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218 III. COMPOSITION
ing a commodity. Germs of new beginnings may develop within a thoroughly alienated environment.)
The film d'art movement persists, unbroken, to the present day. As might be expected, numerous films of this type, such as Pygmalion, Death of a Salesman, etc., are actually theatrical adaptations. There is practically no Broadway hit that would not be exploited by Hollywood. Or think of the uninterrupted series of Shakespeare films, down to Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Richard III. However brilliantly executed, in spirit and structure all such screen dramas can still be traced to Due de Guise. They need not be theatrical adaptations. Films like The Informer, The Heiress, Great Expectations, and Rouge et Noir take their inspiration from novels and yet recall the stage as vividly as does any screen version of a play. About the same applies to Moby Dick; despite its cinematic elaborations it renders the Melville novel in terms of a dramatic action which would be a natural for the theater. Other theatrical films do not borrow from literary sources at all, as is illustrated by Due de Guise itself. Similarly, Eisenstein's last films, Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible, are original screen works; nevertheless, they seem to be patterned after nonexistent plays or operas. [Illus. 41] It is not by accident that shortly before his death Eisenstein directed Wagner's Die Walkiire. He once rebelled against the theater; he reverted to it at the end.
CHARACTERISTICS
Emphasis on human interaction
As viewed from both photography and film, one of the main features of the theatrical story form is its strong concern for human characters and human interrelations. This is in accordance with stage conditions. To repeat what has already been said, theatrical mise-en-scene cannot re-create full physical reality in all its incidents. Huge crowds transcend the given frame; tiny objects are lost in the total impression of it. Much must be omitted and much is an allusive substitute rather than the real thing. The stage universe is a shadowy replica of the world we live in, representing only such parts of it as sustain the dialogue and the acting and through them an intrigue which inevitably concentrates on events and experiences purely human.4* But all this has a restrictive effect on film. The theatrical story limits the appropriate use of a medium which does not differentiate between humans and inanimate objects.
* See pp. 45, 51,96^-7.