International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1932)

— 557 — MISSIONARIES AND THE CINEMA Missionaries have always made use of illustrations, doubtless understanding that in order to give a clear idea of things nothing is so useful as a drawing or sketch. Past centuries have handed down to us works of missionaries in which the descriptions of the ethnography, geology, flora and fauna of distant countries, much more inaccessible then than now, were illustrated with drawings made with great care by draughtsmen of talent working under the authors' directions. A collection of drawings of this type in fact almost allows us to follow the progress of engraving, not so much as an artistic expression but as a method of popularizing information. There is therefore nothing to marvel at if as soon as photography was within everybody's reach a camera appeared as part of the outfit of a missionary. At the head houses of the various missionary congregations can be seen collections of photographs of extraordinary interest and historical and ethnological value. The cinema has not entirely taken the place of the photographic camera as a means of visual documentation for missionaries any more than it has for other people, but the cinema was not long in winning the approval of these pioneers of civilization. The missionaries have given us numerous films, which are all the more interesting inasmuch as the missionary cinematograph ist does not go to more or less unexplored countries merely to make films according to his taste and judgement, but as a result of long residence in one country has the time to observe and choose those objects and events which are worthiest of being registered We have already referred in our column " Book and News Notes ", to films taken in all parts of the world by missionaries of various lands and faiths, films considered important by experts and valuable for purposes of scientific study. Some missionaries have even gained fame as experienced operators, as, for instance, Father Dufays, whose film " From Dakar to Goa " enjoyed a success in the public cinema palaces and caused discussions in the technical press. This " white father, carried away by the passion of the cinema, is today gathering together in Africa with his machine material for an important film on French penetration in Central Africa up to Timbuctoo. The film, which will have as title " The Blood on the Sand ", will recall the sacrifices of the pioneers of European civilization in these regions, the first missions of the White Fathers, who suffered martyrdom for the faith, the murder of Father Richard, and the massacre of the Flatters mission, together with similar events. During his wanderings for the preparation of the film, Father Dufays takes care to film whatever seems to him interesting from the historical or folk-lore point of view. He has thus been able to film at Chardaia in Southern Algiers the preparations for a nuptial banquet. " I shot the whole ceremony ", he told a reporter of Cine-Magazine ", in the women's quarter, and I am sure that I made an original document such as no-one has hitherto seen and which perhaps no other European will see again for a long time " Commenting the difficulties of the undertaking, our contemporary justly remarks : " This is another proof that the missionary cinematographist is in a position to film documentary pictures of human life quite our of the reach of other operators ". An interesting news-item of the Fides Agency takes us from the torrid Saharan desert to the icy solitudes of Alaska, and reports the activity of another outstanding cinema enthusiast, the Reverend Bernard J, Hubbard, Director of the Geological section of the Saint Claire University. The priest left New York in December