ue of the rapid changes of scenes which we have
recognized as so characteristic of the photoplay involves at every end
point elements of suggestion which to a certain degree link the separate
scenes as the afterimages link the separate pictures.

CHAPTER VI

EMOTIONS

To picture emotions must be the central aim of the photoplay. In the
drama words of wisdom may be spoken and we may listen to the
conversations with interest even if they have only intellectual and not
emotional character. But the actor whom we see on the screen can hold
our attention only by what he is doing and his actions gain meaning and
unity for us through the feelings and emotions which control them. More
than in the drama the persons in the photoplay are to us first of all
subjects of emotional experiences. Their joy and pain, their hope and
fear, their love and hate, their gratitude and envy, their sympathy and
malice, give meaning and value to the play. What are the chances of the
photoartist to bring these feelings to a convincing expression?

No doubt, an emotion which is deprived of its discharge by words has
lost a strong element, and yet gestures, actions, and facial play are so
interwoven with the psychical process of an intense emotion that every
shade can find its characteristic delivery. The face alone with its
tensions around the mouth, with its play of the eye, with its cast of
the forehead, and even with the motions of the nostrils and the setting
of the jaw, may bring numberless shades into the feeling tone. Here
again the close-up can strongly heighten the impression. It is at the
climax of emotion on the stage that the theatergoer likes to use his
opera glass in order not to overlook the subtle excitement of the lips
and the passion of the eyeballs and the ghastly pupil and the quivering
cheeks. The enlargement by the close-up on the screen brings this
emotional action of the face to sharpest relief. Or it may show us
enlarged a play of the hands in which anger and rage or tender love or
jealousy speak in unmistakable language. In humorous scenes even the
flirting of amorous feet may in the close-up tell the story of their
possessors' hearts. Nevertheless there are narrow limits. Many emotional
symptoms like blushing or growing pale would be lost in the mere
photographic rendering, and, above all, these and many other signs of
feeling are not under voluntary control. The photoactors may carefully
go through the movement