Film Culture (February 1958)

proposed activity or simply to discover their opinions. Most recently, under the excellent and imaginative leadership of the current president, Henry Breitrose, a survey was begun to determine the composition of the membership. The initial survey brought these revealing facts to light: 86% of the membership comes from the University’s College of Letters and Science (with only a handful from the Schools of Agriculture, Education, and Engineering); that the membership is made up of 15% faculty, 30% graduate students (some are also faculty), 38% upper classmen (as opposed to almost no freshmen). There are 8% more women members than men; 73% were members during previous years. Such is the essential composition of a group of enthusiastic film viewers, an unusual group because they seem to know what they want and are respected for their opinions. (Many have recently indicated a firm desire to see more Silent films, a choice the officers could not have surely predicted but have already acted upon.) As a whole, in this voluntary society, there seems to be a large number of people who want good films just as they want good books, art, and music, along with the chance to exercise and refine their critical discrimination. C. CAMERON MACAULEY NEXT MONTH: Jack Ellis, of Northwestern University, on “Film Societies and Film Education.” FILM SOCIETY FILM PRODUCTION Some film societies are taking the step from the mere seeing to the making of films. The Experimental Cinema Group Workshop at the University of Colorado is one such instance. Here, every Saturday, film society members meet to examine classic films from a technical standpoint, determine how the great directors put their films together, and then go out to shoot their own footage, with a view to learning for themselves how to make better movies. Under the direction of experimental film-makers Stan Brakhage and Stan Phillips, and spurred on by the sparkplug activity of Gladney Oakley, a small group is learning in this way more about motion pictures than is possible through screening sessions and program notes alone. The group has succeeded in obtaining some free raw footage and the help of a Denver lab, and their intention is not to make a film, but simply to film. Specific projects may come later, or never, but every ‘graduate’ of the Experimental Cinema Group Workshop, a purely voluntary group, will be equipped for a film job. Similar activities have for some time been going on at Yale, where the local film society’s income is used for smallscale productions, and at Wayne State University, where the film society has been shooting its own experimental films. CENSORSHIP SUBJECT OF PUBLIC PANEL In view of aroused public interest in motion picture censorship following the recent Supreme Court and New York State Appellate Court decisions in the cases of the films Game of Love and Garden of Eden, both decisions indicating a possible future elimination of film censorship on the state level, the World Affairs Center of the United States, in cooperation with the New York Film Council and the American Federation of Film Societies, is organizing a public discussion of censorship. It will be held on Saturday afternoon, March 1, at the World Affairs Center, United Nations Plaza and 47th Street, New York City. Members of the panel will include exhibitors, distributors, censors, film producers, and critics. “FILM: BOOK 1” is the title of the first number of an annual which Grove Press will publish for the American Federation of Film Societies. This book will focus on the audience and on the film-maker’s relation to it, and the film society movement will receive considerable emphasis. Among the contributors to the book are Agee, Fellini, Knight, Kra FREE CINEMA: On February 13 at 5 p.m. Tony Richardson, director of Momma Don’t Allow as well as three stage cauer, McLaren, Mekas, Osborn, Siepmann, Stoney, and Zavattini. The editor is Robert Hughes. 22 productions currently running in New York, will meet with members of the American Federation of Film Societies, the New York Film Council, and Cinema 16 to discuss “Free Cinema” and the work of the British Film Institute Experimental Production Committee. The place: World Affairs Center, 345 East 46 Street, New York City. WESTERN PREVIEW: Among the films best liked at this AFFS preview were Thursday's Children, Listen to Britain, A Modern Musketeer, Rhythm of a City, Umberto D., Wedlock, Olympia, Trut’, Children Who Draw, Song of the Prairie, Ugetsu, and Assassination of King Alexander. EUROPEAN REPRESENTATIVE: John Adams, assistant curator of the Museum of Modern Art Film Library, now on leave of absence at the Cinémathéque Frangaise, will serve as AFFS European representative during the coming year. INFORMATION SHEETS: AFFS has worked out a joint project with the Canadian Federation to co-publish the 2to 8-page Information Sheets on feature films which the CFFS has been distributing to its members for some time. HITCHCOCK by Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol. Classiques du Cinéma series. 184 pp. Ill. Editions Universitaires, 72 Blvd. Saint-Germain, Paris. 1957. 390 frs. French text. Latest in an excellent series that already includes companion volumes on Ford, De Sica, Eisenstein and Chaplin (with Clair, Vidor, Welles, Bunuel, Renoir, Rossellini, Murnau and Stroheim to come), this very partisan study analyzes all 48 films of Hitchcock to date and places them) in their historical and psychological context. Bit by bit, his essential themes are revealed and the characteristics of his style limned in sharp relief as that style ripened over the years. Abundantly documented, testimony to the authors’ formidable research, Rohmer and Chabrol not only know their subject but love him, which doesn’t in the least interfere with their objectivity. To sum up: they regard Hitchcock on a par with Murnau and Eisenstein as a creator of forms in the cinema. Of course, there is a “Hitchcock cult” among the French cinéasts but they appreciate him for the right reasons, which is what counts. There is a brief ‘‘filmographie’’ of his work and 24 full-page stills. Decidedly recommended to all Hitchcock fans, as who isn’t? —H. G. W. TELEVISION PRODUCTION by Harry Wayne McMahan. New York: Hastings House, 1957. 231 pp. Ill. Price: $7.50. An encyclopedic handbook on the techniques and terms of television today. Written in a form of dictionary, it covers exhaustively and authoritatively subjects such as programming, lighting, camera, animation, sound, film editing, special effects, advertising, live TV production, etc. Recommended for television and motion picture workers. ALSO RECEIVED: LE FILM DU MOIS, No. 1, Vol. 1. GEP, 13, rue de Teheran, Paris 8. An issue devoted to Federico Fellini’s Cabiria. FILM JOURNAL, July 1957. 5 Zetland Road, Mont AIbert, Victoria, Australia. Joel Greenberg: ‘The Films of George Cukor’; an index to the films of George Cukor is included. : BIANCO E NERO, October 1957. Via Caio Mario 13, Rome. Articles on the 1957 Venice Film Festival with a complete list and credits of films screened during the festival, including zetrospectives; also contains filmographies of Dupont, Kirsanov, and Ophuls. November issue: Lino del Fra writes on Aldo Vergano; a filmography of Aldo Vergano is included. DEUTSCHE FILMKUNST, October 1957. Friedrichstrasse 109, Berlin N. 4 (East Germany). ‘Die Erfindung des Kinematographen im Lichte neuer Forschungsergebnisse,’ I. Sokolow; reviews of current DEFA-Studio productions. BOOKS