Do the movies hurt your eyes? Some say “yes” and some say “no.” Why is it that photoplay scenes sometimes flash and dazzle, but have neither radiance nor sparkle? Why is it that the motions sometimes shown on the screen get “on your nerves”? Why is it that you look at so much on the screen and remember so little? These questions can be answered by making certain eye tests for beauty, and, having answered them, we may proceed to a detailed discussion of pictorial composition in a great variety of cases.

In order to understand how the pleasure of pictorial beauty comes to a spectator, we must analyze the processes of looking and seeing. These processes consist partly of eye-work and partly of brain-work. That is, the physical eye must do certain work before the brain gets the visual image. Now if the physical eye has to work too hard, or bear a sudden strain, or undergo excessive wear, it will not function well; and, consequently, the brain will have to work harder in order to grasp the picture. All this causes displeasure, and displeasure is in conflict with beauty.

Let us state, once for all, that motion pictures need never hurt the eyes—quite the contrary. Yet we have often seen photoplays that did hurt the eyes. Some of the reasons for this will be given in the following paragraphs.

A familiar operation of the physical eye is the contraction and dilation of the pupil. We know from childhood that the pupil grows large when the light is weak, and small when the light is strong. We also know that the eye cannot make this adjustment instantly. If a strong light is suddenly flashed on us, for example, when we lie awake in a dark room it dazzles us, because our pupils are adjusted for darkness; it even hurts so much that we defend ourselves by closing the eyelids.

In exactly the same way our eyes are shocked by the movies when a dazzling white light is flashed on the screen where a somewhat darkened scene has just vanished. The pupil is caught unawares, is not instantly able to protect the eye, and, besides, must use up a certain amount of energy in adapting itself to the new condition. Such a shock once or twice during the evening might easily be forgiven and forgotten, might, in fact, be hardly felt at the time; but fifty such shocks in a five-reel photoplay would certainly weary the eye, and a play of that sort could hardly be called beautiful.

The fault which we have just named lies in the joining of scenes. But it is not, as a rule, necessary to connect scenes or sections of a film so that there is a jump from the darkest dark to the whitest white, or vice versa. This can be avoided, of course, by the device of “fading out” one scene and “fading in” the next, which gives the eye time to adapt itself, or by “fading down” or “up” just far enough to match the exact tone of the next picture. The shock can also be avoided by joining various sections of the film in a series of steps of increasing brightness or darkness.

The eye is hurt, we have said, by a sharp succession of black and white. It is also hurt by a sharp contrast of whites and blacks lying side by side on the screen. Such extremes are avoided in paintings. The next time you are in an art museum please compare the brightest white in any portrait with the white of your cuff, or your handkerchief, or a piece of paper. You may be surprised to discover that the high light in that painting is not severely white. It is rather grayish or yellowish, soft and easy to the eye. Observe also that the darkest hue in that painting is far from the deepest possible black. The extremes of tone are, in fact, never very far apart, and are therefore easily grasped by the eye without undue strain.

And while you are thinking of this practice of painters, you might compare it with the similar practice of composers of music. Your piano has many keys, the highest one in the treble being extremely far from the lowest one in the bass. Yet if you examine the score of any single piece of music you will discover that the highest note in that piece is not so very far from the lowest note in the same piece. It might have been possible to use the entire keyboard, but the composer has been wise enough not to try it. His extreme notes are so near together that the ear is able to catch them and all the subtle values of the music in between, without being strained by the effort.

It seems, therefore, that in artistic matters moderation is a good thing, is, in fact, necessary to produce real beauty. But moderation in the movies is not yet a widely accepted gospel. Too often we find that the dazzling flood of rays from a strong searchlight blazes over several square yards of the silver screen, while at the same moment, on adjoining parts of the same screen hang the deep shades of night. The contrasts are sharp as lightning, not only in the scenes, but also in the sub-titles which are cut in between. Our eyes gaze and twitch and hurt, until it is a real relief to step out and rest them upon something comparatively moderate, like the electric signs on Broadway.

