We might develop out of this fundamental demand of art all the special
forms which are characteristic in its various fields. We might also
turn to the applied arts, to architecture, to arts and crafts, and so on
and see how new rules must arise from the combination of purely artistic
demands and those of practical utility. But this would lead us too far
into esthetic theory, while our aim is to push forward toward the
problem of the photoplay. Of painting, of drama, and of music we had to
speak because with them the photoplay does share certain important
conditions and accordingly certain essential forms of rendering the
world. Each element of the photoplay is a picture, flat like that which
the painter creates, and the pictorial character is fundamental for the
art of the film. But surely the photoplay shares many conditions with
the drama on the stage. The presentation of conflicting action among men
in dramatic scenes is the content, on the stage as on the screen. Our
chief claim, however, was that we falsify the meaning of the photoplay
if we simply subordinate it to the esthetic conditions of the drama. It
is different from mere pictures and it is different from the drama, too,
however much relation it has to both. But we come nearer to the
understanding of its true position in the esthetic world, if we think
at the same time of that other art upon which we touched, the art of the
musical tones.
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