is inorganic combination with bits of dialogue or
explanatory phrases. The art of words and the art of pictures are there
forcibly yoked together. Whoever writes his scenarios so that the
pictures cannot be understood without these linguistic crutches is an
esthetic failure in the new art. The next step toward the emancipation
of the photoplay decidedly must be the creation of plays which speak the
language of pictures only.

Two apparent exceptions seem justified. It is not contrary to the
internal demands of the film art if a complete scene has a title. A
leader like "The Next Morning" or "After Three Years" or "In South
Africa" or "The First Step" or "The Awakening" or "Among Friends" has
the same character as the title of a painting in a picture gallery. If
we read in our catalogue of paintings that a picture is called
"Landscape" or "Portrait" we feel the words to be superfluous. If we
read that its title is "London Bridge in Mist" or "Portrait of the Pope"
we receive a valuable suggestion which is surely not without influence
on our appreciation of the picture, and yet it is not an organic part of
the painting itself. In this sense a leader as title for a scene or
still better for a whole reel may be applied without any esthetic
objection. The other case which is not only possible but perfectly
justified is the introduction of letters, telegrams, posters, newspaper
clippings, and similar printed or written communications in a pictorial
close-up the enlargement of which makes every word readable. This scheme
is more and more introduced into the plays today and the movement is in
a proper direction. The words of the telegram or of the signboard and
even of the cutting from the newspaper are parts of the reality which
the pictures are to show us and their meaning does not stand outside but
within the pictorial story. The true artist will make sparing use of
this method in order that the spectator may not change his attitude. He
must remain in an inner adjustment to pictorial forms and must not
switch over into an adaptation to sentences. But if its use is not
exaggerated, the method is legitimate, in striking contrast to the
inartistic use of the same words as leaders between the pictures.

The condemnation of guiding words, in the interest of the purity of the
picture play as such, also leads to earnest objection to phonographic
accompaniments. Those who, like Edison, had a technical, scientific, and
social interes