If there were some mechanical difficulty which made this clashing effect of the motion pictures necessary, we could never hope for beauty on the screen; for no art can achieve beauty by producing pain. But we know from the work of such directors as James Cruze, D. W. Griffith, Allan Dwan, Rex Ingram, and John Robertson, that the moving picture camera is capable of recording light gray and dark gray, as well as steel white and ebony. They have shown us that it is possible to produce sub-titles with light gray lettering against a dark gray ground, and that such a combination of tones is pleasing to the eye. They have shown us that it is possible to screen a lady of the fairest face and dressed in the snowiest gown so as to bring out the softest tones of light and shade, yet show nothing as dazzling as snow and nothing as black as ebony.

Some of the “stills” in this book give a hint of the sharp contrasts in the inferior films, but it is only a hint, because the white portions in those illustrations can be no whiter than the paper of the page, which is dull in comparison with the blaze on the screen. The movie theater is the best place to verify the theories which we are here trying to explain in words. Go to the movies. Whenever you find that you enjoy the films thoroughly, then by all means do not stop to analyze or criticise. If you enjoy any particular film so much that you are sure you would like to see it two or three times every year for the rest of your life, you may be happy, for you have discovered one of the classics of the screen. Do not analyze that film either, unless you are in the business of making pictures. But if a film makes you uncomfortable, or if it is so bad that you are quite disgusted with it, then, though you must become a martyr to do it, please stay and see it again. Compare the good parts of the film, if there are any, with the bad parts; study it in detail until you see where the trouble lies. And when you have discovered the real causes of ugliness in that film, wouldn’t it be a public service to express your opinion in such a way that the manager of your theater might hear it?

Thus far in this chapter we have discussed only a single operation of the eye, namely, the expanding and contracting of the pupils under the effect of darkness and brightness, but it is easy to understand now how such an apparently slight thing may seriously affect our enjoyment of the movies. Let the reader, when he is next displeased by a picture, test it for sharpness of contrast between white and black. He will probably not have to seek further for explanation of its ugliness.

Another operation which the eye-machine performs is the accommodation to color. It is somewhat similar to the accommodation to distance, which we shall describe, if the reader will help us by making an experiment. Close one eye and look steadily with the other at an object across the room. Now, without changing your gaze, hold up your finger in line with this object and about a foot away from your eye. The outline of the finger will be indistinct as long as you keep the eye focused on the remote object. Now, still keeping one eye shut, look at your finger until you can see the little ridges on it. The eye has changed its focus, and the remote object is now indistinct. What happens is that the lens within the eye changes its shape, bulging more for near objects and flattening again for distant objects. This work of the eye, called accommodation, is done by certain delicate muscles. A little of it may be stimulating, but too much will make the eyes tired.

Now it is a strange thing that certain colors affect the eyes in the same way as distances. Painters knew this fact for hundreds of years before the scientists were able to explain the reason. They knew that blue seemed farther away than red, and arranged the colors in their paintings accordingly. All artists have learned the trick, even some of our commercial artists, who make advertising posters for street cars. Blue makes the background fall back; red makes a figure stand forward. The reason for this illusion is that when the eye looks at red it adjusts itself exactly as if it were looking at a near object, and thus deceives the brain, so to speak; and when it looks at blue it adjusts itself as if it were looking at a distant object and again deceives the brain. Or, to state the fact more completely, a color from the red end of the color scale (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) seems nearer to the eye than one from the violet end, even though the colors are all placed equally distant from the eye.

Now we shall see that, although these effects of color are useful in a painting, they may be harmful in a motion picture. When we behold a painting in which colors ranging from red to yellow are contrasted with colors ranging from violet to blue, we may, indeed, get a pleasant sensation of the eye because of the stimulating activity in the work of accommodation. There is to most people a distinct pleasure, for example, in shifting the gaze from orange-yellow to blue, because those colors are felt to be “complementary.” But it must be remembered that the circumstances of looking at a painting are entirely different from those of looking at a motion picture.

Two differences are especially notable. The first difference is that when we look at a painting we ourselves are practically the choosers of when and how long to look at any spot, line, shape, or color. In other words, we ourselves practically decide on how much and what kind of work our eyes shall do; but when we look at a motion picture we never know at any instant what we may be called upon to do the next instant. That makes us nervous. We need to be constantly braced for the shock and, if we are not so braced, we must suffer when the shock comes.

The second difference is that everything in a painting is always actually at rest, while nearly everything in a motion picture is always in motion. If a painting, which does not move in any of its parts, can suggest movement to our imagination, or can make our eyes perform actual movements of vision, such movements, actual and imaginary, are pleasantly stimulating. The eyes enjoy the natural activity of their work, and we feel that there is life in the painting. But the motion picture, by its very nature, has as much life as it needs. It naturally gives the eyes all the work they can stand. Hence, if they need any stimulating change at all, it is rather the change from movement to repose.

