Amateur Cine World (July 1934)

Flaherty’s BOUT two months back most “ Tiger King,’’ one of the few newspapers and magazines in principal characters Be this country were replete with praise for Robert Flaherty and_ his picture ‘‘ Man of Aran.” The film, from our viewpoint, is the one bright spot in the July releases, for it shows us what we can do and should avoid, in the making of real life films, for although Flaherty is as much master as anybody in such work, there is still much wrong in his films and much we can learn from. Secretly in the heart of nearly every amateur movie maker there is a desire to go out like Flaherty with a camera to some strange spot and build there a film around the lives of the natives. The idea is more practical than one would imagine and gives the amateur more chance of making a film of both cinematic and social value that the world would like to see than any studio idea. A silent camera is all that is required, plus, of course, a vision for ‘‘ cinema.” Flaherty went out to the Aran islands, lived among the natives and attempted to make a film about their life. He missed. His film is pictorially beautiful ; the sea-scape camera-work 1s some of the finest recorded on motion picture film—but there is little else to it. The amateur film maker must remember that a pretty picture will not make a film; no amount of still composition, of pleasing and subtle photography will ever look like ‘‘ cinema ’”’ alone, although it is one of the essentials in fine picture making. “Man of Aran’”’ is largely a series of pretty pictures, with very little constructive editing, “Man of Aran,” which is reviewed on this page. PROFESSIONAL FILMS : TECHNICAL FEATURES OF THE JULY RELEASES “MAN OF ARAN’: A LESSON FOR AMATEURS But the Editing 1s weak By JEAN STRAKER story value and ‘‘direction.’”’ It is very easy to generalise in criticism. Let us go deeper than that. The editing: There are two attempts at drama in the film; one when the men are trying to catch the shark; the other the storm climax. In neither case did the thrills that were undoubtedly in the material come over; the spirit of the drama was not imbued in the cutting, there was no montage to quicken the tempo of the film to a powerful climax. There were just shots of sea, sea, sea and more sea, from this angle, from that angle, and this and that again, until one felt as though each wave was turning up as frequent as the proverbial bad penny. Story value: Frankly, now having seen the film, what do we know about the men of Aran? We were shown very little. What about life on the Island ? How is contact maintained with the world outside ? What are the recreations of the inhabitants? Have they no feelings, sadness or joy ? Why were we not introduced to other people besides Tiger King, Maggie and Michael ? We see now there is little story value in the picture and the film has not painted a true impression of Aranmore life. Direction: In my humble opinion Flaherty is a much better cameraman than a director. The players in the film, inexperienced though they may be, were uncontrolled. They ran here, there and everywhere and seemed always to be | camera-conscious. The Russians use equally as inexperienced players, but I have yet to see a Soviet film in which they are camera-conscious. And then notice, at the end, that two boats went out and (Continued on next page) Trick shot from ‘‘ Stage Mother,” released this month. After having heard all about the technical marvels of ‘‘ King Kong’’ we are not credulous enough to believe that the statue is as big as it looks !