Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

DOCUMENTARY FILM NEWS BOOK REVIEWS The Film in Society British Cinemas and Their Audiences: J. P. Mayer. ( Dobson. 279 pp. 15.S.). The Negro in Films: Peter Noble. (Skelton Robinson. 288 pp. 1 5s.). Kierkegaard wrote: 'The Crowd is untruth'. The dictum implies that 'somewhat contemptuous attitude towards the masses', which Mr Mayer condemns in the other four writers and disclaims in himself. But no sociologist will agree that the crowd whom Mr Mayer has collected together for analysis in his book can tell the truth about British cinemas and their audiences. As sociology, the book is bad. It is slovenly, misleading and thoroughly unscientific. It is not about cinema audiences at all, but about a particular section of those audiences, the most vocal section, the cinema fans. What else is to be expected when the source of the author's information is a questionnaire addressed to the readers of Picturegoerl Having said this, let us record, in deference to the preface, that we are familiar with Professor Allport's study on The Use of Personal Documents in Psychological Science, that we have referred to Mr Mayer's bibliography, have re-read his Sociology of Film, and carefully noted the quotations, historical and otherwise, which lend a certain pretentiousness to his text. In spite of all this it is impossible to maintain that Mr Mayer has made more than a superficial contribution to the study of the function and influence of the cinema in society. Such a work is of vital importance. It remains to be done. To criticize the present book does not imply that its documents are uninteresting, even when seen as a cross-section of the views of British cinema fans. Very much more could have been done with them. They emphasize that one of the most compelling reasons for cinema attendance is the desire to escape from the realities of everyday life. Frequent assertions of this nature should have led a conscientious social scientist to investigate more deeply the causes of such behaviour. This would be an important contribution towards understanding the function of the cinema in our society. The documents indicate that the early interesl of children in the cinema frequently arises because adults, in order to see films themselves, have no alternative but to take their children with them. In this way a child of six weeks was taken to the cinema. The ages of two, three and four are often quoted as the age when films were first seen. This is an indication of the influence of social conditions upon film habits rather than of the influence of films on social habits. Once again, Mr Mayer does not face the implications. It is not only a question of more and better children's films and of raising the content of general film production from its present level. It is a question of more nurseries and creches, more youth facilities, more and more alternatives to supplement the one recreational activity whither all too many children today must turn. Again, the documents indicate, the extent to which films from America bring with them and spread, in this country and elsewhere, American ideas and conceptions of 'the American way of life'. How powerful is the impact of this medium, not only upon the cinematograph industries, but also upon the cultural independence of the countries most closely concerned! How little attention, relative to its importance, has this question received! Mayer ignores it. If his audience selection is arbitrary, the author is equally arbitrary in his selection of films. Such a fault follows inevitably from the use of Picturegoer. He deals only with the influence of feature films and apparently excludes the influence of the documentary film in spite of the fact that its audience is rapidly growing and now exceeds an annual total of twelve million people. A responsible study of cinema audiences surely involves an assessment of the attitude which the cinema has taken up on the important social questions of the day, whether it takes this attitude openly and clearly, as in documentary films, or more subtly, as in feature films. Only thus, can one reach any conclusion about the role and function of the cinema in contemporary society. Such an approach never seems to have occurred to Mr Mayer. He is too steeped in academic method and the academic outlook. Moreover, he seems to despair (p. 10) of the power of man to control the society of which cinematic art is so faithful a reflection. He writes: 'We are small wheels within a big machine. We are tools which others handle. We serve the machines, we perform routine duties without grasping the meaning of the whole. The complex rationality of the world of which we are a part, is torn from our instincts and sentiments. Beliefs — we no longer have.' Mr Noble measures the influence of the cinema against one of the great social problems of the day. He does so by examining the content of a large number of films which deal directly or indirectly with this problem. In spite of the fact that a social study of audiences lies outside the scope of his book, the evidence he presents and the conclusions which he draws are, we submit, of greater sociological significance than those of the professional sociologist whose work we have just reviewed. The book demonstrates how an art reflects the material conditions of the society which gives rise to it. By tracing in films discrimination against the Negro race from early silent days until the end of the late war he shows in what way the real conditions of the American way of life, the fierce persecution of the Negroes in American society, find their expression on the screen and elsewhere. He shows, too, how discrimination is reflected in other ways, limiting the freedom of the screen, and restricting negro film production. The great weakness of the book lies in its extremely narrow approach to this problem. The author never steps outside its reflection in films and on the stage. Consequently, fortified by the author's own proposals, the reader is left with the impression that somehow the monstrous crime of the colour-bar can be fought, and perhaps conquered, in the relatively narrow sphere of art unrelated to the political and economic struggle outside this sphere. Mr Noble never explains the role of the colour-bar in present-day American society, nor does he make any really effective proposals for its eradication. Neither the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, nor the International Film and Radio Guild, nor the Independent Citizens' Committee, nor documentary films, nor personal letters to the Press, all of which he rightly indicates have a role in the fight. can do the slightest good unless they become a part of the whole struggle taking place in the world today, for or against the right of its citizens to live a full and free life. If we approach the question in this waj we throw into relief the other limitation in Mr Noble's approach. Not all the Negroes of the world and not the only colour-bar exist in the USA. True, he briefly indicates some of the ways in which colour prejudice gains expression in this country. But to represent, as he does, that it is only a secondary problem in Western Europe compared with America, is to ignore the implications of the colonial system, which find their expression in the cinema as in every other sphere of national life and which, in their total effect, are as evil as the discrimination practised in the Southern States. The artificiality of much of contemporary film production is too well known to need emphasis here. The real conditions of the Negro peoples cannot be fully and truthfully portrayed because it would be such an indictment of the system under which they live. Hence their manner of living can only become a subject for documentary films, w ithout explanation as to how the conditions portrayed came about, or be falsified in the now traditional treatment of Negro characters in most American feature films. In either case Negro susceptibilities are rightly injured. The author emphasizes that everyone has a personal dutj in combating the colour-bar, but his omission to place the problem in its proper context means that he can put forward no proper solution for the problem with which he deals. In spue of us weakness, however, the book is a valuable weapon in a tight, w hich too often in this countrv we regard as no affair of ours.