Now let us go to the movie theater. Very likely before the show is over we shall be treated to a rapid shifting from the blue of some exterior scene in the moonlight to the orange-yellowish glow of some interior scene in lamplight. Our eyes, therefore, must accommodate their lenses to one of these colors again and again, only to receive a sudden demand for accommodation to the other color. We have no choice in the matter except to get up and go out. Our eyes, already busy enough, do not need the stimulation of any more activity, and our minds, already active enough, would prefer the relief of something more reposeful.

If the director must have this shifting from blue to orange to blue, etc., he might, at least, give us some warning, some softening of the shock, so to speak. For example, if there is to be a sudden shift from a yellowish lamp-light scene to a bluish night scene, a hint might be given by attracting our attention to a window, through which the blue of night is shown. And similarly in a bluish night scene our attention might be attracted toward the warm glow from a door or window as a warning that the next scene is to be flooded with that color. Thus in either case we would have a chance to prepare our eyes for the shift, and we would sense a better continuity of movement.

The subject of color in the movies will be discussed again in following chapters. It may be remarked in passing that, since color movies are still highly experimental, it is only to be expected that mistakes of many kinds will be made. Doubtless the leading directors can be trusted to learn from experience. Yet it behooves us who sit in the theaters to be as disapproving of new faults as we are exultant over new beauties.

It is not discouraging to discover a fault, so long as we see that it is one which might have been avoided. We want to make it plain in this chapter that, although the movies sometimes hurt the eyes, it is never due to any necessity. It is a fact that pictures on the screen, when properly made, are always pleasing to the spectators’ eyes. And he who does not accept this as a fundamental proposition can hardly come by any large faith in the future of the photoplay as art.

But we must make a few more eye tests for beauty. If you face a wall about twenty feet away, you can, without changing the position of your head, look at the left side or the right, at the top or bottom, or you can look at the four corners of the wall in succession. These three different kinds of movements, vertical, horizontal, circular, are controlled by as many different sets of muscles.

When we look at pictures, especially large pictures, these muscles are constantly busy directing our line of regard from one point of interest to another; and, whether there are definite points of interest or not, our eyes will range over the lines and shapes as we try to discover what they are meant to represent.

Now a certain amount of eye-movement does not hurt the muscles; it is, on the contrary, rather pleasant, because their business is to attend to those matters. But the eye will become fatigued by a great amount of movement, especially when it is forced upon us at unexpected moments, just as any other part of the body will become fatigued when it is forced to perform a great number of sudden, unexpected tasks.

A simple experiment will illustrate this further. Suppose that we are sitting in our door-yard, gazing across a valley at a group of trees a mile or so away. It is more restful to look at those distant trees than at a single tree only fifty feet away; and the reason is simple. When we look at any object our eyes have a tendency to follow its outline. Now, of course, it requires more rolling of the eyes to follow the outline of a tree near by than one in the distance. This rolling movement involves muscular work. And, if we look first at the near, large object and then shift to the distant, small ones, we immediately experience the restfulness of reduced work. There are other reasons why distant objects are restful to the eyes, but they do not concern us here.

Have you ever noticed the pleasing effect in the motion pictures when the thing of interest, say, a train or a band of horsemen disappearing in the distance, narrows itself down to a small space? All images on the screen are, of course, equally distant from the spectator; yet there is a sense of restfulness, as we have just explained, because the rolling of the eyes decreases with the diminishing of the image and its area of movement on the screen.

But suddenly there comes a close-up of a face twenty feet in diameter, and our eyes have to get busy in the effort to cover the whole field at once. They rove quickly over several square yards of screen until that face is completely surveyed and every detail noted. Lots of looking! Yes, but that “star” gets fifty thousand dollars a month! Can’t fool the camera though—crow’s-feet on both sides—fourteen diamonds in the left ear-drop and——

Flash to a broad, quiet, soft gray landscape, with a lone rider on the horizon—oh, pshaw!—diamonds must ’a’ been glass though—anyway, this picture’s good for sore eyes—kind o’ easy feelin’—Indian scout maybe—or a——

Flash to a close-up of a Mexican bandit, etc., etc. And our eyes get busy again mapping out the whole subject from hat to hoof, from bridle to tail. Exciting! Oh, yes, indeed, and interesting too, but not as art; for those little muscles up there are jerked around too much, they are working overtime, and soon get weary.

