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/. /. E. C. Inquiries
PUBLIC ATTENDANCE AT THE CINEMA
The problem of public attendance at the cinema has always been one of the chief considerations of those who are interested in social questions connected with the film. To consider if and how the phenomenon of the cinema is manifested extensively means, as a matter of fact, considering it in its intensity. Either the film is a source of culture and education for the masses, or it is a cause of danger. In either case, the degree of public attendance at cinemas will be an informative element and a stimulant to those states of well-being or spiritual ill health which may become tomorrow the determining cause of an increase of intellectual culture or a moral degeneration of the people.
Statistics show some very remarkable figures regarding the attendance of the public at the cinema halls. To limit our inquiry to one nation only, America, it is calculated that 1 50 million spectators frequent the cinemas every week. How many of these spectators are minors, and how they are divided among the sexes is not known exactly. In any case, it is certain that the number of minors must be very high indeed. The workman and the employee rarely go to the cinema on working days. They have other and more serious matters to think of. The fatigue of their work makes them prefer rest or other forms of amusement which help to give back strength to the body.
Children, on the other hand, have the cheapest and most varied forms of amusement ready for their habits and desires that it is possible to imagine. The child can choose, especially in the cities, from the various film programmes that which is best suited to his inclinations and his spirit.
He does not care for the theatre, which requires a certain cerebral effort except when it descends to the level of a pochade, or to the tiresome banality of ordinary commonplace existence. He is by nature the enemy of lectures, concerts and all other manifestations of intellectual life. The only competitor of the cinema for children is gymnastics. There are no other attractions having even in appearance or partially, any spiritual value.
This is the essential motive, on account of which all persons or bodies which regard safeguarding the souls of minors as the basis of their activity are much occupied in examining the phenomenon of public attendance, which they study and consider carefully in the light of statistics in order to be sure that such attendance may not be a peril in itself.
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The Rome Institute has set itself the task of discovering the practical value of the question by means of its questionnaires and the replies from interested parties (1).
(1) The questions framed in the questionnaire were as follows : —
1 . Do you go often to the cinema ?
2. What class of cinema do you usually frequent? Popular? Medium class? Luxury class?