The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

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Certain Limitations of the Movie Richard Burton University of Minnesota IT WAS natural that the infant art and industry of the motion picture, filling a real want, and winning a phenomenal success, should have be- come, so to say, drunk with power, and assumed that it could do anything in dramatic representation. Why limitations, when the response was so hearty, the opportunities apparently limitless ? So these dramatic "angels" rushed in where the angels of heaven would not have dared to tread, and rifled the world of art, literature and history, putting on the screen many a play or story not fitted for such reproduction. This brings me to a statement of the first limitation of the movie, as I see it. By its very nature, this form of entertainment is pictorial narrative, suited to tell simple objective stories of sentiment, domesticity, melodrama and history. The subtle psychology of modern fiction or playwriting it should leave alone. Many masterpieces come out pretty well in its handling; "Les Miserables," for example, or "David Copperfield," or "Treasure Island." It can be quite impressive, too, in tales of historic setting requiring elab- orate scenery. It may even be con- ceded that in such a screen version as that of Barrie's "What Every Woman Knows," decided success is attained. But: none of these examples violates my statement that too often the ambi- tious endeavor to do all things on tfl screen has led to perversions of tfl original, and these perversions inc\fl table; with the result that untold thousands say they have seen a thing which they have really not seen at all. As one result, I find children^ whfl besought by their parents to read son! story of Dickens or Hawthorne, reply- ing that they have already seen it—I the movies! And what they have sefl is never an equivalent of the origiiJ One can imagine the effect of this attl tude, if carried out in the younger generation, upon the reading of stanfl ard works! It is useless to give anything \i\i "Peer Gynt" as a film, because what makes that masterpiece great is lost in that mode of presentation; pictuM esque Norwegian scenery is all right enough, but there is more than that m this great work of art. We are all familiar with the brutal, unintelligent changes made so frequently in pictures based on well-known pieces of litera-i ture; to which is added the irritating additional offense of a stupid altera tion of title; as "Male and Female" for Barrie's "The Admirable Crich-I ton." Ye gods! Another handicap may be mentioned, with regard to the telling of the storw A jerky, too swift tempo is frequently adopted, so that the spectator feels he 214 *