The Cine Technician (1939)

88 THE CINE-TECHNICIAX Am-. -Sept., 1937 Thunder That Went West I HAVE read with interest your recent symposium, "What's Wrong with British Films ? " Quite a lot, and there always will be. Tamar Lane, the American film expert, wrote a very illuminative book, "What's Wrong with the Movies ? " He also found a great deal to worry about in American films, and again there always will be, but they have put quite a lot right. Things are moving here too ; there is a sanity at work in British studios, and a new sagacity amongst financiers that together presage the passing of mediocrity. The British film has rarely had excellence in both form and content ; the one without the other makes for failure, and the British technician working in form has suffered in repute by association with mediocrity in content. The foreign technician achieved success by association with success, by familiarity with excellence in form and content, by the use of the finest tools. None will deny the value to this country of the work of the foreign technician in the studio, but the lessons have been assimilated, and our own technicians justly ask for opportunity. It was a wise American who said, "Success is the art of being believed in." But status will only advance as the film itself improves, and improvement can only come when the technician is encouraged to bring his knowledge of the form to bear on the content, when he has been permitted to step a little outside the realm of craftsman to become artist. To my mind, the root trouble with us is material of the film, and I do not differentiate between cheap quota or expensive "super." Which suggests that, having risked contumely by an adverse generalisation, it might be wise to hint at a little constructive criticism by way of explanation. So I have wandered into the Garden of Memories for a while to look back on the far-off days of striving, adventure, frustrated aims, abandoned ideals, successes and failures in the fairy land of the films. In those distant days the silent picture was nurtured to an amazing virility. Then came death in a night. With its passing went much that was naive, much that was meretricious, but, alas, much that was inspiring and provocative towards a genuine art of expression through a limited medium. From that tumultuous life of the silent film is there anything worthy of remembrance, any grain of wisdom worth the gathering. Is there aught of value to hand on to its successor, the talking-film ? By experience and subsequent reflection one arrives at personal conclusions which may or may not be of service to others. Having been privileged to work in both mediums, I dare assert the past has left two legacies of rare value to the present ; I think America has accepted them and incorporated them in her screen creed. I fear we in Britain have almost forgotten them. The Silent Motion Picture. A life of scarcely thirty years saw it emerge from the gutter by way of the penny "gaff" to becoming the most powerful provoker of massenthusiasm in the world. To have known it during its growth was to have experienced a strange enthusiastic urge towards expression within a definitely limited medium. There could be no speech. That severe limitation bred workers with an intense impulse towards clarity of expression without words. The enthusiasts made a discovery. The motion picture without By GEORGE PEARSON music was almost meaningless. Private viewing rooms where films were shown in cold silence were caustically known as "mortuaries." Then came the significant thing. Griffith insisted on a musical score selected phrase by phrase for his films, and music suddenly became the speech of the motion picture. It was sound completely fulfilling its purpose towards its partner ; it was a perfect marriage of emotional stimulants towards a common purpose. The orchestrated score became a recognised part of every film of worth, and every cinema had its orchestra of sorts, every studio its private band of musicians to stimulate the actors in the mood of the scene. The marriage of the moving scene to music emphasised the emotional appeal of the film ; the feelings of the vast crowds in the cinemas were mass-attacked, their imaginations stirred almost violently. The discovery that thoughts, ideas, beliefs, themes, stories, could be expressed so powerfully without speech resulted in the definite recognition of a creed. The wordless film reaches the head through the heart, thought is evoked through emotion, and emotions range from laughter to tears. Is not ultimately the object of all art this evoking of thought through emotion ? That creed brought forth great artist-workers, Griffith, Pabst, Seastrom, Pommer, Lubitsch, Lang, Stroheim, Murnau, Pudovkin, Eisenstein, a score of Americans, and many Continentals. Magnificent films resulted ; the cinema had become a giant, the film was all-conquering. Then came death, and the motion picture with speech. The barriers were down, the limitations, hence apparently the urge, had gone. Man's greatest invention for the communicaation of thought, speech, was now added to the screen. It is perhaps foolish to call this change death. What really happened was divorce; the motion picture took another wife. Speech became the new partner, music was rejected. The old ally is the one disembodied art untranslatable into words ; it strikes at the emotions, disturbs our hearts, leaves us conscious of a soul. When music moves us, no language yet invented can translate what we feel. The new ally is primarily intellectual and economical. Music spoke to the heart in a wordless tongue, speech to the head in precise sounds. None denied that speech had come to stay, and for a time it became a very predominant partner. Films were advertised as "All-Talking." Music was as dead as the dodo, the orchestras were disbanded. Speech had brought a sudden static realism, directed at the intellect, that made music incongruous. This intense realism lay like a dead hand on the motion picture for a while, since thought, moving ever faster than speech, was slowed down. The film makers knew all was not well. In the search for a return to the lost fluidity they substituted a mechanical mobility of the camera for the imaginative freedom induced in the spectator by the old partnership of music and moving picture. And very subtly music crept back to the hearth. It was a gentle sliding towards the old values, the recognition of the force of the emotional appeal. No prophet could see where speech would lead the screen, but that new vistas were opening up was obvious. I felt it might be the British Daybreak, and said so in the press, though 1 hoped we should be waking early ! 1 believed that the keepers of the British language in all its purity and