Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb-Jul 1911)

6 EDITCms&L and the reader will find no disappointment in the pictured drama thru the violence done to preconceived impressions of the various personages. We feel that this Monthly will meet a demand from the increasingly large number of picture patrons, and we thank you for the welcome of which we feel assured. To imitate, as Aristotle observes, is instinctive to the human race, and from clever imitation all men derive a certain pleasure. That is why, for three thousand years, the drama has been to the world one of its greatest sources of entertainment, culture and education. Indeed, ' ' The play 's the thing, ' ' but not necessarily the spoken play. Gesture and facial expression are more eloquent than words. The eyes can speak as well as the lips. "Actions speak louder than words." And not only this, for all the world loves a picture, and that is why the moving picture has come into such unprecedented popularity. By Theophile Gautier it has been well remarked that the skeleton of every good drama is a pantomime, altho the bones that form it must be covered with the living flesh of poetry. The moving pictures not only imitate ; they interpret human life. No painter can paint with the hand what the motion picture spectator can see with his eye. As Cowper observes, "Blest be the art that can immortalize, — the art that baffles time's tyrannic claim to quench it." And what better accomplishes this than the moving picture? It puts in permanent form the history of to-day for the scholars of to-morrow. It sketches life, customs, habits and character as no words can do. It makes an accurate record of times present, and brings us into more intimate relations with times past. The first dramatic representations known in Europe were devotional pieces, acted by the monks, in the churches of their convents, representative of the life of the Saviour and of his apostles. The drama has long since passed the time when it was used for religious or even for moral purposes, yet the moving picture play has come, and we frequently see plays in illustration of Bible stories and of other moral truths. One advantage of the moving picture over the theatre play is in the variety of the scenery and the facility with which it can be changed. At the theatre we seldom see more than three scenes, and we are obliged to wait several minutes to see even these ; while at the moving picture plays, we may see a hundred in one piece, without losing a minute of our time and without losing a bit of action. Besides this, the limited space on the theatre stage makes elaborate scenery impossible, whereas the picture play often presents real instead of painted scenery. The picture play has been a God-send to those who have been complaining of bad acoustics in the theatres, and of actors with poor enunciation or bad elocution. And we must not forget that there is in every community a considerable number who are hard of hearing, or even deaf. A famous preacher recently said that he believed more good was done to the boys by the moving picture plays than by the churches. "You can teach a boy a lesson," said he, "in Sunday School, but he is not interested, and, if he listens at all, he soon forgets what he has learned ; while the lesson of the moving picture is not only intensely interesting, but it has a more dramatic and lasting effect on the boy. If I could select my own pictures, I believe I could reform any bad boy."