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 see 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 change which does not allow the attention to become fatigued.