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MISCELLANY
I.C.E— A REPLY TO G. F. NOXON
RUDOLF ARNHEIM
If it is true that the film, like other things in this world, needs an international court of appeal, whose intervention conciliates the clash of interests and national egotisms, and which applies to every new production in the sphere of the film an assessment of value uncoloured by self-love and the patriotic pride of the country of origin, then G. F. Noxon has done the film, and thereby all of us, an ill turn. He declared, in the last number of Cinema Quarterly, that the International Institute of Educational Cinematography in Rome, the sole international institution concerned with films existing at the present day, is of absolutely no use, not even for Fascist propaganda, which at Mussolini's behest and under cover of the League of Nations, it is supposed to carry on. In short, it is a sheer waste of money.
Noxon is trying by this means to undermine the moral support, which is as necessary as the financial, to an institute of this kind. Therefore the readers of Cinema Quarterly may be willing to permit one whom they know as a friend of the art of cinema, and who has had an opportunity to form his own opinion about the matter under dispute, to present a short statement of the position.
What work is the Institute doing? It has made a comprehensive collection of books and periodicals; it has promoted a number of congresses, among them the International Congress of Educational Films last April, at which forty countries were represented; it organized the International Exhibition of Film Art in August 1934 in Venice; it has published twenty-one pamphlets in five languages, and it issues a monthly magazine and a bulletin, Les Nouvelles Cinematographiques. But it is not on all these things that I wish to lay stress, since their significance depends obviously on whether they are well or badly done, and on that point everyone can form his own opinion. I wish rather to emphasize three aspects of the work of the Institute, as to whose value there can, in my opinion, be no dispute.
After working for four years, the Institute has achieved a customs agreement whereby all films, recognized by the Institute as having educational value, may be sent from one country to another free of customs duty. This agreement has, so far, been signed by twentyfive countries, including France, Italy, America and Great Britain;
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