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hance, enrich and delight; at
worst, it distracts from and mocks
reality. As for the screen, let us
say it may eventually pull down
to cover the wall of a room, or,
as has been suggested, merely
utilize a blank wall. What then?
Will ballet, at the moment pos–
sibly the least satisfactory of al–
most any televised material, im–
prove? I doubt it. The limited spa–
tial capacities of both the camera's
eye and the diminutiveness of the
screen are such that the effect of
wholeness
which is integral to the
aesthetic power of ballet is lost
and the viewer is expected to be
content with mutilations of anat–
omy and movement: you see the
ballerina's feet but you do not
see her legs and thighs; you see
her legs but you don't see her
torso or head; you see a truncated,
smiling face and weaving arms but
you have no idea what the rest
of the body is doing. Dancers are
cut off from one another, and
the interaction of parts in an en-
An Autobiography;
The Story of
MlI
Experiments With
By
Truth
MOHANDAS K. GANDHI
Paperback $1.95
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6
compassing pattern is sacrificed
for close-ups of individual pirou–
ettes or
pas jetes
as
if
they were
executed in a vacuum of stillness.
The well-received but pathetically
chopped-up version of "The Sleep–
ing Beauty" with Margot Fonteyn
was a case in point. All fluidity,
the very element in which ballet
prospers, was lost to piece-meal
images of solo or small-group
actions.
I do not think that the size of
the screen is going to solve this
problem for ballet or for any other
activity requiring commodious spa–
tial arrangements. Or, to put it
differently, I don't think the solu–
tion will come in terms of "live"
television. Contrary to Mr. Seldes'
hopes, I suspect that whatever im–
provements may come will stem
from the experience and with the
assistance of cinematographic tech–
niques and thus take the televised
ballet, for example, further in–
to the realm of film and away
from the immediate and direct
translation of reality we would
like to think television's true me–
tier. The controversy in the trade
between filmed and "live" shows,
at least in the naive form it has
taken (for example: Jackie Glea–
son "live" in a drab little skit
versus Jackie Gleason filmed in
a drab little skit) leaves me baf–
fled. It is as peripheral to the real
issues television poses as a medium
as were the turn-of-the-century
discussions about the
life
of the
