Page:Pictorial beauty on the screen.djvu/167

 us say that cinematic rhythm is a peculiar alternation of phases or properties of pictorial motion which gives the spectator a vivid sense of movement performed with ease and variety.

Now it may seem a vain task to analyze or try to define so delicate a thing as rhythm, because all of us can be carried away by rhythm without saddling it with a. formula. Yet analysis will serve a useful purpose if it can help the director to avoid motions which are not rhythmical and if it can help the thoughtful spectator to fix the blame for the jumble of unrhythmical motions which he now so often sees on the screen.

Suppose we make a few tests upon the horseman coming down the hillside. If he moves in a perfectly straight line at a perfectly steady pace, the action will seem to be a forced, hard effort exerted without variety. No rhythm will be there. But if he moves, even without change of pace, along a path of flowing curves, we will sense a rhythm of direction, providing the horse seems to follow the winding path freely and without undue effort.

If, without change of direction, the horse frequently alters his gait from a gallop to a walk and back to a gallop again in equal periods of time, say half a minute each, it will be apparent that ease and variety are utterly absent from the movement. And even if the horse follows a winding path and changes gait at such regular intervals the rhythm in direction will be neutralized by the lack of rhythm in velocity. If, however, there is a progression of varying directions, varying gaits, and varying durations of time which appear to be spontaneously and easily performed, a