interest
in order to detect some mechanical traits of the camera, or with a
practical interest, in order to look up some new fashions, or with a
professional interest, in order to find out in what New England scenery
these pictures of Palestine might have been photographed. But none of
these aspects has anything to do with the photoplay. If we follow the
play in a genuine attitude of theatrical interest, we must accept those
cues for our attention which the playwright and the producers have
prepared for us. But there is surely no lack of means by which our mind
can be influenced and directed in the rapid play of the pictures.

Of course the spoken word is lacking. We know how often the words on the
screen serve as substitutes for the speech of the actors. They appear
sometimes as so-called "leaders" between the pictures, sometimes even
thrown into the picture itself, sometimes as content of a written
letter or of a telegram or of a newspaper clipping which is projected
like a picture, strongly enlarged, on the screen. In all these cases the
words themselves prescribe the line in which the attention must move and
force the interest of the spectator toward the new goal. But such help
by the writing on the wall is, after all, extraneous to the original
character of the photoplay. As long as we study the psychological effect
of the moving pictures themselves, we must concentrate our inquiry on
the moving pictures as such and not on that which the playwright does
for the interpretation of the pictures. It may be granted that the
letters and newspaper articles take a middle place. They are a part of
the picture, but their influence on the spectator is, nevertheless, very
similar to that of the leaders. We are here concerned only with what the
pictorial offering contains. We must therefore also disregard the
accompanying music or the imitative noises which belong to the technique
of the full-fledged photoplay nowadays. They do not a little to push the
attention hither and thither. Yet they are accessory, while the primary
power must lie in the content of the pictures themselves.

But it is evident that with the exception of the words, no means for
drawing attention which is effective on the theater stage is lost in the
photoplay. All the directing influences which the movements of the
actors exert can be felt no less when they are pictured in the films.
More than that, the absence of the words brings the movements which we
s