Pictorial beauty on the screen (1923)

1 82 BEAUTY ON THE SCREEN that he produces may justly demand that his work be classed with the fine arts. Another elusive quality, found all too seldom in the movies, is the appeal to imagination. Such an appeal may come from things in real life or from that life which art reflects; it may come also from the artist's medium and composition. Thus, for example, some people can imagine melodious sounds when they look at colors in a painting, and nearly every one can imagine colors when listening to music. The motion picture's appeal to the imagination has been treated at some length in Chapter VI of "The Art of Photoplay Making," and we shall, therefore, be brief about it here. An illustration may be furnished by a seashell. We hold it to our ears and hear a low musical sound which makes us imagine the surf of the sea, sweetly vague. A similar, yet more subtle, delight may come from a picture of some person doing the same thing. Such a picture is to be found in the Fox film version of Longfellow's "Evangeline." Gabriel picks up a sea-shell and holds it to his ear. Instantly we imagine the sound which he hears. We also imagine the sea which that imagined sound suggests. And, if we are particularly sensitive, we may even try to imagine what Gabriel imagines. All this is delightful, a genuine emotional response to the art of the screea But we are immediately insulted by an ugly anti-climax. Quick as a flash, our fancies are killed by a cut-in picture of a stretch of real sea. Now we must look ; we may no longer imagine. The above is a typical example of both imaginative and unimaginative treatment in a motion picture. Any reader can go to the movies and collect a hundred