Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

CLOSE UP from above with that called forth by what he discovered accidentally " on his own account. To admit the superiority of the latter is not to attempt to decry systematised education. It is merely to note that even the best efforts of the accredited teacher cannot achieve the overwhelming influence of what offers itself without the taint of ulterior motive. Train up a child in . . . by all means, and the obligations of the school screen are inexorable to the limit of the term. But however psychologically enlightened our schools may become, however imbued with the spirit of free collaboration between teachers and taught, they will remain schools, traininggrounds for youth that must recognise its state of pupillage. And there is that in every man which not only revolts against the state of pupillage but ceaselessly is outside it, is born adult and more than adult. And it is to this free persistent inner man that art in all its forms is addressed, that the art of the children's cinema will address itself and will do so freely onlv in circumstances allowing the children to feel themselves simply an audience in surroundings to which they innocently betake themselves for recreation and delight. All over the world this young audience is now waiting in its millions, and there are almost no films available for it beyond those of its beloved Clown and his imitators. This audience may, and can and does, together with its elders, reap the many gifts offered by the film independently of what is represented. But its individual needs are ignored as they are in no other branch of contemporary art. There are, it is true, the films,many of them excellent, issued by the British Instructional for use outside the theatre. Most of these are directly instructional, some only incidentally so. Very many of them 23