International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1932)

-547 law, even in the case of a work which has become public property the moral rights of the dead author can be effectively protected through the intervention in the last resort of the State, by means of the Public Prosecutor, and this for the reason that the rights which it is sought to protect are in themselves public rights. The principle admitted by the Italian law was proposed to the Rome conference, in an implicit form, by the Italian delegation in the Piola Caselli scheme. The report of the conference in fact shows that the original Italian text, later modified in a final version, contained the following words : — " After the author's death, these rights shall be exercised by persons or institutions decided upon by the legislative authority of the country of origin of the author ". Looking at the matter from the purely international point of view, we are of opinion that the protection of an artistic or literary work v/hich has become public property ought to be admitted when the work has been altered or deformed with grave and unjust prejudice to the moral figure of a dead author. One should endeavour to find out just what is the basic concept behind the whole idea of the author's moral rights. Either the moral rights of an author exist, or they -dor they do not. If they do not exist during the author's life, then still less can they exist after his death, and still less again when his work has become public property. In the other case, admitting that the personality and the moral spiritual and intellectual individuality of the author must not be deformed, the juridical ground for a postmortem intervention on the part of the State arises from the fact that the work of art is not the property of a single individual alone but of the whole public, and is an element of culture and dignity which through the creative work of a certain physical person becomes the property of the nation. Going still further, and speaking theoretically, if we admit the existence of protec tion of moral rights, we can easily admit the right of the state to oppose, in the name of the living author, and within the time limits for which protection is granted by the laws of the rspective countries, any deformation or alteration in a work of art which the author himself by means of an agreement or through tolerance has allowed to take place. We must not forget that similar regulations and laws exist in modern nations in respect to the so called vincolo export, or ban on works of art. The State can recognize in the productions of genius works of such an exceptional value that it becomes advisable to impose restrictions or limitations on their export. Why should the State not also intervene in the case of works which though not plastic works of art are, just the same creations of the mind and symbolic of a cultural or scientific epoch. This proposal in no way closes or obstructs the highways of life, but leaves them free to all movement on condition that every work of art, every artistic creation is and remains a manifestation of its epoch, capable of becoming a historic document of such epoch, without alterations or modifications which, though possibly tolerable and understandable to superior minds accustomed to analysis and criticism, would inevitably produce confusion and lack of comprehension in the great public to whom the cinema makes its appeal. Here lies a great social danger that the film in its capacity for suggestion and in its wide appeal may show a life that is not true, and a great intellectual and spiritual danger if it reproduces falsely the world of art. Who could honestly consent to alterations and banal or grotesque adaptations of the works of Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Victor Hugo or of other more ancient creators of our spiritual heritage ? The public, however, which is often ignorant of works, though knowing the names of their authors, would, if we admit such a limitless liberty, come to consider these intellectual giants