The photoplay; a psychological study (1916)

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THE DEMANDS OF THE PHOTOPLAY are just as mucli an appeal to the lowest in- stincts. But at least the theater is not forced to be satisfied with such degrading comedies and pseudotragedies. The world literature of the stage contains an abundance of works of eternal value. It is a purely social and not an esthetic question, why the theaters around the "White Way" yield to the vulgar taste instead of usiug the truly beautiful drama for the raising of the public mind. The moving picture theaters face an entirely dif- ferent situation. Their managers may have the best intentions to give better plays; and yet they are unable to do so because the sce- nario literature has so far nothing which can be compared with the master works of the drama; and nothing of this higher type can be expected or hoped for until the creation of photoplays is recognized as worthy of the highest ideal endeavor. Nobody denies that the photoplay shares the characteristic features of the drama. Both depend upon the conflict of interests and of acts. These conflicts, tragic or comic, demand a similar development and solution on the stage and on the screen. A mere showing of human activity without will con- 195