ee to still greater prominence in our mind. Our whole attention can now
be focused on the play of the face and of the hands. Every gesture and
every mimic excitement stirs us now much more than if it were only the
accompaniment of speech. Moreover, the technical conditions of the
kinematograph show favor the importance of the movement. First the play
on the screen is acted more rapidly than that on the stage. By the
absence of speech everything is condensed, the whole rhythm is
quickened, a greater pressure of time is applied, and through that the
accents become sharper and the emphasis more powerful for the attention.
But secondly the form of the stage intensifies the impression made by
those who move toward the foreground. The theater stage is broadest near
the footlights and becomes narrower toward the background; the moving
picture stage is narrowest in front and becomes wider toward the
background. This is necessary because its width is controlled by the
angle at which the camera takes the picture. The camera is the apex of
an angle which encloses a breadth of only a few feet in the nearest
photographic distance, while it may include a width of miles in the far
distant landscape. Whatever comes to the foreground therefore gains
strongly in relative importance over its surroundings. Moving away from
the camera means a reduction much greater than a mere stepping to the
background on the theater stage. Furthermore lifeless things have much
more chance for movements in the moving pictures than on the stage and
their motions, too, can contribute toward the right setting of the
attention.

But we know from the theater that movement is not the only condition
which makes us focus our interest on a particular element of the play.
An unusual face, a queer dress, a gorgeous costume or a surprising lack
of costume, a quaint piece of decoration, may attract our mind and even
hold it spellbound for a while. Such means can not only be used but can
be carried to a much stronger climax of efficiency by the unlimited
means of the moving pictures. This is still more true of the power of
setting or background. The painted landscape of the stage can hardly
compete with the wonders of nature and culture when the scene of the
photoplay is laid in the supreme landscapes of the world. Wide vistas
are opened, the woods and the streams, the mountain valleys and the
ocean, are before us with the whole strength of reality; and yet in
rapid cha