We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
THE EUROPEAN CINEMA
British zone, Helmut Kautner, would appear the most promising of the young directors, with his well-spoken of In Jenen Tagen {In Former Days), the adventures of an automobile with its owners in pre-war and wartime Germany. Those who have seen the above films all speak of their technical excellence reminiscent of early German days, but point out the tendency towards self-pity in their handling of most themes.1
That was not uncharacteristic of German production after World War I. Let us remember that the films of those years, suffused as they were with a general sickness of the soul, were hailed by America and the rest of Europe as supreme examples of artistic health— of that cultural superiority, indeed, which the Nazis later claimed as their exclusive possession.
(V) The Italian Film
That the film is both response to and agent of a predominating social system was never more clearly demonstrated than in the case of Italy. For nearly a quarter of a century of fascism, nothing emerged from the studios of a country which had contributed importantly to the early motion picture that could possibly be taken seriously. Mussolini's men tried everything : the cultivation of exclusively native talent and themes, the importation of celebrated directors and stars, the imitation of the German, American, French, and even Swedish styles. Nothing availed. The monumental Scipio Africanuses and the musical La Bohemes reflected nothing but the frozen values of a paralysed society. Even the fascists were bored by them.
This static picture was shattered into fragments by the Liberation. All the forces which had existed in suspension
1 For this information I am indebted to Penguin Film Review, Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5; Heinrich Fraenkel in The Film Today (Saturn Press, 1947) and Documentary Film News, Vol. 7, No. 61, (article by Arthur Elton).
595