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THE ACTUAL
American cinema that must be stressed. There is much to be learnt to-day from his early ideas, and his influence on the more eminent of Hollywood directors is marked. Both King Vidor and Erich von Stroheim learnt their early cinema from Griffith. Although his ideas are sentimental, his technique elementary, and his construction of the old type, it is upon them that much of the best of modern film treatment is built.
On turning to the work of Erich von Stroheim a barrier is at once found to the true appreciation of his artistry by the fact that he has gained for himself (chiefly on account of his masterly bluffing of the American producers and by his display of meaningless magnificence) the status of a genius. It will frequently be found that when argument is broached about a Stroheim film, this powerful word is solemnly pronounced and further analysis, if any has been made at all, is impossible. I suggest, however, that just as Stroheim has bluffed Hollywood with such admirable neatness, it is equally possible for him to have deceived the intelligence of his ardent admirers among the jeune cineastes. It is not denied that Stroheim has made one exceptionally interesting and powerful film in Greed> but on the other hand it is asserted that his filmic knowledge is inadequate. He seems incapable of recognising the limits and delimits of the cinema. The fact that Greed, in its original form, was twenty reels in length and that two hundred thousand feet of film were shot when making The Wedding March, indicates neither the mind of a genius nor a great film director, as so many of his disciples seem to believe. On the contrary his obvious incapability to express his ideas adequately in ten thousand feet of film shows clearly his lack of understanding of the resources of the medium. Added to which, Stroheim has unfortunately earned for himself the reputation of gross extravagance and so great is the faith of Hollywood in vastness on any scale that, if Stroheim ceased to squander money on his productions, he would no longer be called a genius. Whilst fully appreciating the fact that a director must have freedom in order to express his ideas, it cannot but be admitted that if he has to take nearly twenty times the amount of film actually used in the final copy, he has no idea of what he wants or how he is going to achieve his desired result, the two elementary qualifications of a director. Stroheim 's greatest faults are his love of excess and his failure to express his mind filmically. He labours his points and repeats his
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