Synopses & Reviews
THE PHOTOPLAY COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTEB PAGE 1. THE OUTER DEVELOPMENT OF THE MOVING PICTURES 3 2. THE INKER DEVELOPMENT OP THE MOVING PICTURES 21 PAETL THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE PHOTOPLAY 3. DEPTH AND MOVEMENT 44 4. ATTENTION ... 72 5. MEMORY AND IMAGINATION 92 6. EMOTIONS 112 PART II. THE ESTHETICS OF THE PHOTOPLAY 7. THE PURPOSE OF ART 133 8. THE MEANS OF THE VARIOUS ARTS .... 155 9. THE MEANS OF THE PHOTOPLAY 170 10. THE DEMANDS OF THE PHOTOPLAY .... 191 11. THE FUNCTION OF THE PHOTOPLAY .... 215 INTRODUCTION THE PHOTOPLAY CHAPTER I THE OUTEB DEVELOPMENT OF THE MOVING PIGTTJEES It is arbitrary to say where the develop ment of the moving pictures began and it is impossible to foresee where it will lead. What invention marked the beginning Was it the first device to introduce movement into the pictures on a screen Or did the develop ment begin with the first photographing of various phases of moving objects Or did it start with the first presentation of suc cessive pictures at such a speed that the im pression of movement resulted Or was the birthday of the new art when the experiment ers for the first time succeeded in projecting such rapidly passing pictures on a wall If we think of the moving pictures as a source of entertainment and esthetic enjoyment, we may see the germ in that camera obscura THE PHOTOPLAY which allowed one glass slide to pass before another and thus showed the railway train on one slide moving over the bridge on the other glass plate. They were popular half a century ago. On the other hand if the essential feature of the moving pictures is the combination of various views intoone connected impression, we must look back to the days of the phenakistoscope which had scientific interest only it is more than eighty years since it was invented. In America, which in most recent times has become the classical land of the moving picture produc tion, the history may be said to begin with the days of the Chicago Exposition, 1893, when Edison exhibited his kinetoscope. The visitor dropped his nickel into a slot, the lit tle motor started, and for half a minute he saw through the magnifying glass a girl danc ing or some street boys fighting. Less than a quarter of a century later twenty thousand theaters for moving pictures are open daily in the United States and the millions get for their nickel long hours of enjoyment. In Edisons small box into which only one at a time could peep through the hole, nothing but a few trite scenes were exhibited. In those DEVELOPMENT OF MOVING PICTURES twenty thousand theaters which grew from it all human passions and emotions find their stage, and whatever history reports or science demonstrates or imagination invents comes to life on the screen of the picture palace. Yet this development from Edisons half minute show to the Birth of a Nation did not proceed on American soil. That slot box, after all, had little chance for popular success. The decisive step was taken when pictures of the Edison type were for the first time thrown on a screen and thus made vis ible to a large audience. That step was taken 1895 in London. The moving picture theater certainly began in England. But there was one source of the stream springing up in America, which long preceded Edison the photographic efforts of the Englishman Muy bridge, who made hisexperiments in Cali fornia as early as 1872. His aim was to have photographs of various phases of a continu ous movement, for instance of the different positions which a trotting horse is passing through. His purpose was the analysis of the movement into its component parts, not the synthesis of a moving picture from such parts. Yet it is evident that this too was a THE PHOTOPLAY necessary step which made the later tri umphs possible...