Pictorial beauty on the screen (1923)

MASTERY IN THE MOVIES 173 on a photoplay. Words in the form of titles, subtitles, dialogue, comments, etc., are rarely in place on the screen. If they are admitted for the purpose of telling or explaining a part of the story, they come as a slur on the art of the motion picture, and often as an insult to the intelligence of the spectator.* Nevertheless, the producer finds words practically useful as stop-gaps, padding, and general support for an ill-directed play that would otherwise have to be scrapped. And even the most prominent directors are inclined to lean heavily on words. We are doomed, therefore, to endure the hybrid art of reading matter mixed with illustrations, at least for many years to come. But we insist that this mixture shall be no worse then the director makes it. After a director has carefully composed a series of scenes so that the motions and patterns and textures and tones dissolve, from one moment to the next, in a rhythmical flow, regardless of how the story may have shifted its setting, we do not want some film doctor to come along and break that unity into pieces for the sake of a few jokes, or nearjokes, or for a few words of schoolroom wisdom or of sentimental gush. We object, not only to the content, the denotation of such "titles," but also to their pictorial appearance. That written words have pictorial appearance is a fact which most of us forgot as soon as we learned ""IcTread. We realize that Chinese characters or Egyp *Words which appear as an organic part of the action, such as writing, print, sign-boards, etc., do not come under the general category of "cut-in titles." For a discussion of the dramatic value of words on the screen see Chapter IX of "The Art of Photoplay Making."