tra. Or we demand from our camera a
still more complex service. We put the camera itself on a slightly
rocking support and then every point must move in strange curves and
every motion takes an uncanny whirling character. The content still
remains the same as under normal conditions, but the changes in the
formal presentation give to the mind of the spectator unusual sensations
which produce a new shading of the emotional background.

Of course, impressions which come to our eye can at first awaken only
sensations, and a sensation is not an emotion. But it is well known that
in the view of modern physiological psychology our consciousness of the
emotion itself is shaped and marked by the sensations which arise from
our bodily organs. As soon as such abnormal visual impressions stream
into our consciousness, our whole background of fusing bodily sensations
becomes altered and new emotions seem to take hold of us. If we see on
the screen a man hypnotized in the doctor's office, the patient himself
may lie there with closed eyes, nothing in his features expressing his
emotional setting and nothing radiating to us. But if now only the
doctor and the patient remain unchanged and steady, while everything in
the whole room begins at first to tremble and then to wave and to change
its form more and more rapidly so that a feeling of dizziness comes over
us and an uncanny, ghastly unnaturalness overcomes the whole surrounding
of the hypnotized person, we ourselves become seized by the strange
emotion. It is not worth while to go into further illustrations here, as
this possibility of the camera work still belongs entirely to the
future. It could not be otherwise as we remember that the whole moving
picture play arose from the slavish imitation of the drama and began
only slowly to find its own artistic methods. But there is no doubt that
the formal changes of the pictorial presentation will be legion as soon
as the photoartists give their attention to this neglected aspect.

The value of these formal changes for the expression of the emotions may
become remarkable. The characteristic features of many an attitude and
feeling which cannot be expressed without words today will then be
aroused in the mind of the spectator through the subtle art of the
camera.

PART II

THE ESTHETICS OF THE PHOTOPLAY

CHAPTER VII

THE PURPOSE OF ART

We have analyzed the mental functions which are most powerful in the
audience