“Oh, well, I reckon I can stand the strain,” says some heckler, who “don’t quite, you know, get this high-brow stuff.” Of course, he can stand it. We have stood the mad orchestra of the elevated trains, and the riveters, and the neighbor’s parrot for years, but we do not call it music.

The difference between noise and harmony is a physical difference. If this were not true, no one could ever tune your piano. Jarring, clashing, discordant sounds displease the ear. Just why noise displeases is not for us to say. But we have already explained three reasons why bad motion pictures hurt the eyes. Let us remember them. First, sudden shifts from dark to bright pictures shock the eye. Second, sudden shifts from a picture in a “cool” tint to another in a “warm” tint, and vice versa, over-work the eye. Third, a series of quick close-ups or other pictures in which the frame is filled with the subject demands too much eye-movement.

In the case of the close-up, or any large picture where the points of interest are scattered all over the field of vision, the eyes, as we have said, become strained by too much rolling, a muscular effort which is necessary even though the separate points of interest may themselves be fixed, as fixed as the four corners of the screen itself.

But when the points of interest are moving things, as they generally are in the movies, new causes of strain often arise. Sometimes the object we are trying to look at moves so fast that we can hardly follow it. Quick movement is generally desired by the directors because they think that briskness, or “pep,” makes the dramatic action more intense. Consequently people in the movies walk, march, dance, fight, and carry on with terrific speed until our eyes become tired in the attempt to observe all that is happening. The cure for such pictorial hysterics is simple moderation, the elimination of jerky movements wherever possible, and the choice of movements so easy to follow that the eye may perceive them with the least muscular effort.

We do not say that you who worship speed shall not have your express trains, your racing cars, your airplanes, your cow-ponies, and your Arabian steeds. You may have them all, because they can be so photographed that an actual run of two or three miles may be presented on the screen as a movement of only two or three feet.

We find, too, that there is something pleasing about the apparent slowness of actions that are moderated by distance. On the far horizon, therefore, the fleetest things seem retarded to a stately pace that claims our restful gaze. But when a quick movement takes place in the foreground of the picture, too near the camera, ugliness results, because the demands on the eye-muscles are too severe and unexpected. Thus a sudden gesture, or the waving branches of trees or bushes, or a motor car driving up in front of a house, or even such intended grace as the movement in dancing, may spoil a picture by being too near the camera.

Another thing which makes close-up movements ugly is the flicker, which cannot be entirely eliminated. Our readers are doubtless generally aware that what we see on the screen is simply the blending of a rapid succession of still pictures falling on different spots in an order and a direction which gives the appearance of motion. If you examine a film you will find that there are in fact sixteen little photographs, or “frames” to every foot of ribbon. The negative runs through the camera, and the positive film through the projecting machine, at a rate of about a foot per second. Now let us suppose that we have a screen sixteen feet long and that we throw upon it a picture of a car running at the rate of ten or eleven miles per hour. If the picture is a close view the image will move across our screen in just one second of time, for the speed we have assumed is at the rate of sixteen feet per second. But, since there are only sixteen frames in that foot, or second, of film, we know that only sixteen flashes of the car have been thrown on the screen during that second. Therefore, whatever particular part of the car we are looking at has fallen on sixteen different spots of the screen, and each spot is just one foot to the side of the previous one, because the screen is by assumption just sixteen feet wide. Now these separations are so wide that the eye cannot help noticing them even in the fraction of a second; there is not sufficient blending of images to form smooth motion; and the so-called flicker results.

However, if the car is photographed going obliquely away from us, the entire motion may occupy only a small area of the screen, no matter how far or fast the car goes; consequently the images fall much closer together and the flicker becomes so slight that we scarcely notice it. Also, since the field of movement is smaller in extent, the rolling of our eyes in ranging over the subject is less, and the fatigue of the muscles is so slight that we scarcely notice that either.

