Moving Picture World (Jan - Feb 1919)

76 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD January 4, 1919 WISDOM IN SOLID CHUNKS By Edward Weitzel. IT is the part of justice and modesty to explain at once that the chunks of solid wisdom referred to in the heading of this article are the work of Richard A. Rowland, president of Metro Pictures Corporation, and were culled from a contribution of his to the holiday number of Exhibitors' Herald and Motography. "The Producer and the Exhibitor— Speaking for Both" is the caption of the article, and its author doesn't waste any time in handing out bouquets to himself, his company, the moving picture industry in general and the worth of the reviewer in particular. But he speaks his mind with a freedom and conciseness that leave no doubt as to his familiarity with all sides of his subject, and the sum of his chunks of wisdom prove quite easily that the school of experience is many long laps ahead of every other method of finding out things. The opening paragraph foregoes all preliminaries : "The motion picture business is like a bucking broncho— you ride along nicely when all of a sudden you're thrown. That has been true 6f the motion picture business since it began, but never until this year has everybody been bucked off at the same time." Here is experience without limit. And the man that has been thrown off a bucking broncho or dropped out of a balloon knows just how it feels. * * * The first chunk of wisdom on which the writer feels competent to express a conviction is contained in this statement: "This matter of picture selection is a matter of opinion, and the exhibitors in many cases know less about it than the critics of the trade press." This is a most difficult chunk of wisdom to assimilate. * * * There are several practical problems of production and distribution touched upon in the Rowland article that lie outside of the experience of the present writer. The following statement, however, is not of this class. It is. perhaps, the most important of them all: "Exhibitors all seem to want to be producers, but I tell you frankly the exhibitor has no idea of all the obstacles and difficulties in the way of the production of good motion pictures." Long and careful consideration of this bit of practical knowledge is advised for the exhibitors that are members of the movement for better pictures. The sincerity of their intention cannot be questioned, but a full understanding of the limitations of the producer, no matter how earnest his desire and how thorough his efforts to turn out pictures of the highest artistic and commercial grade, is necessary if any attempted adjustment is to have equitable results. * * * Every producer gets the best results of which he is capable according to his system of production, and all systems are susceptible, more or less, to improvement as time and experience bring additional knowledge. The elements in the business that are beyond his control are the chief stumbling blocks in his path. No producer of either screen or stage fiction turns out plavs of uniform merit, especially when considered from the commercial side. And no producer ever will. Factors that refuse absolutelv to be bound down by any fixed rule which skill and long study may devise can always defeat him. The Rowland article mentions one of them : "There always is going to be a dearth of really original material. This is one of the producer's problems, which is not appreciated or understood." The nearest approach to a remedy for this condition is improved technic in working over the old material. But "a picture studio is not a shoe factory," and the "care and time in production" that "are the things that make great pictures possible" do not always achieve this end. The scenario that promises the most satisfactory results may, in spite of the best efforts of everyone connected with its production, develop qualities that are fatal to its he ped for success. Only actual experience teaches how much labor and expense are required to patch up the defects and give the picture sufficient merit to get back the mere cost of production. Richard A. Rowland stated a fact that the exhibitors will do well to keep in mind when he wrote : "The creative side of the business is the hardest game in the world." RELIGION AND THE FILM By Robert C. McElr.\\ , ONE of the chief claims of the film upon public interest in the past is the fact that it has never hesitated to explore the spiritual depths of man's nature. It had become the fashion of other arts, very largely, up to the time of the world war, to play upon the surface of life, as though their very existence depended upon their ability to avoid ethical problems of any kind. There have been some notable exceptions, but the trend of the times was such that the established arts were unable as a whole to resist being engulfed in the commercial whirlpool. Only the film managed in some measure to escape, and this was in a sense due to the fact that it was a new, untried experiment and not regarded seriously. The film has been child of the people — a foundling left upon the doorstep of art, reared by an industrial midwife and housed promiscuously at first in the Penny Arcade, the Nickelodeon and the corner grocery. It has known suffering and neglect, but it knows its own people and how best to amuse them. It knows that the deepest thing in human nature is kindliness, because it has been so long obscured by vice and pleasure and contempt. It does not hesitate to dig deep for its stories, for it understands that it is under the hard surface that real values are found. The screen has given us a crude but penetrating and deserving art. It has been, in its more serious moments, concerned with political and social reform, civic righteousness, the obligations of big business, and man's general responsibility to his fellows. In this manner it has proved its ultimate worth, for not to be concerned with these things is to miss the supreme function of any art. Not infrequently we have seen religion itself cropping out in film stories, the screen thus visualizing the highest aspirations of man's soul. We have had repeated allegories o£ a religious nature, stories of the life of Christ, some striking interpretations of the Book of Genesis, and biblical tales of many descriptions. Even in the ordinary film story it has been no exceptional thing to find religious observances pictured in various forms. This has not always been accomplished with artisti< results, for while the upward impulse is always a desirable thing in stories, it is a difficult thing to