Theory of the film : (character and growth of a new art) (1952)

Page scan 000302 from Theory of the film : (character and growth of a new art)

Record Details:

Title:
Theory of the film : (character and growth of a new art)
Date:
1952
Publisher:
London : Dennis Dobson Ltd.
Volume:
Theory of the film : (character and growth of a new art)
Leaf #:
000302
Language:
English
Collection:
Books
Format:
Books
Contributor:
Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum
Sponsor:
Media History Digital Library
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
Date Added:
September 12, 2024
Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

282 MUSICAL FORMS g movement of their thoughts and emotions. This is possible on the stage but in the film a musical movement cannot take the place of a visual movement. The rhythm of detail shots and cross-cutting can bridge for a time the always damaging effect of a pause in the picture sequence. But not for long. On the stage the motionless figures retain their life because the public knows that they are alive, hence supposes and accepts that something is happening in their hearts, however rigidly motionless they appear to be. But the rigidity of a photograph is not semblance — it is reality. The immobility of a good painting is the quintessence of motion and never dead, but the film can only stop by showing a single frame as a snapshot — and in that instant is dead. This does not mean that a film opera is beyond the bounds of possibility — only that the shots must be as stylized as possible. This, as we know, is possible to a very great extent by the technical means at our disposal. Such stylization will be most convincing if it takes the content for its starting-point. For in the case of fairy-tales, legends or fantastic stories, no one is surprised if the formal aspect of the presentation is not natural but stylized. The miraculousness of a miracle is not surprising — what would be surprising would be a non-miraculous miracle. Fairyland landscapes are the more strange the more accurate the photographs are in which they are shown, and singing speech goes well with singing gestures.