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THE THEORETICAL
city. Bosch, the Van Eycks, Lucas van Leyden, Hans Baldung Grein, and particularly the beasts of Lucas Cranach, have a definite filmic feeling that may be sensitively used for inspiration. El Greco, Goya, and more especially Honore Daumier are rich in influential matter. The amazing types in Eisenstein's The Old and the New and Turin's Turksib recall the heads of Diirer and Holbein in their rich quality. In the film, it is possible to use such wonderful wrinkled features and twisted beards with great dramatic effect. Nearly all Soviet films are noted for their beautiful close ups of striking heads, perhaps held for only a flash on the screen. But, as has been pointed out elsewhere, this influence of painting and engraving does not in any way signify the transference of a picture on to the screen. The illustrious Mr. de Mille showed his sublime ignorance of this in that travesty, The King of Kings.
It is obviously quite unnecessary to commission a celebrated author to write a story 'specially for the screen.' In all probability the celebrated author has not the least conception of the cinema, being chiefly concerned with the writing of novels, which he undoubtedly does very well. Again and again the lament of novelists is heard that their books have been ruined by adaptation to the screen. In many cases, they claim to fail to recognise their own characters and say that the plot has been distorted beyond redemption. This is due, firstly, to the absolute necessity to transpose the theme of any novel from literary into cinematic terms; and secondly, to the deplorable habits of wealthy producing firms, which frequently buy best-sellers at random without any consideration of their filmic value. Three outstanding instances of this pernicious habit may be found in: Universal purchasing the rights of All Quiet on the Western Front; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer trying to make The Bridge of San Luis Rey into a film; and The Case of Sergeant Grischa being bought and given to Herbert Brenon, a sentimentalist director, to make. Yet another example, somewhat different, was Ufa's complete metamorphosis of the psychological situation in Leonhard Franck's 'Karl and Anna,' a book that was already filmic, into a film called Homecoming. The greater number of film adaptations from literature are failures simply because scenarists attempt to embody a large amount of literary material in the relatively small space of a
film.
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