not actually compose until the players are on the scene and the camera "grinding." During those moments are created the actual designs which become fixed permanently in the film. Turning from pictures for a moment, let us consider the relation between plot and treatment in literary art. It is interesting to study Shakespeare's attitude toward the material which he borrowed for his plays. Glance through the introduction and notes of any school text, and you will see that the plot which