Moving Picture World (Jul-Sep 1911)

268 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD SF.I.F-SUFFICENCY is as a rule the doom of honest effort and the next to the last station on the road to total failure. It is a most insidious disease, for it gives no pain to the patient*, but only afflicts those who are near him or who, if he is a film maker, have to look at his productions. The moment a film maker begins to resent criticism or thinks himself above it, he begins to deteriorate. There is in the world of moral economics absolutely no place for self-sufficiency and self-conceit; they exist merely as symptoms of a fatal disease which must end in disaster. Nothing is easier for self-sufficiency than to take and abide by a very optimistic judgment of itself. Self-sufficiency then falls into a rut, which leads downward. There results a series of tiresome pictures, all based on about four or five types, and the exhibitor begins to suffer, because the public fiercely and quickly resents a policy of self-sufficiency on the part of film makers and stage directors. There are some film manufacturers who obtrude this self-sufficiency, this arrogance and vaunted consciousness of superiority to a degree which at times provokes nausea. Let them not lay the flattering unction to their souls that they are so well entrenched as to be able to assume an attitude of defiance. No man nor set of men were ever indispensable in this world, and no amount of extraneous power and influence will make the mediocre, picture "go" with the public, which is the ultimate arbiter in all things. The mediocre only live while the truly meritorious are not competing. If one maker persists in blinding himself with the belief in his own perfection and infallibility, another maker will come along, keenly self-critical, ambitious, eager for improvement, and the latter will replace the former. * We are moved to make these sundry and various remarks by the frightful sameness of scenery and of topic and of plot and of acting and of everything else, which become prominent, painfully prominent, in certain makes of film. A hundred cold baths of criticism seem to have nn effect. Especially in the matter of plots a serious word is in order to certain makers of film. The utter disregard of previous filming of the same subject is also an utter disregard of the rights of the exhibitor and of the equities of the public. To mention but one type of overworked plots — the memory of moral nerve or whatever it is, lost through fast living or accident and then slowly but surely regained in the course of the last 500 feet of the film. Let us have no more of that sort of thing until the robins nest again. *** A PICTURE which grossly offends the religious belief of any considerable portion of the public should never be allowed to pass the Board of Censors. It is not necessary to mention the particular picture which we have in mind — it is a principle which is involved, not any certain picture. An enlightened and liberal-minded body of censors have every right to regard themselves as competent judges of what is shocking to the religious sensibilities of the American public. The idea that the film maker should have the privilege <)\ putting out such of fensive pictures because he hurts nobody but himself is narrow and illogical. A bad picture hurt the whole industry. The frame politic of this country was reared on principles of religious toleration, and a film which will wound the religious feelings of any American sect should as a matter of course, be banished from the moving picture theatre by a representative American board of censors. *** THE moving picture and the moving picture theatre are so modern and recent that in most states in this Union there is no reference to it on the statute books. The next few years will see voluminous legislation for the moving picture and its theatres. To influence this legislation should be one of the most important duties of the organized exhibitors. When the ten der-hearted senators at Washington want to revise the wool schedule they invite all persons interested to be heard. This is as it should be under a representative system of government. The exhibitors, however, have never been invited to be heard nor have they even been heard uninvited in matters vitally concerning their bread and butter. The moving picture still is the lawful prey of the legislative "striker" or the hungry politician. This situation will undoubtedly come before the convention in Cleveland and should be carefully dealt with. If necessary let the exhibitors make a stir in politics, concentrate their efforts in a given campaign either on the election of an avowed champion of the picture or on the defeat of one of its known enemies. A decisive victory will make them respected as a power in politics ever after. CONVERSATION with exhibitors has convinced us that they would appreciate a more chaste style of advertising on the part of some of the film makers. Chaste and plain are interchangeable for the purposes of this paragraph. The exhibitors are without exception over twenty-one years old and may be presumed to be endowed with average intelligence and some experience with hard facts in this universe of hard knocks. A moderate statement and an avoidance of superlatives will generally carry more conviction than the cheap rhetoric of the press agent ; all of which is submitted for the general benefit of everybody. *#* A STRONG argument for the introduction of motion pictures in the public schools is advanced by Mrs. Perry Starkweather, of the Woman's Department of the State Labor Bureau of Minnesota. From investigations made in Duluth. Minneapolis and St. Paul it has been found that school children spend $80,000 yearly in admissions to picture shows. It is proposed by the Woman's Department that much of this money may be diverted by installing pictures in the schools and, by permitting the parents to attend the exhibitions, create social centers in the schools. It is proposed that the school authorities shall set aside a certain sum for this purpose. * Students of the educational picture are fast arriving at the conclusion that it has a definite place in the public