In the photoplay we see the
actors themselves and the decisive factor which makes the impression
different from seeing real men is not that we see the living persons
through the medium of photographic reproduction but that this
reproduction shows them in a flat form. The bodily space has been
eliminated. We said once before that stereoscopic arrangements could
reproduce somewhat this plastic form also. Yet this would seriously
interfere with the character of the photoplay. We need there this
overcoming of the depth, we want to have it as a picture only and yet as
a picture which strongly suggests to us the actual depth of the real
world. We want to keep the interest in the plastic world and want to be
aware of the depth in which the persons move, but our direct object of
perception must be without the depth. That idea of space which forces
on us most strongly the idea of heaviness, solidity and substantiality
must be replaced by the light flitting immateriality.
But the photoplay sacrifices not only the space values of the real
theater; it disregards no less its order of time. The theater presents
its plot in the time order of reality. It may interrupt the continuous
flow of time without neglecting the conditions of the dramatic art.
There may be twenty years between the third and the fourth act, inasmuch
as the dramatic writer must select those elements spread over space and
time which are significant for the development of his story.
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