We have been arguing that large violent movements on the screen hurt the eyes, and we hope that our readers agree with us. But if any one is doubtful we invite him to make the following test. Go to any movie theater and sit down in the seventh or eighth row. Then after having seen about half of the picture, move back to the last row, or stand behind the last row. The picture will immediately seem more restful to the eyes, because the distance has made the screen seem smaller and the motions slower, two changes which, of course, make less work for the eyes. Now stay in the new position until the program is finished, and then see that part of the picture which was at first seen from the front seat. It will appear much more pleasing to the eye than it did the first time.

But we cannot all sit in the back row of a theater, and besides, even when screen motions are reasonably slow and limited, they may still fail to produce the effect of beauty.

Now, before we go further into this discussion of beauty on the screen, let us recall, that, as we have already said, the process of vision is partly eye-work and partly brain-work. These two factors are so closely connected in fact, that scientists cannot definitely separate them.B

From the results published in scientific periodicals it may be learned that visible ugliness does not always make the physical work of the eye more difficult. This is not to contradict what we have already said in this chapter, but merely to state that there may be certain kinds of ugliness on the screen which apparently do not hurt the eye at all. And yet ugliness does affect the mental phase of vision. It will be worth while giving a page or more to the testing of this statement; and the discussion may lead to a useful definition to keep in mind when criticizing the movies.

Curiously enough, the muscular movement of the eye when ranging over a single jagged, irregular line is practically the same as when ranging over a graceful line of similar length and direction. Scientific experiment shows that we move our eye-balls in a jerky, irregular manner, even when we view the most graceful line that can be drawn. Yet it is commonly said by all of us that one line delights the eye and the other does not. Evidently, therefore, the difference must lie in that function of seeing which the brain performs. But the brain, too, is a physical organ. It, too, can become fatigued, and it finds certain kinds of work less fatiguing than others.

Psychologists have suggested that a graceful line is pleasant to look at because the regularity and smoothness of its changes in direction make it easily perceived as a complete unity. Thus in the diagram facing page 39, lines A and B are pleasanter to look at than lines C and D, because their character as lines can be grasped by the mind more quickly and more easily than the character of C or D. And, for the same reason, lines A and B taken together make a more pleasing combination than lines B and C or lines C and D.

Now, if you will shut the book and try to draw any one of these four lines, even in your imagination, you will discover that you remember A and B almost perfectly, while you can hardly remember a single part of either C or D. This proves that in your own case the business of seeing has been more successful with graceful lines than with ugly ones. And, of course, successful effort is always more pleasing than failure.

Our working definition of good pictorial composition, offered in the preceding chapter, may be adapted here. Let us put it this way: A beautiful line or combination of lines is one in which we can see and feel much with ease, while an ugly line or combination is one in which we cannot see or feel much except with great difficulty. The terms “ease” and “difficulty” apply both to eye-work and brain-work.

One reason why we see much with ease in a beautiful line is evidently that any one part of the whole is a kind of key to some adjoining or corresponding part. Thus in line A the lower curve is very similar to the upper curve and leads into it with the smoothest continuity. And this same lower curve of A is so similar to the lower curve of B that we can see instantly the balanced relation between them. In ugly lines, on the other hand, there are no such visual helps. Yet, if some kind of balance or repetition is adopted, it may be that lines which are ugly when considered singly take on a kind of beauty or interestingness when considered as a group. Thus lines E, F, and G, are not as pleasing when standing alone as they become when considered in relation to a similar line symmetrically placed. Therefore, the combinations EF or FG, or even EFG are more pleasing than any one of their parts.

Now let us apply these principles of continuity and repetition to the lines in a picture. If you turn to Paxton’s “Daylight and Lamplight,” facing page 39, you will observe instantly the beautifully curving line of the woman’s back and also a balancing line down the side of the urn. That sweep of line gives at once the key to the arrangement of the picture.C In other words, you can see much of that picture with ease, even in a glance. Now if you examine this picture more in detail you will find much continuity of line and many parallelisms of line and shape, all of which tend to make the arrangement simple, without reducing any of the actual contents of the picture.

The “much” which we can see in a beautiful line includes such things as its meaning or use in the picture, its fitness for that use, its power to suggest associations, its interestingness, etc. But we shall not take up those phases of beauty in this chapter; we are now merely arguing that pictorial beauty economizes the work of the eye and brain, while visible ugliness does not.

