The emphasis in
the drama lies on the spoken word, to which the stage manager does not
add anything. It is all contained in the lines. In the photoplay the
whole emphasis lies on the picture and its composition is left entirely
to the producing artist.
But the scenario writer must not only have talent for dramatic invention
and construction; he must be wide awake to the uniqueness of his task,
that is, he must feel at every moment that he is writing for the screen
and not for the stage or for a book. And this brings us back to our
central argument. He must understand that the photoplay is not a
photographed drama, but that it is controlled by psychological
conditions of its own. As soon as it is grasped that the film play is
not simply a mechanical reproduction of another art but is an art of a
special kind, it follows that talents of a special kind must be devoted
to it and that nobody ought to feel it beneath his artistic dignity to
write scenarios in the service of this new art. No doubt the moving
picture performances today still stand on a low artistic level. Nine
tenths of the plays are cheap melodramas or vulgar farces. The question
is not how much larger a percentage of really valuable dramas can be
found in our theaters. Many of their plays are just as much an appeal
to the lowest instincts.
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