International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1931)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

— 376 — On the other hand, if attendance is irregular and spasmodic, the harmful or beneficial influence of a film will depend rather upon the individual reaction it sets up in the spectator. According to this reasoning, assiduous cinema-going would be a good rather than a bad thing, but for this the shows must at least be varied so that the spectator may be offered contrasting passions and states of mind from which to arrive, through the above mentioned process of selection, at a position of mental balance. For this purpose young cinema-goers must not be left entirely to their own devices, or they may go from cinema to cinema in the pursuit of their favourite form of film, their favourite film actor or looking for some scene of passion, violence or crime which impressed them forcibly the first time they saw it. There will then be no multiple reactions and no consequent process of selection. Of the following replies concerning the influence of the cinema on character-formation, some emphasise only its harmful effects, others exclusively its good aspects. The great majority, however, recognize that films exercise a good or bad effect according to the age, sex, temperament and mood of the spectator and, of course, according to the film shown. The latter class of answers would seem the most objective and nearest the truth. Harmful influence. " I consider that most films exhibited in public cinemas have a bad influence on the formation of character ". " The cinema has no influence at all upon balanced minds gifted with mature discernment, but such qualities, rare enough in adults, are far more uncommon still in children, who eagerly seize upon the unreal as a thing of wonder and dream of a life altogether different from their every-day existence. Quite often young girls, when left to themselves, imagine they are miniature Greta Garbos and think they are being persecuted by their parents because they are not allowed to pencil their eyelashes and pluck their eyebrows but are encouraged in the direction of becoming good wives and mothers ". " I do not believe that the cinema can exercise a good influence over the formation of character. I think it develops — according to the subject — certain special tendencies towards softness rather than towards strength and virility ". Good influence. " The great importance of the cinema is undeniable. The examples set by the child's environment have a considerable influence over its character. If the examples set in the family are the outcome of sound moral training, the result will be a well brought up child; it will be otherwise, if the examples are bad. The cinema is a powerful instrument for correcting or strengthening character. A bad action, its unfortunate consequences and the punishment of the evil-doer may, if reproduced on the screen, show children the errors of their ways ".