Motion Picture Reviews (1933)

Four Motion Picture Reviews stories of impossible heroines and magnificent settings. These latter represent an “escape from the real” that is merely a pathological substitute for the opportunity to live in the big world that determines our social, political and economic welfare. Let no misunderstanding arise as to the meaning of “informative” as used in the last paragraph. No one of sense wants didactic pictures, nor even pictures screened primarily to tell somebody something. Certainly we can do without any which might be produced to moralize to us. The best part of the movies is the stories they tell, and any information carried by the usual entertainment film should be a part of the circumstances attendant on the telling of the story. Nevertheless the story should be true in geography, history and science. Not all movie stories are that true, it might be added. A story to be enjoyed should carry conviction — that is the third consideration for those who look at pictures with critical eyes. A more subtle standard and one difficult to put in words, as it has been also difficult for producers to achieve, is to have the story placed in the world of things and people. It is easy to assume the logical and critical attitude toward an animal picture taken in Africa, or a story that obviously takes place in a foreign country. The same “locating” or placing of the story in its proper setting and the attendant limitations on its significance is more difficult if it is a story of beautiful creatures who marry wealthy Adonises. It is natural that we all want either to be or to marry the creatures, and the critical faculty finds no chance to operate against the natural wish unless the pictures carry some implications of the relative numbers and importance of Adonises and beautiful creatures ready to marry in actual life. A picture can exploit us unconsciously and by portraying what may occasionally be, or what might possibly be, the picture itself may become very misinformative, especially if it be one of a large number of the same kind. Reviewers need particularly to keep their balance when looking at pictures which do not maintain a balance with reality. Balance in movies is virtue, as well as satisfaction. Sex for example occurs in manifold forms all over the cities and country and there is not the slightest reason why it should not occur in almost as many forms in the movies. As romance every one demands it. That the less poetic side of love life should also be presented no one can deny. Further, that the attraction of the female form should have its place on the screen seems also difficult to deny. But romance becomes silly sentiment and the female form becomes uninteresting when they are dished out as a daily diet without a fair admixture of the other ingredients of a normal active life. The reviewer will not fall into the deep dank hole of rank censorship if he constantly strives to hold up a standard first of the presentation of all life’s many phases and secondly of sympathy with expressions of love and hate not only as they are practiced in his caste but in all others. All of which leads to the most important consideration for old timers and juniors who try to judge pictures, and that is not to take oneself too seriously. It is a great temptation to think that a world is going to be besmirched if the reviewers let something unwholesome slip by. As a matter of fact it is a good thing to let the world sharpen its critical teeth on something not too wholesome sometimes and learn to reject as well as to swallow. As our job is to see life and see it whole and compare the movies to it, so the ordinary theatre goer should do likewise. It is much more important that different phases of life, and different kinds of lives be presented to him than that he should be fed “pure” stuff. It is in the matters where his judgment cannot operate and where his information does not carry that the movies should give the right impression. The foregoing is not to detract from the importance of the reviewer’s job. He is in a real sense the most important factor of social control in the production of motion pictures a control fully justified since they are so universal in their appeal. We cannot allow purely commercial control and its attendant exploitation of the less admirable qualities of human nature to have complete sway. The injection of the maximum influence of the community through such efforts as the review groups is the most effective present solution. One last fundamental is apt to occur to those who have heard review group discussions. It is the wisdom of talking in common English and not in the jargon of the motion picture studio. The value of the critic resides in his ability to judge what he sees from the standpoint of others who will witness it rather than from the narrow technical standpoint of him who produced it. One cannot blame the habitue of the studio for shop talk, but it seems affected and ineffective on the lips of any others. In this connection the thesis of this short message might be restated: the best judgment of the movies is to be formed not by comparing them with themselves, nor with what might be, but with life as it happens to all of us every day.