Cinema Quarterly (1934 - 1935)

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an architect to inspire the draughtsmen and instruct the builders, the result would lack that aesthetic harmony which characterizes all great architecture. Similarly, unless a film is dominated by the supreme personality of a creative artist in undisputed control over every stage of production it will suffer from weakness of character and uncertainty of design. The question is not whether the scenarist or the director should be given command, for obviously the same person ought to be responsible for both tasks. But until something is done to break down the present stupid conventions and make possible the development of new genius capable of undertaking the wider responsibility of full creative control, it is idle to talk of the scenario as having significance either for literature or the film. COLOUR ARRIVES. Six years' practice of the use of sound has brought us only to the fringe of learning how to use it with artistic perception — and now we are faced with colour. At least five separate systems, each with elaborate claims to recognition, are already competing for introduction to the screen, and whether we like it or not the colour-film will soon be an accepted form of cinema. That directors have still enough to learn about sound and movement, that the audience has never asked for colour nor felt the want of it, that exhibitors do not welcome the cost of installing new apparatus — all that is beside the point. The film of entertainment, declare the producers, requires another infusion of novelty, and just as sound was thrust on the cinema by the competitive genius of Warner Bros., the black-and-white film may soon be swept from the screen by the flood of colour released by avid producers anxious to dazzle their rivals. That they may also dazzle the audience is equally possible. Judging from efforts such as Radio Parade and the final reel in The House of Rothschild, colour definition is still far from perfect, and the essential qualities of tonal harmony and contrast are apparently unknown. Cautious second thoughts made Gaumont-British withdraw the colour sequence in The Iron Duke, but Hollywood rushes ahead with all-colour versions of Becky Sharp, The Last Days of Pompeii and The Three Musketeers. There are no second thoughts in America. And soon the rest of the world will be stampeding in its wake. Much as we may regret its precipitous imposition, we cannot afford to scoff and ignore the advent of colour. Its development is as inevitable as the development of sound. Even Chaplin, lone champion of the silent film, has been able to remain staunch to his former medium only by the subtlest of compromise. Is it not better 68