Chapter XXVIMARSHALL NEILAN SUMMARIZES

Mr. Neilan, whose moods run the range of human emotions, believes that many directors forget to put themselves in the places of their audiences.—Loss of proper perspective results.—Mr. Neilan also summarizes in such complete fashion that he concludes the argument

Chapter XXVI

It appears after all that Cecil De Mille is the only director in the producing art who doesn't believe in showing his players how to play a scene. Here comes Marshall Neilan with some words on directing and the first thing he says is: “One of the most potent assets of the director is his own ability to act. It is a difficult matter to tell a person how to do certain things if one doesn't know how to do it one's self. It is a simple matter to stop an actor in his work and tell him he isn't doing it right, but it is another matter entirely to get out on the set and show him the error of his ways before the camera. Therefore, a director's ability to act is a first asset.”

This, coming on top of the De Mille formula is disconcerting. Disconcerting because both Mr. De Mille and Mr. Neilan manage to get the utmost from their players. And they go about it in entirely different ways it would seem. As a result neither one of them can be wrong and they both must be right. A cold can be cured by repeated swallows of hot scotch but others prefer to stuff themselves full of quinine and let it go at that. The cold is done away with in both cases. Hence good performances are seen in both Neilan and De Mille pictures.

Mr. Neilan elaborates further on the subject thus: “By the same token it is more or less impossible to correct the portrayal of a certain piece of business if you haven't the ability to demonstrate just how it shouldbe corrected. In practically every scene that a director takes he is obliged first to get out on the set and show an actor or an actress how to perform a bit of business or how to register an expression. So, naturally a director must be able to act. He may be a bad actor or a good one but as long as he is able to show what he wants done and how he wants it done his work is going to be much easier.

“This is specially true in the handling of children on the screen. Children, talented or not, are not possessed of years of actual stage or screen experience which is necessary to give a performer the proper finesse and polish in actual screen work. The director with the ability to act can get out before the camera and go through the child's part for him, incorporating in it the polish that he desires the child to put into it. If the child is a good mimic the rest is easy. And I am not afraid that in mimicking me the child is going to give a mechanical performance.”

Mr. Neilan knows whereof he speaks when it comes to handling children. Two of his best pictures, “Penrod” and “Dinty” were stories with a boy actor, Wesley Barry, playing the principal role. In fact, it is due to Mr. Neilan's tutelage that young Barry has reached his present state of popularity. He has come under other directors besides Mr. Neilan but the teachings he received from the creator of his two best pictures still remain.

Continuing on the same theme Mr. Neilan says: “The merit of an actor's performance depends in ratio on the director's ability to show him what he wants.This accounts for the reason that certain actors and actresses receive flattering praise for their performances under one director while under the next director they may fail miserably. Any number of such instances could be cited but I have lots of friends among the actors and actresses and I don't want to turn them into enemies over night.”

I do not altogether subscribe to this statement of Mr. Neilan's. It is quite true that players have gained fame under one director and then worked with another and fallen down on the job. In fact one producing company recently elevated a certain actress to stardom because of her excellent work in one of its big pictures. But as soon as she left the guidance of the director who made this picture her ability seemed to take wings and leave her in the lurch.

But blaming these sudden transitions from good to bad on the directors ability to show an actor how to work, and the next fellow's refusal or inability to show him how is not, to my way of thinking, exactly right. It may have something to do with it but after all if a director shows all his players how he wants a scene done, the result, as Mr. De Mille pointed out, would eventually result in the entire cast giving mechanical imitations of the director in a protean act. An actor does better work for certain directors, included among which is Mr. Neilan, because for such directors he has respect, he believes in their ability, they retain his confidence. Then too Mr. Neilan and the others inspire an actor to his greatest efforts. The enthusiasm of the artistic director is communicated to the actor. If heis any sort of an actor he simply can't go wrong when working under the direction of a truly artistic director such as Mr. Neilan.

“The dramatic sense—the sense of dramatic construction” continues Mr. Neilan, “is another highly important asset of the motion picture director. This remark is, of course, somewhat obvious but in my opinion there are too many so-called directors who turn out machine-made pictures and the chief reason that they are machine-made is because their makers don't know the least thing about construction. Half of them wouldn't know a dramatic situation if it was thrust under their various noses.

