The Motion Picture Director (Sep 1925 - Feb 1926)

1925 5 ©irector the part of the producer have themselves been guilty of unconscious plagiarism. Granting sincerity on the part of those who believe themselves to have been sinned against it is but fair to assume that the power of suggestion has influenced them in unconsciously adapting another’s idea as their own, a situation which has confronted many writers. Judge Sibley’s decision as quoted in the Los Angeles Examiner of October 14, is so pertinent to the consideration of this whole subject that it is reprinted here: “It sufficiently appears that prior to 1919 the plaintiff, Mrs. Mattie Thomas Thompson, produced a scenario based on the Ten Commandments. “It is shown also that in 1920 the defendant, through Cecil B. De Mille, its officer and director, and Miss Jeanne MacPherson, an employee, produced a motion picture called ‘The Ten Commandments’ and having a similar structure and plot. Use or knowledge of the work of the plaintiff is wholly denied bv Mr. De Mille and M iss MacPherson and their associates. “M rs. Thompson now produced in her own handwriting certain notes and a short synopsis of her play, a copy of which she claims to have sent defendant in 1919. The similarity is such as to compel the belief that these cannot be independent productions but were taken one from the other. “The most plausible theory for the defendants is that the plaintiff, seeing the announcement of the forthcoming picture in the fall of 1923, conceived the idea that her work had been stolen, got a copy of a newspaper article describing the picture, or of the elaborate program put out later containing most of the article, and others more fully setting forth the plot and action, and becoming confirmed in the belief that the picture was taken from her scenarios, completely identified them in her mind, and thereupon she sat down from memory her synopsis under the influence of what she had read from the program, practically reproducing it. “I find grave troubles about adopting either theory. It is preposterous that Mrs. Thompson should have fabricated the case entirely, and hardly less so that she should have made these papers since the issue arose with the fraudulent purpose of palming them off as of an earlier date. “On the other hand, it appears that Mr. De Mille was paying generously for his materials. More than a million dollars was expended in making the picture. Such an investment would not have been placed on a stolen foundation, hardly disguised, with the certainty of a reckoning in court on presenting the picture. “The manuscripts of Miss MacPherson, moreover, show painful development, with almost numberless changes, additions and substitutions by Mr. De Mille, refuting the idea of the adoption of a perfected model. “The similarity of verbiage is not, however, so much to what is in the photoplay the work of Mr. De Mille and Miss MacPherson, or in the synopsis prepared from the latter by Mr. Kiesling, but to the program, itself a reproduction of a newspaper article. While I should be loath to conclude that Mrs. Thompson has undertaken to perpetrate a fraud on the defendant and on the court, she has not convinced me that the defendant has done the like. Having the burden of proof on this issue, I must hold that she has failed to carry it and so loses her contention.” Unit Production RESPONSIBILITY without proportionate authority weakens the functioning of any organization and lessens by the ratio between those two elements the surety of success. This fundamental law which applies to all forms of industrial and commercial activity loses none of its effectiveness when applied to the production of motion pictures. No great achievement is possible unless authority as well as responsibility for its accomplishment is vested in the man upon whom that burden is placed. It is a recognized fact that ocean liners cannot be successfully navigated by the officers of a steamship company — there must be a captain and a well-trained crew for each ship. And once the ship leaves the dock the captain, by the unwritten law of the sea, is in supreme command. A motion picture production cannot be directed by a group of people sitting “in conference.” A successful and artistic picture must be the result of the creative thought and work of its director. An orchestra can play tunes without a leader, but it would be sorry music. A Richard Hageman, a Sir Henry Wood, or an Alfred Hertz is necessary to produce real music. A successful publishing company finances, prints, manages and sells books, but if the officers, business manager, circulation manager, advertising manager and head printer were to pull apart and reconstruct the writings of their famous authors, the result would not make very successful literature — and yet this is what is happening every day in the making of motion pictures. Just as surely as the fact that the reading public would turn in disgust from the mangled and maltreated remains of an author’s work, if treated as above, so surely will the theatre-going public turn aside from the factory made, routine developed, mediocre picture. Such a product cannot earn its cost. The successful motion picture of the future, artistically and financially, will be that in which the real creative artist is allowed to express his individuality, unfettered and unhindered, in the same manner as his brother workers in the kindred arts of music, painting and literature. Upon the director falls the responsibility for the completed product. Give him the authority that should accompany that responsibility. War Pictures IN the pendulumistic swing of popular favor war pictures again seem riding to the ascendency, and the reception by the theatregoing public of such productions as The Dark Angel and The Big Parade is being watched with genuine interest. Whether the time is ripe now for a revival of vivid recollections of all that the World War meant to the American that stayed home and the American that went overseas is a matter of conjecture. Advance showings of The Dark Angel and The Big Parade have brought from overseas veterans keen expression of interest. But what of those to whom the war brought nothing but misery, grief and pain ? Are the scars left upon them by the war sufficiently healed that they can view impersonally the harrowing details which are essential to war pictures which are truly pictures of the war? It is particularly interesting to note that in both these productions realism has reached a much higher point than has been attained hithertofore. This is particularly true of The Big Parade by unanimous verdict of those who have witnessed the advance showings of this production. We have had war pictures touching on fragmentary issues and isolated instances, or with the reconstructive period which has followed the Avar, but here are vivid, realistic productions Avhich depict the great conflict as it actually was, that convey as have few screen achievements of recent year the spirit of the Avar. What will be the verdict of the theatre-going public? Does the public Avant pictures of the Avar as it actually Avas? The experiment at least should pnwe interesting for drama is the foundation of the cinema and drama without conflict cannot exist. War presents one of the greatest elements of conflict the Avorld knoAvs.