Motion Picture Story Magazine (Aug 1911-Jan 1912)

146 MUSINGS OF A PHOTOPLAY PHILOSOPHER For some time past I have recorded in my notebook a list of the lessons taught in the various Photoplays that I have seen. Here is the list : Respect the aged; decide not rashly; return good for evil; defer not to give what thou intendest; relieve the wants of thy friends; disparage none; boast not of strength; be civil to all; give no occasion for reproach; accomplish quickly; do not that which thou shalt repent; dissolve enemies; be not too haughty in thy prosperity lest poverty make thee humble ; condole with the afflicted; preserve amity; be not troubled on every occasion; envy not thy neighbor, for he is perhaps not as happy as thou ; shun deceit ; apply thyself to discipline ; command thyself ; abstain from bloodshed ; be in childhood modest, in youth temperate, in manhood just, in old age prudent. When we see the finished product, how little do we appreciate the effort that it cost somebody to create it ! The Photoplay you saw run off last night in fifteen minutes, perhaps cost $10,000 to create, and somebody spent days in conceiving it, and many actors spent years in learning how to act it. Whether it be a play, a book, an opera, a railroad, a solo, a mere pin, or even a little paragraph like this — how many years of study, observation, toil and love did some devoted person give to bring it to its present perfection! I am informed that members of two Chippewa delegations from Minnesota, and Indians from other sections have joined in an " uprising " against Motion Pictures, charging that white men are frequently used to impersonate Indians in the pictures, and that the red man is often put in a false light. Let us hope that there will not be a massacre, for then the red man really would be put in a false light. From what I have seen, the Indian has little of which to be ashamed, and much of which to be proud, in the public estimate of him which the Photoplay has created. While he is usually defeated by the popular cowboy, and occasionally is made to attack a caravan of pioneers and to burn a settler's home, all his virtues are extolled, and he is often given a romantic touch, as in " Hiawatha," or is made the subject of sympathy. "Lo, the poor Indian!" Everybody knows that the white man's crimes against the red man were many, and everybody knows the nature of the Indian when in his former wild, uncivilized state. All literature, poetry, drama, and even history, as well as the Photoplay, abound with error and injustice to black and white, Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant, Irish and Chinese, and to Indian and white man, and if any one race, sect or section should try to eliminate all that is false it would certainly have its hands full. The Photoshow is the best school in the world in which to study human nature. Not only are the pictures themselves a good mirror of conditions that are and were, but the audiences are like a sensitized photoplate which takes every impression. And, too, the picture makers seem to have their finger on the public pulse; they are very near to the people. They know, for example, that race prejudice is just so strong that it would never do to let a black villain conquer a white hero, nor the Indians to defeat the cowboys. It is too bad that the newspapers derive no revenue from the immense Motion Picture industry, as they do from most other enterprises. Did the Picture Houses advertise, then we should not so often see those glaring headlines— "Ruined by Attending Moving Pictures."