International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1930)

225 1929 apparently bent on endorsing rather than discouraging the crudest forms of popular superstition, has made some drastic cuts in Eisentstein's film, « Generallinie ». The censors were particularly shocked by two scenes. A cat was shown obliquely crossing a street in front of a wedding procession, and this was regarded as being of ill omen and as offending the sacrament of matrimony. Then again a group of thirsty animals, forming part of a precession set out to pray for relief from a period of drought, were considered as casting ridicule on the procession, whereas the only intention of the author had been to stress the distress due to the drought. Diverse provisions. — The question of the quota enforced by countries that wish to protect their national production and the question of arbitration in all matters pertaining to the cinema, are still at the present time some of the most burning questions in the sphere of film interests. In Australia, the Film Act requires all renters to purchase at least two thousand feet of film, produced in the United Kingdom. The Daily Film Renter notes that this measure has not always been respected (23/1 70-1 71). The answer given by the La Palisse firm to a categorical accusation on this point was that the national production was inferior in quality to foreign production, especially to the American, and paid less well. At the same time, Messrs. Warner Bros, and the Fox Film Co. in America were prosecuted for proved infringement of the « Sherman Act », or Anti-trust law, it having been ascertained that, following on financial agreements, the said Companies had succeeded in obtaining a control amounting to 55% of all the shares in the American film industry (25/149). Both in Germany and America disputes between renters and exhibitors are submitted to arbitration (Kinematograph, Berlin 25/150), and the Film Daily, New York 25/ 139) This is one way, and perhaps the most efficacious, of avoiding recourse to lengthy legal procedure. There can no longer be any doubts as to the value of the cinematograph. It has attained to an economic and moral importance that was not dreamed of in the past. Only now is it claiming the serious attention of the legislature — not on questions of detail only — but for reasons of a higher order which place it in the forefront of social problems. A clear view of the position is beginning to em.erge from the theories and discussions in the pages of this Review and elsewhere. A Bill has been laid before the United Stated Senate, asking for the appointment of an art commission to study all that might contribute to the progress of the silent, sound, and talking film, and to submit proposals for its protection and diffusion. (25/156). In France they have gone a step further. The Comcedia of Paris states that Andre Francois-Poncet, underSecretary of State for Technical Education and the Fine Arts, declared in a speech in the Chamber that the quota law was insufficient and justified the present provisional understanding with the Am.erican industry. He maintained, moreover, that the cinema was a vehicle of culture, and prognosticated the formation of a kind of League of Nations for the Cinema, to regulate fairly the exchange of films between the several countries. Are these exaggerated imaginings ? It is clear that two factors oppose themselves to Francois Poncet's generous idea. Money and politics. He has idealistic beliefs in a better world in which mens' thoughts are not obsessed by commercial considerations and in which the barriers separating the nations are levelled. It is, in any case, well that a -word has been pronounced in a legislative assembly and that this word should come from the land that counts among its sons the precursors of the living and luminous screen.