Page:Pictorial beauty on the screen.djvu/210

 It is as though a painter, while entertaining a group of friends with a view of a newly finished work, were suddenly to cover the whole painting except a single spot, and then to say, "Now forget the rest of the picture, and just look at this spot. Isn't it wonderful?"

The player should, of course, always be in perfect union with the rest of the picture, yet carrying as much emphasis as the story demands. But even when the player wisely desires to remain in the picture, he should not be allowed to determine his own position, pose, or movement there. He is, after all, only a glorified model with which the artist works.

When an actress moves about in a room, for example, she cannot know that to the eye of the camera her nose seems to collide with the corner of the mantel-*piece, that her neck is pressed out of shape by a bad shadow, that her gesture points out some gim-crack of no dramatic significance at the moment, that her movement is throwing her out of balance with some other movement in the scene, that her walking, sitting, or rising appears awkward, in spite of the fact that it feels natural and rhythmical to her. These and a thousand other accidents of composition can be avoided only by the player's instant obedience to an alert and masterful director who can stop or guide the moving factor in the picture as surely as a painter can stop or guide his brush.

When the action takes place out of doors, or in an interior setting with considerable depth, the player is still more ignorant of what the composition looks like to the eye of the camera. Whether the movement of a particular person will harmonize with a