Year book of motion pictures (1925)

The Cultural Effects of the Film The following is an extract from a remarkable article on the cultural effects of the film, by Max Suberkrub, which appeared in The Euchen Review, the organ of the Eucken Society, and translated for "The Dearborn Independent," by Prof. Samuel F. Darwin-Fox. .It is an extremely concise analysis of the educational value or otherwise of motion pictures, and contains a wonderful amount of constructive criticism marked by incisiveness and directness. Before I begin to discuss the cultural effects of the Film, I may perhaps be permitted a few remarks on the spiritual aspect of mankind, more especially the world of apparitions: Nature alone is the primal cause of this. In every direction it sends forth its vibrations. In the brain of every man these vibrations take form and shape according to the play of the visual, the auditory and the olfactory nerves, and of all the other senses. The whole process is natural : as the influence, so the picture. If the initial idea is true, the image thereof will be true also. So much by way of necessary prolegomenon; I now proceed to discuss the Film itself. What does the Film set out to effect? It aims at the creation of a picture of events which is entirely true to life. If the Film produces a real and true picture, it must perforce produce a real reflex in the mind of the people. But if the natural events are transformed by the action of the Film, the picture will not appear consistent with reality, and the judgment to be formed upon it will depend, to a large exent, upon the personal feeling of the individual spectator. From this point of view, the question is: Can the Film produce natural events in a manner true to life? As we have already said, man's apprehension is natural. Nature is the causa, the brain is the receiver. In the presence of an actual event, all the senses are at work. Let us take an instance. When looking upon a burning house, we not only see the flames, but we smell the fire, we hear the crackling, perhaps even shrieks. We stand in the throng, careless of the weather, hypnotically gripped by the event itself. Or we stand upon the seashore. We see not only the foaming of the waves, but the mere impression conveys to us the thundering break of the surge ; it is for us to battle against the storm ; and, drenched to the skin, we feel the power of the ocean. All these natural events are accompanied by a host of tiny details. But the Film must produce something for the eye alone. And whereas in actual life each sense is occupied to a greater or lesser degree, the Film is capable of providing a mere substitute, or counterfeit, of varying exactitude or inexactitude. So far as the human senses are concerned, our conclusions must be as follows : (1) The imagination of the spectator must supply for itself the missing parts of the picture. This necessarily results in an overstraining of the senses. (2) No time limit is exacted in the case of incidents thrown upon the screen. This is counter to nature and reality. When a Film is reeled off in this unnaturally quick manner, our powers of apprehension are outrun, and we cannot properly follow the sequence : all our senses are confused, and we are thrown back for enlightenment upon the textual indications of the Film. If the Film represents incidents and events in a manner true to nature, the imagination will not be too sorely strained. But if the Film represents the events of human life in a manner that is false to fact, the result may spell disaster for an entire nation. Excessive concentration upon pictures robs one of the ability to estimate and criticise natural life; through false productions we form false conclusions, which lead inevitably to false opinions. An Analysis of Films How, then, from a practical viewpoint, stands the Film today? I regret today that I myself was unable to draw any comparison between the so-called good films and those that are worthless. And this for two excellent reasons: first, because the notices in the daily newspapers are not by any means luminous in this particular respect ; second, because the Film enterprises are not inclined to publish the programs of their plays. I must therefore content myself with quoting the statements of Walther Konrad. Out of 250 film-plays, he counted 97 murders, 45 suicides, 51 cases of adultery, 19 cases of temptation, 22 cases of kidnapping and 176 cases of theft. In other words: murder, 39 per cent; suicide, 18 per cent; adultery, 20 per cent; temptation, 8 per cent abduction, 9 per cent; theft, 70 per cent. This works out at 164 per cent in 250 film-dramas. The criminal statistics of 1919 voice their opinion in this matter: in the years past, there were only 8.5 convictions: in every 1,000 persons — that is thefts, 2 in every 1000; murder and manslaughter, only 1.8 in every 1.0CO. These figures show that natural events have been represented in an unnatural manner. But, on the other hand, it may here be objected that other social factors are at hand to influence the populace. The objection is plausible ; but the fact remains that the influence of the Film is paramount as a means of influencing— and enslaving — the people. For the Film, like Bengal fires, enlightens their Txarts with incidents, motives and passions, lucid, monstrous, inconceivable in actual life, whereas the result of all the great spectacles of Shakespeare, Schiller and other dramatists have the power to influence and to thrill people for months, for years, and sometimes even for a lifetime. All the passions, such as love, hate, fear, faith, satire, must find their place in the Film, and appear in as concentrated a manner as possible. In from ten to fifteen minutes one can see what one cannot read about in several hours. It is easy to understand that such film-material as Konrad has described, and as is so often shown upon the screens today, is apt to corrupt the senses and the nerves of the inspectors : even to the extent of bringing about disorders of the nerves, and actually leading people astray, in a way we continually read about in the police news. These figures collected by Konrad point to something still worse than all this: he asserts that the Film has robbed the majority of the people of the sense of true judgment; and, through the repeated reproduction of unreal events in life, it has put them entirely on the wrong track. The worst calamity of all is that the false imagery of the Motion Picture has made people lose every notion of truth. Should Be an Educator The full extent of the evil effects of the Film upon the population at large cannot as yet be gauged ; for there are no certain statistics to hand. However, these are assuredly cultural facts which indicate how the Film reacts upon the nation. The Film should be a public educator on the largest possible scale; but this is still Utopian, for the first experiments in this direction are only now in course of being made. To go into thia particular matter more fully is, for the moment, outside my province; but I wish to state and to explain the real value of the Film, and briefly to hint how that value may be enhanced. The Film should become an organ of Public education for the following reasons: (1) An educational organ of this kind is very necessary today; for education has ceased to be the privilege of a single class, and it is recognized that the happiness of mankind is ultimtaely based, to a very large extent, upon its education. (2) The film is evidently the cheapest and easiest organ of education. 39