Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1919)

Slirinkin.o the World A pleasant, not daiij^crous, process being rapidly accomplished by the American motion picture, an educator (rom Tallahasse to Timbi HICtlK). By Orrin G Cocks Advison Secretan,. National Board ot Review of NJouon Pictures THE world has contracted decideiliy during the p.»>t fifteen years. We understand, something of the happenings in Canton, Teheran. Bombay. Syiinev and Rio de Janeiro. The news is flashed by cable or wireless, ami straighlw.iy rushes to our breakfast table in the metropolitan dailies. Steamers also bring those who inform us by won! i>f mouth. Such messengers, like the ancient stor\ tellers and gossips before the age of writing, keep the work! informed of outstaniling events. Immediately their first hand information becomes common property by the use of the complicated machiner>' of .American civilization. We. as a people, knowmore about the world than any other nation. But this does not e.xplain the intimate knowledge of the people, which has drawn the world into sympathetic rel.itionship. At the best, such a sowing of facts reaches only one edge of the lield of mankind. To be sure, this edge is occupied by the cultured, the alert, the intellectual and the scientific. This group appears large but it is almost impotent to effect lasting changes unless the germs of information are scattered far and wide over the whole field of world peoples. In a popular government changes are wrought, battles are fought, alliances consummated, and friendships solidified by the millions who compose the nation. Though we jeer about the common people, this basic fact of popular support has become one .of the dominant traits of modem times. Europe went into the war because the masses Icnew and had formulated con\-ictions. .\merica remained quies ent when Europe was : blaze, until the millions from Nova Scotia to Lower California had passed from indifferent indi\-idualism throueh fusion, to the white heat of passionate, un -Ifish conviction. For this same reason some reforms have failed even in this countr> of popular education; the citizens have not understoo<i nor approved. .Always it is a question of making clear to the majority the essential injustice, under present systems, and the basic results of common welfare involved in the proposed changes. Then only is the transformation made. \cf,\ it is the common intellect and the popular emotions moulding mass n\-iction which must be touched. To this end, publicists have devoted their energies They have used most often the dasSIC rneilia and have learned that they have been tilling and ntilling the intellectual minority with their books, pamphlets articles and addresses. Close at hand the greatest agencv of popular enlightenment has been developing and they have been all but blinil. This agency is the molion picture. Were it simply a question of reaching America for .Americans the other forms ot publicity might be allowed to proceed in their more leisurely fashion. Hut in this year igio the field is the worid, while the forces which need to ^)e moulded into various forms of democracy arc widely scattered an.l full of agelong traditions and prejmlices. This article proposes to discuss fruits which have been reaped in the field of the nations, because of .sowing of which the diplomats, business men and students have taken little or no account. Possibly the accreditt-d agents of the government have failed to see the ripening fruits in this field of world peoples because the motion picture did not speak their language, and did not present the arguments to groups of leaders in world capi-' tols. Moreover, it is the first time that any form of drama has played a con.siderabic part in developing international friendships. Its mission has been to the humble and has taken the forms of drama, melodrama, comedy and amusement with just a dash of the educational. This is no story of set purpose dcveloficd by psychologists or business men with world \ision. Not one person in a thou.sand has realized the by-pro<Iucts of the amu.semenl which has captured the world. Those who have set themselves to entertain America have dug deep down into the rich mine of golden dramatic material. Here and there they have turned up themes which ring true among all people^ These have been clothed in thrilling incidents, hair-breadth escapes, heroic men, lovely women, dastardly villains, and happy denouements, Lo! something emerged which had a universal appeal that touched to life the imacioation of Europe, South America, Asia and Australia It >puke a languajfe more extensive than them all. In the reflected glow of the flickering picture, races of strangers, became, during the absorbing talc, kindred. <7