The soul of the moving picture (1924)

84 The Soul of the Moving Picture a framework, for the things that go on in the human heart, its effect is swollen, disingenuous, and undesirable from every point of view. The odd and fanciful device fails if it is not truly and inwardly affiliated with human fate. This is proved by Illustration No. 8, the cramped and even convulsive style of which, with its black and white norm, does not convince. The plastic effect is altogether inadequate and defective. This picture is shown here because it is a brilliant refutal of the oft-repeated assertion that the film, as an art-form, has to do with and rests upon the art of black and white. There is neither artistic nor objective value in the picture; it is merely a curio, a bit of nourishment for under-bred curiosity, and was born of a deformed notion. The curiosity, however, of phantastic forms is not to be ruthlessly denounced and rejected if back of it lies a graceful notion, a happy idea. Illustration No. 9 shows such an original scene of vibrant freshness. The dancing girl is pictured as an undisciplined, capricious little creature, and one is bound to admit that a setting of this sort throws a captivating and intriguing frame about the radiant soul of man. This picture has nothing in the world to do with naturalism. It is of merely momentary significance and, like Illustration No. 8, has but little bearing on, and consequently