International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1932)

554 literature. Cinematographically speaking, ugliness is immoral. VIII. The linking up of the realities surrounding us effected by the cinematographic machine has a narrative value, subjective, in so far as the machine is in itself the protagonist of the story, but objective, when the machine has an auxiliary value, and only follows the phases of the action. IX. The close-up and long shot. The importance of the close-up, thought out by Griffith, is enormous, for it is the best way of exercising a selective choice of nature. The long shot loses nothing of its importance. It appears in the whole history of the cinema as a necessary complement of the action, just in the way the XVI Ith cen. tury animates the backgrounds of inanimate pictures of the XVIth century. X. According to an orthodox and rigid doctrine, man and objects have, in relation to the cinema machine, the same expressive force. As J. Epstein has said, the very objects themselves know how to assume attitudes on the screen. In any case, however, the face predom inates as factor of expression. This is a consequence of the theatrical tradition. All the history of the cinema shows a progressive tendency to render the miming of the face more sober. Compare Francesca Bertini with Lilian Gish, Aime-Simon Gerard with Clive Brook. XI. The departure from melodrama leads the cinema actor to concentrate his efforts on rendering sober and severe the facial acting Whence comes the value of hand gesture, of object gesture, the humanizing of gesture, connected with the dehumanizing of art, of which Ortega y Gasset speaks. XII. Mobility of the machine in space. Selection of objects. Mobility of the machine in time The possibility of fixing the attention on a movement and of using microcroscopy, with slow motion, or speeded-up motion. In the cinema, slow motion is, in relation to time, what the close-up in is relation to space. XIII. An intelligent succession of closeups and long shots constitutes cinematographic rhythm. Rhythm which is the fundamental principle of the aesthetic of the cinema. THE MOTION PICTURES IN THE AMERICAN SCHOOLS The United States Department of the Interior (Office of Education) has recently issued a circular (No. 46) on " Motion Pictures in the Public Elementary and Secondary Schools ". In 1929, the Office of Education cooperated with Mr E.I. Way, Chief of Industrial and Education Section, Motion Picture Dept. of Commerce in the preparation and distribution of questionnaires designed to collect information on the administration of film service in the public schools in America. The questionnaires were sent to 3,226 superintendents of schools and to 22,491 principals and supervising principals in towns and villages having a population of 2500 or more. Returns were received from approximately 6000 superintendents and principals, 2000 of whom reported that motion pictures were not used in their schools. The remaining 4000 reported some use of films. The United States Department of Commerce arranged for the tabulation of the data, and issued a series of circulars on the topic between January and August of 1931. The circular under discussion, therefore, was prepared by Mr J.C. Malott, specialist in commercial education at the Office of Education. The results of the inquiry show that the American schools do not often buy films or pay high rentals. Ninetyeight per cent of the schools reporting on this item stated that they do not purchase films for scholastic purposes. Only 39 communities maintain film libraires or depositaries, while 54