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V
THE AMERICAN FILM (concluded)
1 here are certain American directors of lesser standing than Griffith, Erich von Stroheim, and Chaplin whose work, if not altogether brilliant from a filmic point of view, is at least of more intelligence than that of the common run of movie directors. One assumes, also, from certain flashes of cinematic knowledge in their films, that these directors would in all probability make better use of their intelligence if they were not entangled in the net work of studio system, and dominated by the drastic demands of the production committees for whom they work. The pictures of King Vidor, Josef von Sternberg, Rex Ingram, James Cruze, and Clarence Brown are, generally speaking, of more than passing interest. In their work there is an idea, an experiment, a sense of vision, a use of the camera, a striving after something that is cinema, which is worth detailed analysis for its aesthetic value. But we must remember that these men are employees of large manufacturing firms and have perforce to incorporate in their films at least two-thirds of that picture-sense quality so dear to producers. In the remaining third, there may be found some indication of the director's real opinion of the film subject.
King Vidor is probably the outstanding director of the young American school and he has already shown remarkable versatility in the satirical, the mock-epic and the psychological film. His best known and most commercially successful work was the notorious Big Parade, although preferable from a filmic point of view were The Crowd, The Politic Flapper, and Hallelujah! . The Crowd has been hailed in intelligent film circles as a great film. In Paris, it is considered the greatest if not the most successful film to have come from Hollywood, although recently this belief has been rather forgotten under the novelty of White Shadows. Nevertheless, whatever lavish praise may be accorded The Crowd, it was not by any means the film that it was said to be. It failed for several significant