Pictorial Beauty on the Screen

If I look upon a motion picture as a kind of substitute for some stage play or novel, it seems to me a poor thing, only a substitute for something better; but if I look upon it as something real in itself, a new form of pictorial art in which things have somehow been conjured into significant motion, then I get many a glimpse of touching beauty, and I always see a great range of possibilities for richer beauties in future examples of this new art. Then I see the motion picture as the equal of any of the elder arts.

In order not to confuse the issue, I have purposely omitted discussions of plot, dramatic situation, characterization, etc., except where these matters are so intimately connected with pictorial form that an omission would be impossible. In short, it is what the picture looks like, rather than what it tells, which here occupies our attention. This study is, therefore, supplementary to my book “The Art of Photoplay Making,” which is published by The Macmillan Company.

Mr. James O. Spearing, who was for five years the distinguished motion picture critic on the New York Times, and is now on the production staff of the Goldwyn Pictures Corporation, has been kind enough to criticize the manuscript of the present work, and I take pride in thanking him publicly for having thus served me with his extensive knowledge and cultivated taste.