Pictorial beauty on the screen (1923)

158 BEAUTY ON THE SCREEN tings. He marshals forth real human beings to perform the parts which are described in words. He divides the action into limited periods of time, and decides how to connect these periods visually so that the pictorial movement on the screen may be a flowing unity. The director, not the writer, does this; and, if he were satisfied to do less, he would be only partly a director. His work is not the "translation"; of literature into motion pictures ; it is a complete substitution of motion pictures for literature. When we analyze pictorial composition on the screen we must proceed as we have done throughout this book. We must look at it from the point of view of the spectator in the theater. The spectator does not see the setting with one eye and the actors with the other, he does not separate the respective movements of human beings, animals, trees, water, fire, etc., as they play before him, and he does not disconnect any one scene from the scenes which precede or follow it. To him everything on the screen is connected with everything else there. The connection may be strong or weak, bad or beautiful, but it is nevertheless a connection. This ought to be clear enough to any one who gives the matter any thought ; yet there are scene designers who appear to believe that their setting is a complete work of art quite independent of the actors, for whom and with whom it ought to be composed, and there are certainly any number of players who look upon themselves as stars that dwell apart. We do not underestimate the individual power of the player as an interpreter of the deeds and emotions of dramatic characters. Pantomimic acting is one of