Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1914-Jan 1915)

Musings of the Photoplay Philosopher doing his utmost to perfect his product, and this has resulted in great changes not always for the better. It is, of course, true that the manufacturer tries to give the public what the public wants, but it is not an easy matter to ascertain just what the public does want. For, what is the public ? Is it a majority of Motion Picture patrons? If so, how are the majority to register their opinion? Victor Hugo once said: "The crowd wants action, almost exclusively; the women want passion, and thinkers want characters." If this be so, the manufacturers are confronted with two obstacles — the censors and the children. If Canon Chase and the children must be catered to with every film, then we others must be content with the drab, simple, mild, emotionless photoplay. No doubt the time will come, as I have predicted before, when we shall have children's theaters in which are shown nothing but plays made for children. And perhaps we shall have theaters, for comedies, theaters for Westerns, theaters for educationals, and theaters for features. Possibly a majority prefer the old-fashioned program of five or six one-reel productions, containing a mixture of all kinds, with now and then a two-reel piece, but the multiple-reel feature, while greatly overdone, will probably always be in demand by some communities. All these things will adjust themselves automatically in time, and it seems safe to predict a glorious and permanent future for Motion Pictures. I am wondering what these Chicago censors would do with the Shakespearean tragedies, since they thought proper to cut out the flogging scene from ' ' Uncle Tom 's Cabin. ' ' Shakespeare is taught to and read by the children in the schools, and it is every parent's hope that each of his children shall see and become familiar with the Shakespearean plays. Yet, according to the censors, if they are consistent, Shakespeare is nothing but foul murder and crime, and it tends to inflame the minds of the young. It may be surprising to many of my readers that one of the* ablest books of the year is by Emma Goldman, entitled ' ' The Social Significance of the Modern Drama." Let me quote two paragraphs therefrom: "Art for art's sake presupposes an attitude of aloofness on the part of the artist toward the complex struggle of life ; he must rise above the ebb and tide of life. He is to be merely an artistic conjuror of beautiful forms, a creature of pure fancy. That is not the attitude of modern art, which is preeminently the reflex, the mirror of life. The artist, being a part of life, cannot detach himself from the events and occurrences that pass, panorama-like, before his eyes, impressing themselves upon his emotional and intellectual vision. . . . The modern drama, as all modern literature, mirrors the complex struggle of life — the struggle 5) which, whatever its individual or topical expression, ever has its roots in the £ depth of human nature and social environment, and hence is, to that extent, universal. Such literature, such drama, is at once the reflex and the inspiration of mankind in its eternal seeking for things higher and better." This leads me to ask the question, Shall the photodrama some day have its Ibsen, its Strindberg, its Hauptmann, its Tolstoy, its Shaw and its Galsworthy? And greater yet, its Shakespeare, its Goethe and its Dante? Or is the Motion Picture destined to be confined to the mere telling of pretty stories? 124