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plenty of humorous situations of which appreciation is unaffected by geographical considerations."
"When you say that to be international a film must first be national," I asked, "you do admit that is possible to go to extremes and to be too narrowly national — or even parochial?"
'Certainly. It is not only possible but very easy in making a film which will be characteristic of its place of origin to overstep oneself and become parochial. Sometimes, of course, that type of treatment is desirable — when a film is being made for a specific public which is familiar with and trained to expect a certain style. The Lynn-Walls farces, for instance, could never be called international; but in them that is not a fault. They represent simply the exploitation of a definite brand of comedy for a circumscribed public to whom it needs no explanation. It is a tradition to which they are accustomed. They would resent variation.
'But films based on reality should always have a general appeal if they are good. The American gangster films, to take a simple example, owe their appeal to their fidelity to events with which the world is familiar. They are essentially American in every detail. But when Hollywood tries to make a film with a would-be universal theme, how seldom does anything more than a mere programme picture emerge? In my own case, if I may say so, it is because The Private Life of Henry VIII is English to the backbone I feel it will appeal and succeed abroad.
"The question of appreciation is really dependent on this matter of well-defined nationality. If a gangster in an American film is depicted drawing a gun from his hip-pocket, nobody in Britain is likely to object on the grounds that it is not a common practice for Englishmen to carry guns. Similarly with the question of sex treatment. Your French audience is ready for a great deal more frankness and breadth in the statement of a sex situation than the English. But that is no reason why British films with sex themes or incidents should not be enjoyed in France. If anything in the treatment strikes the Frenchman as being prim and proper or discreet to the point of absurdity, by his lights, he will still accept it because it is English — if the whole character of the film is English. But if an English-made film had a French story so treated. . . . You see?'
"Could you name one or two outstanding international films which have been essentially national in character, Mr. Korda?'
"Yes. The best American example is probably The Covered Wagon. Another was Flaherty's Nanook, which was permeated with the spirit of the North.
"By the way, you mustn't think that I am suggesting that directors should make nothing but films about their own countries. An outsider often makes the best job of a national film. He is not
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