Take for example the
Babylonian setting (the principal Babylonian setting, that is) in the
D.W. Griffith production, "Intolerance." When this scene is first
thrown on the screen we see an immense open court, surrounded by
banquet halls and long corridors, with walls reaching up to tremendous
heights, the walls themselves banked with huge figures of heathen gods
and images and great elephants, compared to which the human figures
participating in the scene are mere pygmies. At the back of this
enormous setting is a flight of steps, perhaps a hundred feet or more
in width, upon which are probably a hundred girls going through the
graceful motions of a religious dance. We are permitted, for several
feet of film, to view the immensity and the grandeur of ancient
Babylon in this wide-angle view. Then, smoothly and steadily, we
approach the back of the set--the great flight of steps, with the
dancing figures. Hundreds of details of architecture and sculpturing
are unfolded as we draw nearer, and when the truck suddenly stops, we
have a close-up of part of the steps with the dancing girls just
finishing their performance.
The point is, simply, that if a mere close-up of a certain character
or group of characters is all that is desired, either of the two
methods first explained is used.
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