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The Influence of Fashion on Cinematography
by Dr. Walther Gunther
Director of the " Berlin Film und Bildatnt ,,
(from the German)
The following remarks are suggested by twenty years of experience of cinematography in schools, juvenile welfare organisations and popular education. Within recent years, in particular, the more or less chance observations of a private individual have been supplemented by the experiences of a worker in institutions, etc. created for the express purpose of promoting cinematography. To these must be added the professional experience derived from commissions, enquiries, etc. from public bodies of all sorts which desired to be informed of the real significance of the current output of films.
What really prompts me to write, however, is continual disappointment — my own as well as other people's. Disillusionment was inevitably reserved for any observer of modern educational life who believes in the future of cinematography in the school, in juvenile welfare work and in popular culture and who is imbued with a sense of the steadily growing importance of this new medium. A sceptical attitude was further confirmed by the evidence of academic courses, daily correspondence and enquiries to the effect that every effort is being made by interested quarters, either for business reasons or in the pursuit of fashion, to divert the systematic use of the film from its true purpose. Those of us who are set on serious work with film and lantern-slide find ourselves suddenly opposed by tendencies which have no connection with instruction, education, juvenile welfare or culture at all. The opinion has suddenly become current that the film, the lantern-slide and other means of projection are ends in themselves which must be encouraged because " nowadays " they claim attention. No up-to-date educational institution, they say, can afford to neglect themwe must have the courage to experiment, even if it costs a lot. Nor must we stand out against new improvements, even when they have not been tested; the manufacturer cannot be asked to bear all the cost of experimentation. Novelty is good just because it is novel, etc. etc. When we look around and see how projecting apparatus is not merely contemplated, but actually procured by one means or another, even when there is no available electricity and the use of limelight or accumulators as substitutes is rejected; when, that is to say, cinema apparatus is looked upon as so much " furniture " and fullness of equipment and quantity of apparatus are considered more important than their constant use, then, I think, it