The cinema : 1952 (1952)

156 THE CINEMA whenever that propaganda is imposed from without, as it, is in so many of the Russian films, the result is never, in any j circumstances, artistic. Add to that the deliberate distortion of Communist propaganda, the perpetual feeding of suspicions about the outside world, the perversion of history, and it makes a formidable indictment. On the credit side, however, some virtues have to be listed : the Russian film has remained truly popular, it strikes an accurate balance between the individual and the crowd, and it is devoid of almost all the maudlin quality which is sometimes so grotesque and offensive in the film from Hollywood. What about the film from the West? Only in a few particulars can we generalize. Capitalism, someone has said, does not challenge art in principle it merely treats it with ignorance, indifference, and unconscious cruelty. The supremacy of the destructive over the constructive, the failure to make peace exciting, a prurient curiosity about the details of violence, an almost complete lack of social awareness, a denial of tragedy : these are a few of the symptoms of capitalist patronage as evinced in the cinema. There is at best an uneasy equilibrium between the good and the socially evil. It is not a cheerful picture. We have seen how, both in art and in literature, critical thought has been concerned with the relation of the artist to society, without, however, bringing the matter to a head. But art and literature can and do survive as the accomplishment of free individuals, no matter what the degree of neglect or cultural barbarism with which they have to compete. Films, on the other hand, because of the complexity of the technical resources involved in their making, depend for their existence on outside patronage. The artist alone is not enough. I would contend that under State patronage the purpose of the cinema tends to be purely didactic, artistry becoming merely the gilding of the pill ; under the monopolies that we