International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1930)

223 react slowly to its influence in a manner that cannot be directly traced. But the authority of the State is fixed and unquestionable, and is in the last extremity supported by the penal laws. It alone is therefore in a position to lay down definite rules and to guide the policy of its competent organs, not only so as to correct any actual violations that may occur, but also avoid the chance of later infringements. The views of the other side are based on an explicit premise. Morals, which are a conventional factor of life, are a matter for the individual conscience. The State is concerned only with questions of real and absolute public interest. Freedom of criticism and judgment must be left to the public which, as forming part of the social body, has an unquestionable right to direct its inclinations and its life in accordance with its own views. On the other hand public taste, which is no longer satisfied with watching a puppet show pass across the screen, but seeks to analyze it and understand its inner meaning, it the safest critic. The public itself, through its already formed or developing cinegraphic sense, will abandon gradually of its own accord those types of film that are technically and intellectually out of date. A natural selection is bound gradually to take place and this law will dictate terms to the industry. Thus it will become the economic interest of the industry itself and of its more or less accredited representatives to enquire into public taste, and dictate to its associates the conditions with which the industry must comply if it wishes to succeed. In conformity with these views, Dr. W. Zinser of Diisseldorf writes in the Film und Bild in Verein und Schule of Cologne, expressing the hope that clubs of cinema lovers and students may be formed to impart a new form to cinema programmes and combat the present bad taste in films, in order that this may become an object of artistic and cultural enjoyment. It is obvious that a brief survey such as this cannot convey the full importance of these two standards of judgment. They involve problems which the interested parties on either side must debate. The Rome Institute for the time being is content to ingl. take due note of the question, while waiting for the discussion to be opened with perfect freedom. Meanwhile the clash between the two theories is everywhere being felt. Mr. P. Lavis, in a study on the Canadian censorship reviewed in the « Canadian Digest » of Toronto (18/208), upholds the necessity for State control in order to prevent the screen becoming a free field for unscrupulous manufacturers, while another issue of the same Review (18/223) refers to a speech by Mr. Harris Sedewick, of the « Famous Players » in support of the diametrically opposite view, in which he abjured the exhibitors in their own interest to exercise a proper censorship over the films they screened. Only six of the States of the American Union have any censorship control. In one of these States, Kansas, the Government contemplates rendering the control more rigorous, in consequence of certain scenes having been exhibited in a public cinema hall without having been previously submitted to the Censoring authorities (The Film Daily, 18/198), In Kansas likewise there is a movement of a counter tendency on foot in favour of teaching the ethical and cultural value of films in the public schools in the hope of superseding the need for the censorship by creating a cultured taste among producers and public (Exhibitors' Herald World Chicago 18/217). But, after all, as Mr. James J. Walker writes in the Film Docly (18/200) it has yet to be proved that the six States in which a censorship is established are on a higher moral level than the rest ! The producers and renters of South America are opposed to control systems. No. 7 of the Pelicula of Buenos Ayres (1929) publishes a protest which cinema hall managers have lodged with the authorities, threatening at the same time to close down their theatres. It is pointed out that the law contemplates only two kinds of films, those for adults and films for children aged under 15. The Regulations issued however lay down further differentiations, and have, for instance, created a category of film « not suitable for the young person », which, far from reducing the female public, acts as an enticement by the promised savour of forbidden fruit. The protest further avers that the censorship is exercised in an over 8*