Plan for cinema (1936)

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TOWARDS A SOLID CINEMA 141 dance is inevitably part of a music-drama, a drama perhaps whose characters do not necessarily sing themselves, but make explicit by gesture the words sung by other voices, whether singly or in chorus. Thus, it seems to me, is the only way a symphonic poem can be made explicit visually, with aesthetic satisfaction. The music-drama of this theatre would be more than the name implies. It would be a drama with the music only implicitly used. The visual counterpart would be every bit as important as the music. In fact, one might go so far as to say the one would be quite unintelligible without the other. There would be no 'playing the music on the gramophone' with a hope of understanding it. For the 'music' might consist of choruses, chanting, declaiming, intoning, or single individuals speaking. Indeed, here at last would be a medium in which, amongst other things, the infinite beauty in the sounds and combination of sounds in speech could be explored. Likewise, the visual half might seem to be meaningless movement when not accompanied by its aural counterpart. The properties supposedly exclusive to the various forms of theatre, each in their turn, are the general property in a theatre such as this — for it is an ideal theatre. It is as near as thought can go in attempting to show if a 'synthesis of the arts' is possible. In such a theatre it is possible. So that the reader may obtain some concrete idea of a specific event in this new form, I would ask