What we said, a moment ago, regarding the value of continuity and repetition in fixed lines may also be applied to moving lines and objects. The great appeal of the screen lies in the showing of vivid movement, the flow of forms, the subtle weaving, through soft play of light and shadow, of fanciful figures that melt like music while we gaze, and yet remain in our minds like curves of a strange melody. When such glimpses of beauty come, our eyes and brains surely do not feel any friction or strain in the process of looking. But when ugly motions are presented the eye must perform excessive movement, and the brain must exert excessive effort.

What is an ugly motion? To answer this we must observe one or two facts concerning the visual process of seeing motions. We must admit the fact that one can perceive the motion of an object without following it with the eyes. Any one can test this for himself by fixing his eyes steadily on some spot on the wall. Without shifting his glance he may have knowledge of motions going on at other places many feet away from that spot. But it is also a fact that he will immediately feel an inclination to shift his eyes in order to see any one of these motions more clearly. In making that shift he will, of course, have to move his eyeballs. Now, if that moving object changes its place, his eyeballs will continue to make the movements necessary to follow it. And, if the attention continues directed toward that object, his eyes will have to make great or small movements, according as the object makes a great or small change of place.

An interesting theory, which scientific tests support, is that, although the eye has to make a series of irregular, jerky movements when following any moving object, these movements become fewer and smaller as the smoothness and regularity of the observed motion increases.

What we have just said about eye movement explains, at least partly, why the aimless crawling of a house fly over a window pane is ugly, while the graceful flying of a sea gull is beautiful; why the clambering of a monkey is ugly, while the swimming of a fish is graceful, and why the zigzag falling of a sheet of paper thrown from a window is displeasing, while the smooth spiralling of an airplane is pleasing.

In some of the movements which we classify as beautiful, it is clear that the principle of repetition is at work, which, as we have said, makes seeing easy. Any task accomplished once and undertaken again becomes easier and easier with repetition. We have already shown how this makes the perception of rhythmical fixed lines or balanced composition of fixed lines easier for the mind, if not for the eye itself. A similar experience of ease comes from viewing rhythmical or balanced motions.

You would not enjoy watching a dancer whose every movement was entirely unlike every previous movement. The effect would be utter confusion. You could not grasp, could not remember, what you saw. And you would probably say that it was not dancing at all. On the contrary, the beauty of a dance is largely due to the frequent repetitions or similarities of movements. Again and again you see and enjoy the same flexing of knee and poising of foot, the same curving of back and tossing of head, the same sweeping of hand and floating of drapery; and again and again the dancer moves through the same path of circling lines. Yet in these repetitions there are slight variations, too, because no human being works with the precision of a machine. And as you watch the dance you get variety without multiplicity; you see much with ease.

“Now, look here,” cuts in some old-time producer, “you don’t mean to say that you want our actors to dance through a drama, do you—a murder scene, or a wedding, or a meeting of profiteers to raise the price of soap?” No, indeed, we do not. In fact, we are hardly thinking of them as actors at all—not in this chapter. We are merely thinking of them as moving shapes upon a screen. And we want those shapes to move about in such a way that the motions will not hurt our eyes.

If we study those films that please us most we shall discover easy continuity of movement, so that a path of motion described in any one scene is extended, as it were, into a similar path of motion in the following scene. In such motion pictures there may be shifts, but there are no breaks. Paths of motion on the screen can remain long in our memories, as though they were fixed lines in a picture. Clearly, therefore, it would not be pleasing to have these remembered lines of motion clashing with those which are being perceived.

So much for the optical effects of single motions coming in succession. Now we must advance to the consideration of several motions going on in various directions during the same moment, which is a more usual situation in the photoplay. Several motions at once may constitute a harmony or a jumble, according to the first demands which they make upon the eye-work and brain-work of vision.

The difference between visual harmony and disharmony seems to depend partly on the fact that a pair of human eyes work together as one, and not as two separate instruments. You cannot look up with one eye and down with the other; you cannot look to the left with one eye and to the right with the other; you cannot look at a distant object with one eye and at a near one with the other. Hence, if you try to look intently at two or more objects crossing each other in opposite directions, your eyes are baffled and the effect is not pleasurable. There is also a conflict in our mental work of seeing, when opposing motions try to claim equal attention at the same time, unless, as we have previously stated, these motions are in some kind of rhythmical balance with each other.

