The film daily year book of motion pictures (1926)

COURAGE IN THE MOVIES (Continued from page 21) UTMOST OF FEELING IN PANTOMIME: The ability to secure the utmost of feeling from a player necessitates a senstiveness anil capacity for visualization in both director and player. This is one of the strong features of European films. Their directors and actors know pantomime. But lo help an actor impart the utmost feeling and characterization he must first be aware of the director's concretion, which means that the director should first conceive just what the player is to do. But as happens so often in our theaters, actors of the movies APPEAR ir. rather than PLAY in parts. With many cinema players recruited from the theater, where the acting technique varies from that of the cinema, it is easy to trace the teason for limitations m pantomime, . lost art ill the theater "1 today. 1 have always been puzzled why movie production managers will continue taking people from the stage instead oi uniting or developing players who are to be strictly screen actors. DECORATIONS: This item has been covered e'sewhere in this article. PICTORIAL COMPOSITION: The best motion pictures will always be 90 per cent drama: they must be intensified far beyond the stage drama because of the absence of the speaking voice, and for these reasons pictorial composition in the movies must also be intensive — and intensively simple but effective, I should say. I have seen many a charming pictorial setting on the screen create a dash between character and situation. Pictorial composition today continues to show too much detail, little ingenuity and frequently interferes with the tempo of the acting. The purely pictorial has no place in screen drama except to serve as means of giving a story the necessary atmosphere, intensity of line and mass in relation to theme and player. At the same time dramatic action in the films with design or masses in a scene, dramatic action, however unpleasant to see. Without this planning of design or masses in a scene dramatic action, however effective, suffers. Irrelevant lighting schemes and gingerbread architecture with all their violent detail also detract from dramatic action. However, they are evident in the movies. It takes a director who is an artist to maintain balance between dramatic action and pictorial composition, and at this Rex Ingram is almost without an equal among American directors. But the simple, abstract composition is best for the movie scene, as it helps the story of the drama and the mimetic action of the player. * * * The Harmon Foundation — Pictures for Churches An organization to be known as the Religious Motion Picture Foundation, Inc., which has for its purpose the production and distribution of strictly religious pictures for use in the churches, has been created by the Harmon Foundation with the cooperation of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America and the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, the latter known better as the Hays' organization. The pictures will be aids to the sermons preached and in no sense what are called "entertainment" pictures. William E. Harmon is president of the new Foundation and George Reid Andrews, chairman of the Committee on Educational and Religious Drama, of the Federal Council of Churches, is vice-president and general manager. Members of the Board of Directors are: The Rev. S. Parkes Cadman, president of the Federal Council of Churches, John H. Finley, Dr. Samuel McCune Lindsay, W. Burke Harmon, and Carl E. Milliken, former Governor of Maine. A fund of $50,000 has been set aside by Mr. Harmon to carry on the work in its early stages. A National Committee of aWviseirs include Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Pioducers and Distributors of America, Colonel Jason S. Joy, director of the Department of Public Relations in the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Lee Hanmer of the Russell Sage Foundation, Mrs. John Hays Hammond, Judge Florence Allen. Dr. William Anthony, Arthur H. Brook, William L. Burdick, George Gordon Battle, Rev. Charles E. Burton, Samuel McCrea Cavert, Stephen P. Duggan, Allen Eaton, Huger Elliott, Prof. Dixon R. Fox, John Golden, F. E. Johnson, Prof. Carleton Hayes, Dr. Parke R. Kolbe, Harry Kahler, Rev. Charles N. Lathrop, Sam Lewisohn, Rev. Henry Smith Leiper, Bishop William Lawrence, Ivy Lee, Rabbi Alexander Lyons, Dr. Charles S. MacFarland. Dr. Hugh S. Magill, William G. McAdoo, Rev. W. B. Millar, Prof. Parker T. Moon, Charles P. Neill, Prof. William Rockwell, Rev. J. Benton Werner, James E. West, Pliny Williamson, Dr. B. S. Winchester, Mrs. Adele Woodard, George Zabriskie. The first step in the organization's plans is to be experimental in the distribution of pictures. A few programs of the sort of pictures lending themselves to church work will be revised and used experimentally. Along with this work in distribution, which is considered of immediate concern, will go the production of new pictures. Among the first tor which production is contemplated according to Mr. Andrews, is a series entitled "How We Got Our Bible." The first unit of this series will be on the story of the translation of the New Testament into English by William Tyndale -100 years ago, the anniversary of which is being celebrated this year. Formation of the Foundation follows many months of experimental work with religious pictures— experiments made jointly by the HaTmon Foundation, the Federal Council of Churches through its Committee on Religious Drama, and the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. A special department was set up by Mr. Hays to carry on the work of experimentation and 800 reels of religious and semireligious subjects, already in existence, were examined. From this enormous amount of material, 1 1 reels were assembled. These portrayed two Biblical stories: Joseph and His Brethren, and The Exodus. These were edited, re-titled, and animated maps showing the regions in which the episodes took place were added. When this work was completed the pictures were shown over a period of two months in suburban churfches, two on the outskirts of Brooklyn and the others in White Plains, Cliff side Park, Jamaica, East Rockaway, Milford, Conn., Teaneck, N. J., Mt. Kisco, N. Y. and Caldwell, N. J., the showings being arranged through the F'ederal Council of Churches. The experiment showed that the average attendance in these churches on Sunday evenings on which religious pictures were shown increased 36 per cent, although for the purpose of experiment no advance advertising was used. In explaining what he means by religious pictures, Mr. Andrews said : "We have called our organization The Religious Motion Picture Foundation, but we have not attempted a definition of religion. The true artist does not waste much time in phrase making ; he is content to paint. We shall seek to give expression to those universal religious experiences of men insofar as we can discover them and thus let the action reveal the inner spirit. We shall seek to employ the text of the Great Teacher, 'By Their Fruits Shall Ye Know Them.' "In the spoken or silent drama, the word must become flesh if there is to be drama at all. There is great virtue, we believe, in this necessity Whether we will or no, we cannot spend our time in fruitless theological argument; we shall be forced to think vitally and concretely about religion. By means of the dramatic method, we hope to give newness and freshness to the things of the spirit." 29