Motography (Apr-Dec 1911)

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April, 1911. MOTOGRAPHY 15 scription. The intoxication of certitude is upon them, conscious for once that they are indisputably right. It is so gratifying to tell a man that his necktie is undone — and so easy. Whereas to point out some deficiency of his moral or intellectual make-up is difficult— and dangerous. Many a review passes over a glaring misrepresentation of life and character in order to dwell upon some little inaccuracy of realistic detail. The critical shibboleth is "realism," rather than "truth." There is a landscape by Rubens hanging in a famous European gallery which was for many years worshipped as a masterpiece. One day a wiseacre turned his eagle eye upon the picture and observed that the shadows cast by certain trees were pointing convergently instead of lying in parallel planes ; in other words, that the daylight was coming from two directions. The noise he set up upon this discovery was heard around the world, and since then a certain class of people have had nothing but disdain for the erstwhile masterpiece. On the other hand, another class of people, mostly artists, have admired the painting more than ever, contending that Rubens only proved himself the greater artist by overriding convention and even transcending reality in order to accomplish a desired effect. This leads to the question : How far is realism to be carried? Must a film be absolutely impeccable in regard to detail before it can receive the stamp of approval? Obviously not, because a state of absolute impeccability never was or will be. There is no film so perfect but that a sharp eye could pick out some material flaw. The photoplay producer is not another Creator, omniscient and omnipotent, molding a world that is new and perfect ; he can only combine old forms in his own fallible way, and inaccuracies are bound to. creep in. And after all it is not the producer's purpose to create reality, but the illusion of reality. Art is not presentation but representation ; it only assumes the form of reality in order to convey thought. Realistic details are thrown in simply as an aid to the imagination. The ideal drama minimizes realistic detail to the point of a complete absence of scenery. The Greek drama had no scenery; neither did the drama of Shakespeare's day. A painted sign hung upon the proscenium and stating that this was the Forest of Arden, or the Rialto at Venice, or the ramparts of Elsinore, was sufficient for the Elizabethans. They framed in their imaginations a more perfect and delightful Forest of Arden than any that a scene painter has devised since. On the premise that realistic detail is used to foster illusion, it would be easy to build up an argument that the person who objects to a point of detail is simply confessing his stupidity and lack of imagination, in that he is unable to see in the imperfect reality the ideal thing which the producer intended. But that would be insisting on a dramatic ideal that has, happily or unhappily, gone out of date. Along with the drama, whose concerns are essentially ideal and spiritual, there has grown up a subsidiary art of production, mounting, staging, whose aid and standard is quite properly realistic. Whatsoever details enter into a picture must be accurate. The material vehicle of the drama must be perfect in its realism — or detailism, as it might be called. This isr on the whole, a praiseworthy standard, but it has objections. In the first place, it is a very difficult standard, demanding an amount of care and attention that is scarcely commensurate with the value of the result achieved. It is an effort to make the drama perfect in a subordinate and relatively unimportant part. The care and attention which should be bestowed upon the dramatic action is liable to suffer a diversion into the infinitely various and difficult channels of realistic perfection. In the second place, the devotees of realism are liable to lose their perception of that higher standard which is beauty. In their effort to serve truth, they forget their allegiance to beauty. This has already happened in America and finds exemplification in the furious outcry that was raised against taking "Western" pictures in New Jersey. The film-makers bent before the storm and Avent west to get the real settings. Now they show us really truly western landscapes that are so dry, flat, dreary, weary, monotonous and desolate that they are not worth looking at. One would not turn one's head to see such scenes out of a car window. The only films which have justified this western exodus have been those which showed some picturesque spot that cannot really be called typical of the West. For that which typifies the West is its flatness and monotony. The one element of beauty to which the western plains and deserts can lay claim is their vivid, almost lurid, color ; but this lies beyond the power of photography to reproduce. Wherever the makers have found beauty in the West they are justified; but they could have found beauty in New Jersey, and generally did. Mr. Epes Winthrop Sargent has some interesting views on this point. In a recent article he says : "There are some spots in New Jersey that are more western than the Wild West. This is not to be regarded as an endorsement of every picture that is taken back of the Palisades, but there are spots, lovely, characteristic and more like the preconceived ideas of the West than anything in Arizona or Montana." Those words are so wise and have such a deep and truthful implication that they should be pounded into the ears of every fanatic devotee of realism until he sees daylight. The point to be noted and emphasized and seared into the brain, however, is that the drama with its conflict of character and morals, is something higher and something different from the vehicle which carries it. The action must be distinguished from the setting. Because the settings show a faulty realism, let this not blind the spectator to the merits of the human conflict. Let there be none of this wholesale censure of a photoplay simply because the material details deserve censure. That was the fallacy of the criticism quoted somewhere above. The writer branded the whole film "a farce," simply because he detected some inaccuracies of detail. This style of criticism is all too common. It is to ,be noted among the trade and showpaper reviewers ; in fact, they seldom become specific except on this point. They will record the realistic inaccuracies of a film ad infinitum, and sum up the rest of the film under a single broad adjective, such as "excellent," "admirable," or that particularly pet phrase, "up to standard." Is it that they confine themselves to such criticism because it is perfectly safe? It requires no logic to defend such opinions because they are simply a statement of fact. There is no chance for argument! The main qualification for a critic of this school is a pair of sharp eyes. This style of criticism has percolated down to the general public with a vicious result. If an engineer or mechanic sees a film actor hold a monkey wrench by the wrong end, he snorts aloud with disdain, and tells