are only a part of the social background which is needed to show the life story of the hero or heroine.  They have not the independent significance which is essential for the dramatic conflict.  The novel on the screen, if it is a true novel and not the novelistic rendering of what is really a dramatic plot, must be lifeless and uninspiring.  But on the other hand the photoplay much more than the drama emphasizes the background of human action, and it shares this trait with the novel.  Both the social and the natural backgrounds are the real setting for the development of the chief character in the story.  These features can easily be transferred to the photoplay and for this reason some picturized novels have had the advantage over the photoplay cut from the drama.  The only true conclusion must remain, however, that neither drama nor novel is sufficient for the film scenarios.  The photopoet must turn to life itself and must remodel life in the artistic forms which are characteristic of his particular art.  If he has truly grasped the fundamental meaning of the screen world, his imagination will guide him more safely than his reminiscences of dramas which he has seen on the stage and of novels which he has read.

If we turn to a few special demands which are contained in such a general postulate for a new artistic method, we naturally think at once of the role of words.  The drama and novel live by words.  How much of this noblest vehicle of thought can the photoplay conserve in its domain?  We all know what a large part of the photoplay today is told us by the medium of words and phrases.  How little would we know what those people are talking about if we saw them only acting and had not beforehand the information which the “leader” supplies.  The technique differs with different companies.  Some experiment with projecting the spoken words into the picture itself, bringing the phrase in glaring white letters near the head of the person who is speaking, in a way similar to the methods of the newspaper cartoonists.  But mostly the series of the pictures is interrupted and the decisive word taken directly from the lips of the hero, or an explanatory statement which gives meaning to the whole is thrown on the screen.  Sometimes this may be a concession to the mentally less trained members of the audience, but usually these printed comments are indispensable for understanding the plot, and even the most intelligent spectator would feel helpless without these frequent guideposts.  But this habit of the picture houses today is certainly not an esthetic argument.  They are obliged to yield to the scheme simply because the scenario writers are still untrained and clumsy in using the technique of the new art.