Page:The Point of Attack, or, How to Start the Photoplay.djvu/8

 This tale deals with the events in the lives of three generations and "Madame Bovary" is by no means an excessively long novel. Had there been photoplays during the life of Flaubert, and had he set about to write a screen drama instead of a novel, basing it upon the material contained in "Madame Bovary," he would have had to choose a quite different point of attack or beginning. It may be assumed that he would have started his story with events closely preceding the marriage of young Charles and would have omitted his early manhood, his childhood and the happenings in the lives of his parents before his birth.

7. It is apparent then that the novelist may relate a long, drawn-out series of happenings extending not only completely through the life of a character, but back into the lives of his ancestors and on into the lives of his children. The dramatist is not permitted such liberal privileges. To the dramatist lengthy biography is forbidden and he must confine himself to a dramatic crisis or a definitely related series of dramatic crises occurring at a certain point or during a definite period in the life of his principal character. A reader may devote days or weeks to the perusal of a novel, but the theatregoer has but a portion of an afternoon or evening in which to witness a drama, except in a Chinese theatre where the exhibition of a play requires several days or even weeks. We are not at present dealing with Chinese drama.

8. The photoplaywright may be said to be a screen dramatist and he is bound by restrictions similar to those governing the author of a stage play. Again there is a difference, however. In beginning a spoken drama the dramatist has recourse to dialogue, and in this manner he is able to establish the conditions antecedent—the 6