Both localizations take hold of our
mind and produce a peculiar interference. We all have learned to ignore
it, but characteristic illusions remain which indicate the reality of
this doubleness.
In the case of the picture on the screen this conflict is much stronger.
_We certainly see the depth, and yet we cannot accept it._ There is too
much which inhibits belief and interferes with the interpretation of the
people and landscape before us as truly plastic. They are surely not
simply pictures. The persons can move toward us and away from us, and
the river flows into a distant valley. And yet the distance in which the
people move is not the distance of our real space, such as the theater
shows, and the persons themselves are not flesh and blood. It is a
unique inner experience, which is characteristic of the perception of
the photoplays. _We have reality with all its true dimensions; and yet
it keeps the fleeting, passing surface suggestion without true depth and
fullness, as different from a mere picture as from a mere stage
performance._ It brings our mind into a peculiar complex state; and we
shall see that this plays a not unimportant part in the mental make-up
of the whole photoplay.
While the problem of depth in the film picture is easily ignored, the
problem of movement forces itself on every spectator.
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