Exhibitors Herald (Jul-Sep 1922)

MARTIN J. QUIGLEY Publisher & Editor • ISSUE OF * September 16. 1922 Imitating the Stage By MARTIN J. QUIGLEY THE pioneers in motion picture work seemed to have held before them the hope of some day being able to so advance and promote their new form of entertainment that it would become comparable in dignity and importance with the spoken stage. They seemed to have felt that if somehow they were able to get the motion picture on the same plane with the stage their efforts would have been well rewarded. Probably to the great surprise of many the stage was in reality speedily overtaken; as an amusement and as a business the motion picture soon overshadowed the stage and as an instrument for stimulating and directing the thought of the populace it has become what even no stretch of the imagination could cause anyone even to hope that the spoken stage could ever attain. Yet the motion picture industry follows in humble and absurd imitation many of the precedents and traditions of the stage. Some of these are matters of small importance and are objectionable merely because they are without sense or reason ; others, however, are thoroughly condemnatory because they belittle the motion picture and stand in the way of it effectively and definitely registering itself in the minds of the public for what it actually is. T X THE matter of theatre architecture it is unfortunate that despite the fact that the building to be constructed was to house an entirely new and different type of amusement, the form and design of motion picture theatres generally have been out of the same mould as centuries of tradition had developed for the spoken drama. Picture theatres have been larger and more elaborate but they have not been distinctive. Architects instead of striking out on a new and original line of thought have merely followed the examples found in stage theatres. As a practical housing proposition the result of this perhaps is not important but it is a link in the chain of evidence against the industry in the matter of following a supposed pace-maker which, in reality, has long since been outdistanced. The technic of the stage drama has left an unfortunate imprint on motion picture production. With the almost omnipotent camera as the chief instrument of production, directors persist in innumerable instances in seeking to tie dramatic action down on a single spot, thereby subscribing to the limitations that the stage director cannot escape but which the camera batters down without effort to the great benefit of the motion picture. * * * rP HERE are many cases to be found in which ■* it seems to have been the notion of the motion picture director that the acme of achievement would be reached by translating the story upon which a stage play is based to the screen in as nearly the original form as possible. This results in fixing the motion picture within physical and actionable limitations that it could naturally transcend if its innate capabilities were taken advantage of. Theatre presentation affords many illustrations of a servile following of the precedents of the stage theatre. There is no more reason why a motion picture should be surrounded with the traditional curtain and the grossly artificial articles of stage dressing than that the same articles should be draped about a painting or a statue in an art gallery. We pronounce against the imitation of the stage not simply because 'it is imitation — which, however, when it is without good reason is a sufficient indictment in itself — but because this practice inhibits the growth of the motion picture; because it serves to perpetuate the idea that the motion picture is just a cheap means of presenting an echo of what is done in the big stage theatres in metropolitan districts. The motion picture need not and should not be compared with the stage except to point out that as an institution it is of tremendously greater import. It is a new and distinctly different type of amusement and of expression. It has blazed a new trail and it has reached a new goal. And having arrived there it should set up practices and customs that are distinctly its own and are an imitation of nothing else.