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THE ACTUAL
(b) The Development of the Film as a Means of Expression When considering the commercialism which surrounds the producing and exhibiting of any film, the unscrupulous dealings and double-crossing which occur when a production is launched, it is surprising to discover how far the cinema has really advanced as a medium of dramatic expression. It has been seen how the film began its career and how it became popular with the public, but it is well to remember that the child-film was nursed by a company of 'fur-dealers, clothes-spongers, and grocers' (to use the words of Mr. Messel *) in whose hands it could hardly have been expected to rise above the lowest form of entertainment. Moreover, and the fact must be stressed, the primary aim of film producers is to make the maximum of financial return in the shortest possible time, a method hardly congenial to so intricate an art as the cinema.
The later part of this survey will show the real functions, capabilities, and potentialities of the film as a medium of expression considered apart from any commercial point of view save that of general appeal, which surely is the only proper outlook. It is the aim here to preface these theories by actualities, to reinforce the possibilities of the cinema by analysis of the progress of the film until now, examining influences and estimating their worth, selecting some tendencies and rejecting others.
It is essential in the first place to assert that the film is an independent form of expression, drawing inspiration with reservation from the other arts. Furthermore, it should be remarked that the attributes of the film are derived from the nature of the instrument itself, and not from other matters of subject, story-interest, and propaganda. It should also be remembered that the film is essentially visual in its appeal, any dialogue being detrimental to this appeal; and that light and movement are the two elements employed in the creation of these visual images. As I shall demonstrate later, the abstraction of the absolute film is the nearest approach to the purest form of cinema, far removed from the commercial film, and descriptions will be given of their simplist methods of psychological appeal through the eye to the mind of the spectator. Following this there will be determined the other lower forms of cinema, descending in aesthetic significance through the epic and art film to the ordinary narrative film and the singing and dancing picture.
1 Vide, This Film Business, by Rudolph Messel (Benn, 1928).
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