The Motion Picture Studio (1923)

THE MOTION PICTURE STUDIO August ii, 1923 E. V. Lucas — as Friendly Critic Three Thoughtful Articles in the “ Times ” JT is pleasant to realise that the cor¬ rosive invective which we sometimes hear directed against the kinema and all its works from certain authors and jour¬ nalists finds no general echo from literary men as a whole ; and we regard the fact that E. V. Lucas^, the gentle and most human essayist of our time, has written some thoughtful and friendly articles in the Times as a proof of the fact. His first article deals mainly with the origins of the motion picture from its early stages of primitive mechanism be¬ fore photography was discovered to its present highly complex standard of effici¬ ency. He notes the most significant fact in connection with its growth, namely, that while the early pioneers regarded it as a scientific piece of apparatus with possibilities of adding to purely academic stores of human knowledge, its present main function seems to be the purveying of melodrama. Not Enough Good Pictures Tn the second of Mr. Lucas’ articles, however, he comes to a detached ex¬ amination of the quality of present-day pictures, and seems to adopt a most tolerant tone to the assumed rarity of good ones : “First-class films are rare. It would not surprise me to find that this is because there is a large enough public for the inferior article to make it unnecessary to do better ; for since I began to write these articles, I have asked many persons their views on the kinema, and have found that the attitude of most of them to it is one of extreme lenience. Like Thackeray, who was so firm in his fidelity to ‘ the play ’ as a whole, rather than to any piece in particular, they con¬ fess to an enthusiasm for ‘ the pictures ’ generally. They like to be there. It is a rest, a change; the eye is tickled; the mind need not work. This being so, why should film producers over-exert them¬ selves — and especially so since the lure of the films tends more and more to be the lure of personality? “ I have no information as to whether or not film-acting is growing noticeably better ; but it would not be remarkable if it were stationary, for your performer of genius must always arise capriciously ; he cannot be supplied to demand. The greatest genius that the film has pro¬ duced is, I suppose, Charlie Chaplin, who at once grasped its possibilities and made the fullest use of them— so full that if his vogue is not what it was, the reason is largely because he provided so many imitators with too many seeds from which to grow the flower. None of his imitators that I have seen — and as I dislike imita¬ tors I have, when I could, avoided them — can approach him in drollery, in resourcefulness, in charm. But thev are sufficiently humorous to put him in danger of being accused by a new genera¬ tion of being an imitator of himself. He has, however, a remedy ; for his genius cannot be imitated, and only half his genius is in his farce. With those eves anu that mouth and those delicate hands, and with his supreme gift of suggesting aa almost abysmal melancholy, he can, whenever he will, enter upon new triumphs in sentiment and the comedy that is allied to tears. But he must employ someone else to write the stories.” On the vexed and (we suppose) still debatable question of the film’s rivalry of the stage, Mr. Lucas strikes a sound line which inclines us to claim him as an advocate of special screen-storv material : “ It seems unavoidable to compare the kinema with the stage, and this probably i s', the kinema’s fault though tending more and more to be the stage’s rival. At first it was more occupied with life and nature, impossible events and magic ; hut now it offers little but drama. This strikes me as unfortunate. To me, the principal value of the kinema is that it can show us things that otherwise we could never see; yet its most popular work at the moment is the presentation 'A well-known plays and well-known novels. I am personally bewildered by the fact that anyone who has seen a play acted on the stage, with the author’s words accompanying each gesture, should wish to witness it again — as it were in a mirror, and with one’s ears stopped with wax. One must suppose either, that the pleasure of being in a kinema theatre, no matter what the nature of the program, is a sufficient bliss or anodvne. or that the mass of the people who witness these plays — and the Ameri¬ cans. with their instant gift of supplying what are conceived to be verbal needs, call these people the ‘ optience ’ — have not seen the play itself. Are Adaptations Successful ? “Again, when I have read a novel shaped and written by a man of letters responsible for his words, and have en¬ joyed his management of phrase and choice of epithet, it gives me no pleasure to visit a kinema theatre and see the bare outline of the plot reeled off with a musical accompaniment that sometimes mav be suggestive, but usually is irrele¬ vant. I can. however, understand that to the stranger to that novel there is a leal appeal. And it is true that the result of turning a play or a novel into a film, even though it were better that every¬ thing seen on the film had been specially prepared for it. can be very chastening. Few films can be followed right through without some exercise of the finer emo¬ tions, some awakening of the deeper feelings. They may even sting to re¬ morse and reform, and this is good when ossification is the rule. But when all is said, what the kinema has provided has in the main been dope. Very delightful dope, fairly harmless dope, but dope.” Sir. Lucas thinks there is rather too much ldnema-going, and that even with everv modern improvement of films and theatres, the ventilation and eye-strain must be in manv cases a detrimental fac¬ tor in considering the screen’s influence nationally. But it is in his third and final article that he gives a very broad-minded sum¬ ming-up of the kinema and its future. (Bv the way, he unaccountably disap¬ proves of the Greek “ K,” preferring, for some unexplained reason the Latin “C.”) He would be sorry to think that the film s. only mission and raison d'etre consists in being a soothing influence for jadedhumanity. “ I cannot believe that it will be content to remain at that. But I have few sug¬ gestions to make towards the improvement or the type of film which at present dominates, except that they should be written directly for the kinema by authors acquainted with its marvellous powers, (hie of the kinema’s most precious gifts is its ability to leap backwards and for¬ wards into time and instantaneously con¬ struct either a significant early environ¬ ment, or illustrate a dark foreboding or happy hope. It can also, with equal celerity, heavily underline and isolate whatever needs such treatment. It can show with the utmost vividness what is in every character’s mind ; it can almost draw pictures of abstract ideas ! And not (he least interesting of its peculiar ad¬ vantages is that it can appeal to all the world at the same moment with almost equal force— for I take it that Tokyo is hardlv less familiar with Mary Pickford than is Tooting or Turin. Judicious films might then be very federating things, and I advise the League of Nations to think of this. But probably the kinema managers will require a little financial persuasion to let such alloy in. “The eve receives impressions more rapidlv and retains them longer than any other organ of sense, and the kinema in appealing to the eye is therefore at an immense advantage. ‘ We place the world before you,’ was the motto of an early film-producing company, and it is true. There is almost no phase of civilisa¬ tion or Nature that the kinema cannot place before us, even to scenes of life in the depths of the sea. In the illustration of evolution it can do more in ten minutes than a text-book in ten hours. By the use of a magnifying lens it can bring the marvels of insect physiology almost alarmingly to our gaze. No one who saw a recent film of spiders can ever look at a spider again without awe, or dare to set a foot on so august a piece of mechanism.” Coating the Pill ('In the need of imparting information under the guise of entertainment, Mr. Lucas is apparently decided ; and his realisation of the ultimate and irresistible gravitation towards specialisation is equally clear. , “The educational films that are avowedlv and strictly informative probably miss some of their usefulness. That is onlv natural, for it is human to avoid direct instruction. But indirect instruction can be imparted bv the kinema in one of the pleasantest ways possible, and it should remain in the mind for a very long while. Children who saw Douglas Fair¬ banks in “Robin Hood” must have a bet¬ ter idea of Merrie England and castle life than those who did not. and even il thev are convinced that outlaws advanced onlv bv leaps and bounds no harm is done. The accurate representation of life in England at significant periods from the davs of woad onwards would make a very A 12