Thus the
cut-back effect kept suspense and interest at highest pitch every
moment.
Some years ago the same company released a drama, "The Cord of Life,"
in which the cut-back was used so effectively to heighten the suspense
and add to the thrill that many people in the audience of the theatre
were leaning forward in their seats and making excited comments--the
supreme test of a picture "with a punch."
One caution is necessary in the use of the cut-back--_do not use it as
an excuse to digress_. Above everything else, when you have started
the ball of your plot rolling, keep it rolling _forward_. You must not
switch back to some earlier scene for the purpose of picking up a
point that you have overlooked. Nor is it possible to go back and
follow the characters who have been temporarily dispensed with. If
they reappear, it must be in a scene which naturally follows, and does
not come with a sense of perplexing surprise. Remember this: When
characters are reintroduced they must not have been too long absent
from the plot-movement, but they must have been all the time
consciously or subconsciously present in the mind of the spectator _as
being essentially in the story_.
Unfriendly critics of the photoplay--and there are some such--have
said some harsh things about "the mugging close-up and the
nerve-wracking cut-backs," nor have their criticisms been wholly
without point and justification.
Pages:
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178