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CINEMATIC TELEOLOGY 23
siderably. We cannot even acquit the aforementioned examples of Recondite art, particularly those examples that picture grossness, coarseness, and vulgarity. Chief among the offenders are the billboards that advertise the very motion picture. Here we find ideas insinuated, or suggested, that are not even to be found in the films. Such ideas, that if really found, would justify the protests of those so deeply concerned about their moral influence. Nor can we even excuse the newspapers that are inclined to ballyhoo anything of a sensational nature. Even our courts are not immune from their contributions of these questionable influences. Let the newspapers give notice of a racy divorce suit, or a sordid murder trial, and the sensation seekers, who rush there, can never be accommodated.
We cannot blame the dramatist, then, when we see him worry, and hear him complain of being deprived, one by one, of his precious artifices, especially when he realizes that the tools of his art have been reduced because of those few who resorted to inexcusable abuses.
We recognize an honest intention, at least, when we hear the hampered writer defending the expedients of his art, such as the quotation from Dumas (the son) :
"I realize that the prime requisites of a play are laughter, tears, passion, emotion, interest, curiosity; to leave life in the cloakroom; but I maintain that if. by means of all these ingredients, and without minimizing one of them I can exercise some influence over society; if, instead of treating effects I can treat causes; if, for example, while I satirize and describe and dramatize adultery I can find means to force people to discuss the problem, and the law-maker to revise the law, I shall have done more than my duty as a poet, I shall have done my duty as a man."
Department of Motion Pictures
In discussing the ambitions of the motion picture, its proponents are discouraged by its very complexity; its embodiment of so many forms of art; its brief history and its rapid evolution; its novel appeal. Its novelty, alone, blocks our efforts to establish standards of merit, to estimate its real influence or impose its responsibilities. Among the other arts, we have ages through which to trace each one's history, study its standards, emulate its ideals, take advantage of its appeal and profit by the mistakes and abuses. In each instance, we have well-defined schools of technique to study; individual proponents to inspire us and evidences of cultural influences to guide us. In fact, among all the older forms of art, individual effort predominates their histories. We cannot discourse of music without the overwhelming insistence of particular names among composers, and those whose skill in execution and interpretation are almost equally associated. The same is true of painting, literature and even the more complicated art of the drama, which more nearly reflects the problems of the motion pictures. Even in the drama, we can satisfactorily classify its components, charge its responsibilities, and patronize its individuals, and with the aid of these facts, we can likewise divide its ambitions and measure its cultural influence. But