CHAPTER XI
THE MYSTERIOUS EMOTIONS OF ART
The end of all aspiring mastery in the movies is to
provide for every beholder the thrills of art. These
thrills are not like the emotions which are aroused
by other experiences of life, by sports, for example,
or adventure, or amusements, or industry, or war.
They are stirring experiences quite different from
those of him who makes a "home run" or a "touch-down,"
or "loops the loop" in the air, or sinks a submarine,
or has a play accepted, or discovers a new
way of evading some obnoxious law. It is true that
the dramatic content of a photoplay may sometimes
seem so real that the beholder forgets where he is
and responds with such natural feelings as fear and
triumph, love and hate, pride, selfish desire and hope;
but it is also true that the pictorial form of a photoplay,
that is, the mere arrangement of the substance,
considered apart from its meaning, can arouse strange,
pleasurable emotions which are peculiar to the enjoyment
of art.
When we recall the masterpieces of painting which have thrilled us we must admit that much of their appeal came from other factors besides the content of the picture. Think of a portrait of some Dutchman painted by Rembrandt. The painting stirs you as the Dutchman himself in real life never could have
