We find now
that the reality of the action in the photoplay in still another respect
lacks objective independence, because it yields to our subjective play
of attention. Wherever our attention becomes focused on a special
feature, the surrounding adjusts itself, eliminates everything in which
we are not interested, and by the close-up heightens the vividness of
that on which our mind is concentrated. It is as if that outer world
were woven into our mind and were shaped not through its own laws but by
the acts of our attention.
CHAPTER V
MEMORY AND IMAGINATION
When we sit in a real theater and see the stage with its depth and watch
the actors moving and turn our attention hither and thither, we feel
that those impressions from behind the footlights have objective
character, while the action of our attention is subjective. Those men
and things come from without but the play of the attention starts from
within. Yet our attention, as we have seen, does not really add anything
to the impressions of the stage. It makes some more vivid and clear
while others become vague or fade away, but through the attention alone
no content enters our consciousness. Wherever our attention may wander
on the stage, whatever we experience comes to us through the channels of
our senses. The spectator in the audience, however, does experience more
than merely the light and sound sensations which fall on the eye and
ear at that moment.
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