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THE ACTUAL
itself. General tendencies at the present moment show the misconception of the film to be greater and more difficult to unlearn than ever before. Directors as a whole are still only beginning to understand the potentialities of the film as a medium in itself. Its limits and delimits still present a broad field for investigation. It is just being realised that mime and gesture and the consciousness of the inanimate transmit an international idea; and that the pictorial meaning of the film is understandable to all according to their powers of sensitivity. But the main object to-day appears to be the synchronisation of the sound of the human voice with the photograph of the moving lips and to reproduce the sound of visual objects in order to make them seem more real. That this is the desire of the American producers and directors is apparent from their advertisements. In brief, the introduction of the human voice merely relieves the director of his most serious obligation, to convey meaning to the mind by means of the resources of the visual cinema. The act of recording dialogue is not a further resource, as some theorists like to imagine. The dialogue film at its best can only be a poor substitute for the stage. From an aesthetic point of view, sound can only be used to strengthen symbolism and emphasise dramatic action, and experiments on these lines will be successful and justified.
On the heels of the usurping dialogue film comes the introduction of the stereoscopic screen and the colour film. Both of these inventions, wonderful though they may be in themselves, seek to achieve the realism so antagonistic to an imaginative medium. The cinema, with the addition of these new inventions, will degenerate into theatrical presentation on a large and economic scale. The true resources of the film will be swept aside in the desire for a straighter and more direct method of story presentation. The duration of time that a visual image is held on the screen is already becoming longer. As Mr. Eric Elliott has so truly written: 'given a large stage scene with three dimensional effect, combined with colour and oral dialogue, it is tempting authors and producers to "put across" the sustained dramatic situation of the theatre proper.'1
Thus, there are few films which stand alone as achievements of real cinema, whilst there are many that miss greatness because of the negligence of the director or the obstinacy of the producer. Rare indeed is it to meet with an intelligent and sympathetic film producer;
1 Vide, The Anatomy of Motion Picture Art, by Eric Elliott (Pool, 1928).
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