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by the mere fact that they disclose « a fragment of life », they contain and set forth a « conception of life ».
This influence exercised by the cinema is powerful, surpassing in intensity that of the press and of broadcasting. This may be easily accounted for by the old principle of elementary psychology that impressions obtained through the medium of the eye are more vivid than those obtained through the medium of the ear. The spoken or written word is a symbol that operates only through the image and, successively, through the idea it conjures up ; everybody gives it his own interpretation; it may even be said that everybody finds therein what is already in his mind. It is not a question of minimizing the power of speech or of the printed page but it must be recognised that the image has over the word this advantage, that it requires no translation ; it acts immediately upon all audiences.
Its action is all the more powerful as it is unconscious. Speeches and newspaper articles are manifestly intended to convince and, therefore, stimutale criticism. Before the screen, the spectator does not dream of defence. More than this, he abandons himself completely. He goes to the picture-theatre to get enjoyment and expects to derive from the « motion-pictures » the maximum possible entertainment in mirth or excitement. And the attraction he proves, the music and the darkness, tend to concentrate his passive attention. At no other time and in no other place is it possible to come across factors which render audiences so accessible to all kinds of suggestion.
What finally renders this influence extraordinarily powerful is the fact that it acts on, andthrough, one's feelings ; in other words, in order to be in the right, the film needs no reasoning. A story with nothing in it, provided it causes deep emotion, will succeed in modifying the conception of life as seen by a young girl or the man in the street, much more effectively that a very solid argument might succeed in doing.
Realizing this power of the cinema as a medium of persuasion, the Church could not regard the cinema as a negligible quantity. Being responsible for faith and morals, the Church owed it to
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