Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1919)

ctures! By Terry Ramsaye Decorattons by R. F. Jamcj And still, the motion picture, to any serious observer, niu.-i be accepted as a medium of expression and communication oi tact and thought with functions in every sense identical with the press of the printed word. The diflerence is that the paper tells you about what happened second hand through the eyes of its reporters, while the motion picture brings the event to you and lets you do your own reporting and summing up with your own eyes. When the war came aiong the folks who make the newsp;ipers were permitted to go look it over and report it for you through a more or less free press — subject naturally to a military censorship. There were some sharp clashes in the beginning — a number of first page broadsides, a number of othcial declarations, and all that. But the fact remains that the reporters did go to the war and did get and send back material which was published in their papers. Abstractly, it is pretty hard to understand how any government, or rather how any government bureau. couKl dare such a stand as was taken with the motion picture. To the motion picture the government, through its divers and sundry bureaus, departments, committees and such, said in effect; "No. This is our war and we will take our own movies. Be gone." Abstractedly amazing, concretely \ery plain and simple, it is. If the printing art was only twenty years olil, or thereabout, like the motion picture, newspapers would have no more rights than an alley cat at a Madison Square Garden dog show. The newspaper is run as a business enterprise and is looked upon officially and govemmentally as a quasi-public institution, sharing the public rights because it serves that public. The motion picture is also run as a business enterprise, and it gets about the same official and governmental treatment as the liquor trade and the burgbrs union. When the war was declared the established motion picture loncems, whose busi()c~; it was to disrt-minate news to you and your neighbors on the screen*, naturally went after the bieeest news stor>the world had known — the war. Here if ever was a chance for the fullest realization of the mission of the motion picture. Here if ever was an opportunity for ser\-ice to the public, to the public's govem THE grcatcitt diplomatic cvciu in huiury, ihc Peace Contcrcncc ai tl»c Quai d'Orsay. has been utterly unLhronicled a* far as at»y aJei|uate inntinn putiirc representation i» .uncerneJ. Here was a sielic tot the mastcn, it ever there was one. The j-overnment miulii have commanded a Giithth, a Blaikton, a DcMille, ti> take this in charue, and the man named would havi bcei^ tiad to go. But there were no such urdeik issueil no permiiksions, even! At the exact moment whei\ the Armistice came aiul It appeared that the profits on war pu lures would noi be so allurii^t: the Division of hilms hcnan t»> wane in activitv. It seems that it had no especial 4)bli)'ation to the public, none to those whom it hail deprived of the usual and prcviou-sly established screen news services. Business IS husinevs, of course. iiuiit. IIk puiurc colli irii.> appluil lur jK-rmisMon to maki films in Europe-, oti the baltlcfieliis and elsewhere abroad, ^ub ject to any kinil of suiK-rvision. the negatives to remain tht property of the Lnited Stales government. Our nation of a hundred millions of people was sending its sons off to war. across three ihnu.sand miles of .sea into what to the most of us then was indeed a far, strange land. Every home in .America haii its heart in that war. Every mother, father and daughter had something at slake, and every uncalled son was counting the weeks until he, loo. should be .summoned to go. Here was a motion picture, a medium that in a thou!«and feet, a showitig of fifteen minutes of the actualities, could answer more questions about 'over there" than a hundred columns of type. Did the government say to the film-news services. "Cio ahead. under the terms of censorship for military necessity, and tell our public about the war. Go ahead, all you competitors, and see which shall tejl it best, who shall serve our public most." N'o sir. The government did not. Meanwhile the representatives of the .Associated Press, tht* International, the Uniteil and all of the press associations and many of the metropolitan newspapers went over to see the war and report it in printed words. To their credit it may be said they gave us some excellent mental piclures. The value of the printed word depends very largely on your own constructive powers and imagination, on your previous observation of the thing the word means. That is why words failed so often in this war. That is why pictures might have done much. The motion picture is ready-made mintl picture. It is predigested description. It is popular l)ecau.*e it is easy to take. Itpowers might havt been a vast aid and service in the war. Of course thiproposition of t h c nevs^pafjer and the printed word versus the motion picture and the screen did not stand out in sharp outline and contrast like that rieht at the time. Tlfere wa^ a