Page:Pictorial beauty on the screen.djvu/47

 *ing in the medium of language. Words are not motion-photographs, any more than they are paint or marble. This is the scenario writer's handicap. But, though we may sympathize with him because of the handicap, we cannot relieve him of responsibility as the designer of beginnings in the cinema composition.

The director has a handicap, too. He also does not work in the medium of motion photographs. He cannot do so. Even if he were to look through the view-*finder of the motion picture camera during the entire taking of every scene, he would not see exactly what we are destined to see in the theater. He would see things only in miniature, in a glass some two inches square, instead of larger than life. He would see things, not in black and white, but in their true colors. And he can never, under any circumstance, behold two or more scenes directly connected, with no more than the wink of an eye between them, until after the negatives have been developed, positives printed, and the strips spliced together in the cutting and joining room.

In other words, neither the scenario writer nor the motion picture director can ever know definitely in advance just what the finished work will look like to us in the theater. If we are aware of these handicaps, it may help us to understand why ugliness so often slips through to the screen, but it will not permit us to tolerate that ugliness. We, as spectators and critics, must forever insist that the photoplay makers master their art, no matter how difficult the mastery may be.

It was held some years ago that the only thing the matter with the movies was that the stories were badly composed and of little originality. Hence, a number of prominent novelists and playwrights were hired to