Exhibitors Herald (Oct-Dec 1920)

138 EXHIBITORS HERALD December 25, 1920 THE DIRECTOR'S point of view By ROBERT G. VIGNOLA WHILE the year Nineteen-Twenty has been productive of several new and vital innovations in the production of motion pictures, the biggest advancement, it seems to me, has been made by the public. The public has become more constructively critical during the year than perhaps in any other year in the history of the screen. And that's a hopeful sign. The public is the incentive, as much as any one thing, that spurs producers on to make better and still better pictures. Just so long as the public continues to improve and develop its taste for the screen just so long will the screen move forward. I do not mean, however, to convey the impression that we who are concerned with the production of motion pictures are content to go only as far as the public wants us to go. On the contrary. We have our own ideas of the possibilities of the screen and 1 hope we are not satisfied to rest on past achievements nor on the present state of perfection. But public demand has ever been a spur, an incentive, and always will be. When producers and directors begin to realize that the public is screen-wise and that it won't stand for mediocrity then and then only will mediocrity be a thing of the past. * * * During the past year it became increasingly apparent that the public taste for the screen has taken a great upward swing. Having tired of the novelty of the screen, the public has begun to look for art in pictures. The average cinema audience of today demands a high type of story, intelligent, logical, genuine screen drama and comedy of the same quality as the best that the stage or the printed word has to offer. Moreover, audiences of today demand acting of a high order, settings of true artistic merit, and finally, but not least — convincingness. There's the rub. Being screen-wise and worldly-wise, they are quick to detect a false note in a production, and it requires just so much more application on the part of the director to eliminate these false notes so that the production will ring true. All this "finickiness" on the part of the public is for the best interests of the motion picture. As a matter of fact we welcome the harsh critic. But he must be a constructive critic. Week after week the public is getting harder to please. The picture that pleased a year ago isn't as likely to please today because the public can detect inconsistencies that it could not then. Thi« makes for a healthful condition, because it forces improvement in the screen. * * * As one example of the result of public demand is the development of the appeal to the imagination. Time was when the director left nothing to the imagination of his audiences. He told his story on the screen with every last sickening detail in high relief. The public after a while began to resent this "insult" to its intelligence. I sensed the current some time ago and immediately began to make due allowances for the audiences' ability to use their imaginations. It was only a few weeks ago that speaking on imagination I said : "No art is perfect unless it appeals to the imagination. Music is art because it has the power to stimulate thoughts, to create dream pictures in our fancy. When we listen to music we unconsciously reduce it to mental pictures visible only to our mind's eye. By the same token a beautiful painting is art ,a piece of fine sculpture is art, a magnificent view is art. They are art because they make it possible for our fancy to soar far beyond the physical things visible to our eyes. And in the same way the motion picture that can stimulate or excite our imagination is art. It must be remembered that art frees imagination, and, inversely, freed imagination is art." "I look for some great forward strides in screendom during the coming year. I prophesy that Ninetccn-Twenty-One will produce even greater, finer, and more artistic productions than NineteenTwenty. The destiny of the screen is inevitable. WHAT Maurice Tourneur decries in motion pictures is the selection of stories by what he calls "the card index system." Human stories are needed, he says. "A picture is to be made," says Mr. Tourneur in discussing the subject, "and the card index system is resorted to. In the card index system are plots of well known formulae under the classifications of A, B, C, D and so on. Perhaps a plot under the classification B seems to fit the need of the moment. The result is the picturization of an old thing over again. By the time the first reel is run off the audience knows precisely what is going to happen. It is only a matter of sitting back to await the inevitable outcome. • * • "For example, there is the plot of the girl of the factory. The foreman makes love to her. She repulses him and is fired. She returns to her rooming house. The landlady demands the rent money. The girl cannot pay it. She is thrown out into the street. Then comes — well everybody knows what is going to happen. It is simply another case of the card index system in operation. "The star system is also responsible in a measure for the card index system. If a star's pictures have been having fights in them, every picture of his must have a fight. The audience knows that the fight will come along about the third reel and that the star will win. There only remains the question of whether his shirt will be torn a little more than it was in the last picture. "If the impression is out that the public is satisfied with the card index system of plots, those who harbor that impression ar.e very much mistaken. What is wanted is real story — story of genuine human beings who appeal to the emotions. * * * "Take for instance, 'Over the Hill' and PKAHX whii i IflMll cheer tilth n lot of pretty toju. " I lia' Thief l» hrr nrnril Fox picture. 'Humoresque.' Neither relies on great names to give it a so-called box office punch. Such a punch isn't necessary for the genuine material is there — in each case a story that is human, moving and appealing. Look how successful these pictures are!" To Mr. Tourneur many students of the motion picture award the palm of the dean of artistic directors. His latest MAURICE! TOIRSEIIR Member of Associated Producer*. Inc. artistic effort is his picturization of James Fenimore Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans." The critics, as one, have proclaimed the picture a classic. GIVE US HUMAN STORIES Says MAURICE TOURNEUR