Moving Images, Understanding Media

Chapter 2 Inventions and Origins 57

The Establishment of Motion

Picture Storytelling

During the next decade, movies grew longer and more complex and inventive,

particularly in terms of establishing the basics of narrative. Many directors

across the world developed ways to tell stories that took advantage of the

movie camera’s ability to show us a scene from a particular vantage point and

then to cut the views into a sequence of images that reveal information in a

variety of ways to heighten drama, emotional impact, and perception. Sweden’s

Victor Sjöstrom; Russia’s Yevgeni Bauer; France’s Louis Feuillade, Maurice

Tourneur, and Alice Guy Blaché; and the United States’ D. W. Griffi th, Raoul

Walsh, Cecil B. DeMille, Lois Weber, and Allan Dwan all made fi lms that,

overall, established more eff ective staging in depth; masking and revealing of

characters and objects; dramatic, expressive lighting; and cutting that became

more smooth and complex.

Directors began to see the compositional possibilities off ered by the

unique vantage point of the camera and its lens. When fi lming, the camera

basically duplicates the vantage point of a single viewer. Filmmakers began

to explore the possibilities of what can be exposed to the audience or hidden

from view. Th ere is the width of the scene that is photographed by the camera,

determined by the type of lens and the physical placement of the settings

or objects that frame the shot. Th e height of our view is determined in the

same way.

Next, there is the apparent depth of the shot that was discussed in Chapter 1,

measured by the appearance of people, objects, and settings that are relatively

closer and farther from the camera. By the mid-1910s, fi lmmakers such as

those mentioned previously were directing scenes in which the stories took

Figure 2-20 Willot-Fox

studio stage in New Jersey

with glass ceiling for

maximum light and ample

space for building of sets.

Actress Theda Bara, seated,

is being addressed by the

director with camera at right.

(Courtesy Fort Lee Library)

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