Because of this baffling of eye and brain, therefore, we are displeased by the sight of two automobiles passing each other in opposite directions, or by the crossing of an actor’s gestures with the spoke of a wheel or the twig of a tree. A particularly ugly crossing is that of false and real motion, which even some of the best directors still indulge in. False, or apparent, motion occurs when the camera itself has been moving about while the picture was being taken. Thus a road is made to shoot upwards over the screen while our hero is riding madly toward us, or a parlor slides drunkenly to one side while some fair lady marches toward a door, or a stairway becomes a waterfall which she swims upstairs. The real motion, of course, contains the dramatic interest, but the false motion forces itself upon us by its novelty or unexpectedness; it becomes difficult for us to see much with ease, and the result is ugliness.

A particularly annoying device of recent vogue is the sub-title insert which is decorated with symbolical motions. It forces the spectator to read words and look at motions at the same time and upon the same spot of the screen. The Metro interpretation of the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” beautiful in its photographed scenes, was spoiled by much ugliness of that kind. In one sub-title we must look at the Beast snorting and chopping his long jaws, while several lines of type are spread over his horrible movements. In others we see water flowing from the bottom of the screen toward the top, or we see a pin-wheel of sparks, to represent telegraphic messages going around the world, or we see a squirrel in his wheel-cage, to represent something or other, and in each of these cases we must also read words in glaring type blazed on top of the moving symbols.

Oppositions and conflicts baffle and bewilder the eye and mind, but concurrent co-operating motions please them. It is easy, for example, to look at the shower of fire from a sky rocket, because the lines move in similar directions and remain comparatively near together, each one, as it were, helping the others, so that what we see in one part of the motion is a key to the rest of the motion. There is a similar unity and rhythmical balance in the motion of a flock of birds, a school of fish, or a group of dancers, the billows of the sea, or the feathery fall of snowflakes.

The production of harmonious motions in a photoplay might seem to us spectators to be merely a matter of spying with a camera and catching views of harmonious actions and settings. But the problem is not so simple. For the movements within any given scene may be perfectly orchestrated with respect to each other, and yet may clash with every one of the movements in the following scene. If in one picture our eyes and minds have adjusted themselves to the delicate threading of snow-flakes, falling like a softly changing tapestry, they can only be shocked by a sudden jump to the vigorous curling of a sea wave breaking on the beach. And in our natural desire to appreciate both subjects at once we are disappointed to find that each has spoiled the other. Delicacy looks at power and thinks it violence; power looks at delicacy and thinks it weakness. It is a visual effect such as one would get from a drawing where the hair lines of the finest pen and thinnest ink were crossed by the coarse marks of a blunt piece of charcoal.

So sharp a contrast might have a certain dramatic, stirring effect, like the use of swear words in a prayer; the very hurt might bring a certain thrill. An original and ingenious man, Mr. Griffith, for instance, may choose to show us a close-up of a little girl smiling in wistful innocence, her pretty curls quivering in the light breeze, contrasted suddenly with a reeking flood of soldiers pouring into a city street. Striking? Yes, exactly. The device is so striking that Mr. Griffith himself has learned to use it with restraint. Because once upon a time he composed a photoplay called “Intolerance,” which was so full of striking contrasts that it failed. There were only a few thousand people in the world who could stand the strain of looking at it.

Thus as we analyze the optical aspects of a motion picture we are amazed at the number of things that may conspire to hurt our eyes, and we sympathize more than ever with the sincere cinema composer. He, the new hope of the movies, feels the need of other equipment than a line of talk and a megaphone. He no longer applies for a position in a studio on the strength of his record as an actor, as a stage director, as a city editor, as a college cheer leader, or as a drill sergeant in the army. He has begun to think in pictorial composition and not in words. He is never without his sketching pad and piece of charcoal, because, forsooth, his business is picture making. He makes hundreds of sketches by day, of shapes, and lines, and tones, and he goes over them again and changes them by night. His scenario contains almost as many drawings as words. He knows before he says “Good morning” to his queens and cut-throats just what places and spaces their figures will occupy during the pictorial climaxes, as well as during the movements to, and away from, those climaxes. He sits among miles of films which he cuts, joins, runs through his projecting machine, and cuts and joins again. He knows that pictorial beauty does not come to the screen merely because the camera itself is a wonderful instrument. He knows, what so many critics are beginning to discover, that “the photography” may be excellent in a film, while its pictorial composition is atrocious. He knows first and last and always that, unless he makes his photoplay fundamentally pleasing to the eyes of the spectator, he can never give it the magic power of graphic art.