Close Up (Jan-Jun 1930)

CLOSE UP In a good many Argentine cinemas, talking films have been shown and are still being shown absolutely untouched. Even so they have " caught on ". Week after week cinemas change over to sound apparatus. With Broadway Melody, sub-titles in Spanish were inserted after each spoken phrase. Thus being hoped to convey the meaning. The film had (as elsewhere in its own language) a great success. The idea of inserting written sub-titles to translate the dialogue is interesting as an attempt to solve the international difficulty with talk films. Certainlv it must have made every Argentine familiar with the American language. To a certain extent, although a cosmopolitan town, Buenos Aires is unanimous in two things : impartialitv and sense of humour. These two characteristics are eventually acquired bv everv resident of whatever nationalitv who staA^s long enough. The impartiality, because the Argentine judges an individual on his personal bearing only, no matter if he be coloured or white, or persecuted in other countries, he is judged by what he does in the Argentine. This air of liberalitv, and the cordiality consequent, so noticed by the foreigner on arrival used to the narrow racial conventions of Europe spreads to everyone in the country. The second unanimity of sense of humour seems, in a similar way, to percolate to everv inhabitant. This is due entirely to environment. It is the complete absence of a sense of satire or exaggeration : both qualities are taken literally. When thinking of some of the outstanding films of all nationalities, that have had successful runs, or else been failures, it is useful to take into account the sense of humour and impartiality. The former will sometimes wreck a film ; 143