“It doesn't make any difference whether this dramatic sense is a result of years of study of the drama or whether it is just a subconscious sixth sense thrown in along with the other five. It's the same in other branches of work, creative or otherwise. Some men become great generals through long years of study and application to the science of war. Another man just steps in and is able to converse with them on even terms because he is an instinctive general. In the motion picture producing art every director who has created a position for himself has either acquired the dramatic sense through years of study or else has it ingrained in him so deeply that he couldn't lose it even if his job were cleaning streets.

“There are many of our directors in the latter class. Fellows born with the dramatic sense. The art of picture producing has recruited so many young men that perhaps the majority of them must needs be put inthis class. In the year to come I sincerely believe that the study of the creation of motion pictures will be taught as an art or craft just as playmaking is today. In fact, the scenario classes in many of the universities now are paving the way for the broader classes to come. Most of the dramatic scholars in the picture art have been recruited from the stage. These are the men who have the traditions and the teachings of drama at their finger tips.

“Where does this sense help? A plain instance is the director's ability or inability to know when a situation is handled correctly in a story. His dramatic sense will answer the question for him. If the situation is treated falsely he will know how to change it—he will instantly detect the fault and eliminate it.”

Here Mr. Neilan takes up the same line of thought that I endeavored to set down in the second chapter of this book. The power of visualization, which enables a director to detect the right from the wrong, is the second most important asset of the motion picture director. Without it he is totally at a loss. This dramatic sense, or rather this dramatic-picture sense is really nothing less than the power of visualization. The two things work to the same end and, call it what you will, no man can ever hope to be a director and live to be recognized as such without the power of visualization or, according to Mr. Neilan, the sixth sense.

“Perhaps I should place ahead of these two requisites,” Mr. Neilan goes on to say, “the ability of the director to put himself in the place of his audience—to view his work through not only neutral but critical eyes.First it is necessary to keep within the understanding of the average photoplay audience. And, don't forget, that it has been discovered that the age of the average picture audience is startlingly low—somewhere in the 'teens'. If we present things on the screen that are five years ahead of an audience we aren't the right kind of creators. It is just as bad to do this as to present something five years behind the times.

“Like all directors I know there is room for improvement in screen work. The art is young yet and has got to advance slowly, mainly because its tremendous and cosmopolitan following will only advance slowly. The motion picture can't afford to go too far ahead of its audience. It can keep a few paces ahead and encourage its audiences to come up those few paces but it can't go too far afield.

“This matter of a director viewing his work from the vantage point of the audience has a more practical application as well. The director must retain his perspective on his picture—must retain, that is, his first fresh perspective. So many directors become so satiated in their work that they lose the value of their pictures. They have gone over their stories in every scene from the scenario all through the process of directing and in the cutting room where they are confronted with the difficult task of bringing their pictures down to the required length they are inclined to cut out valuable story material. They know their stories so well that they forget an audience only sees them once, that an audience as a rule is in total ignorance of the story until it begins on the screen. Thereforeevery point of value in the story must be retained. And to accomplish this the director must jump outside himself and view his picture from the standpoint of the layman every time that he has anything to do with it.

“This loss of perspective is one of the reasons why we have 'jumpy' pictures and pictures that seem lacking in continuity.”

Mr. Neilan concludes the subject with these words: “Above all, I consider that the director's appreciation of the human side of life is his greatest asset. Unless a director is thoroughly human down to the very earth and appreciative of the things in life that are common to the ordinary mortal he can not hope to attain any degree of success. If he himself has suffered, if he is a close student of human nature and can reflect the human things on the screen then he automatically becomes a successful director—I might almost say a true artist.”

Mr. Neilan hasn't bothered to list his own abilities which are manifold. His moods run the range of human emotions. He can transport an audience with the quiet beauty and sincere pathos of his work as he did in the best Mary Pickford picture ever made, “Stella Maris,” or he can become positively Goldbergian in his creations and rival Mack Sennett as he did in “Dinty.”

Mr. Neilan is his own best answer to all the arguments he has set forth here.

I had intended to attach a summary to this book, listing the requirements of the successful director but on beginning the task I find that I would be merely duplicating Mr. Neilan's words. He has compiled the summary.

MARSHALL NEILAN

MARSHALL NEILAN (SEATED) DIRECTING WESLEY BARRY IN A SCENE FOR “PENROD”

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