Photoplay (Feb - Jun 1921)

Photoplay Magazine toward the heights which is plainly so powerful and which the producers ol pictures n\ awkward!} to satisfj is, I repeat) truly admirable. It would be expected thai .1 so va-i and so popular public would demand above all amusements ol a light and entertaining kind, voluptuous or licentious pictures, satires against the power ol wealth, luxurious historical Bcenes, social propaganda, etc. But the American public will have nothing of the n^i, Every film that has attempted to fill such a demand has been silently bul pitiless!) scorned. This public wants, above all, virtue, idealism, justice, morality, and it particularly wants to feel the presence ol God. It is a fine thing, reassuring lor tin' presenl and hopeful lor the future, and it is therefore the more deplorable that thus far the producers have so seldom succeeded in presenting these things in a setting of good sense, with a little art. a little reality, a little good taste and a little beauty. For outside the films I have just cited, a human note was utterly lacking. It was the mare tenebrarum, the sea of darkness, of inexcusable and unlimited stupidity. There were spectacles scarcely worthy of apes, idling to such a point of imbecility, of silliness, of coarseness, of incoherence, and especially of revolting ugliness, that one wonders shamefully why he has come into this gorgeous place where such things are exhibited. One wonders, too. that human beings endowed with brains and with the most elementary feeling or taste will waste months of work, mobilize hundreds of actors and employees, and spend from a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars to produce each one of these inanities. And there is yet a more serious question: how can millions of other human beings (statistics say that 18.01)0,000 people go to the movies every day), equally equipped with brains /i. and sensibilities, waste in their turn their leisure hours (those most sacred hours ol the day, ;..'," for they count most in the development and education of man), how can they bear to waste those hours contemplating those same inanities, and how can they even prefer them to the vastly more interesting sights thai any glimpse of street or landscape or sky might afford? There is the secret of the disdain expressed by the intellectual elite; there is what we could not understand in Europe, where we get only the best American films, after a thorough sifting, and after being pruned of their tedious lengthiness, which the producers say is necessary in America. A surprising fact is that this silliness and madness is nearly always cleverly staged. The photography, technically speaking, is generally admirable, the landscapes wonderfully selected, the interiors true to life and furnished in excellent taste; and above all, with rare exceptions, the acting is remarkably good. The American actor, largely because he has not been trained in a conservatory nor deformed by stage work, is better than the French or Italian actor. He is more life-like, more restrained, more profound and more sincere. His gestures and facial expressions are seldom exaggerated or false or conventional. He is unacquainted with the stock formulas for fright, joy, surprise, anger and indignation — It would be worth Pantheon for the 37 i he stage trii ks so common among hia European fellow-, im ■ pi the trulj great, ones. But these qualities are all wa ted, thrown auav in the vacuum ol a scenario without head < n tail, without even the modicum ol interest put >• ed by a human inci d.iit related bv a man of ordinary intelligence. For tin greal defeel ol the American film, which will be it death it no ninedv i forthcoming, is the incredible weak of the scenario. After many years ol heedlessness, the pro ducers are at lasl beginning to be worried aboul the dat that threatens their business. They realize that the public, Stuffed with stories that grow more and more ridiculous, will linallv give up. Hut what i t.> be done? The consumption ol scenarios is staggering. The screen i a kind ol insatiable monster that devours a score ol Mories every week, and there i> no literature in the world that can furnish weekly a scon ol good Morion. The slock ol old novels and short Btories i-> almost used Up and moreover the be-l of ihe novels, being primarily psychological and literary, are lacking in action and therefore hardly lend themselves to photographic translation. The stage, a better source ol material, is quite barren in America. It is clumsy, rudimentary, and decidedly inferior to the foreign stage. As to the European stage -aside from the English, which has already yielded all it possessed —it treats, in general, only sexual questions, particularly adultery, which the American public wants none of. In the face of this scarcity and with the praiseworthy object of raising the level of the scenario a little, some of the big establishments decided to appeal to writers of more or less reputation and ask them to write for the screen — occasionally if not exclusively. Some of them ac cepted and wen bravely to work. They realized thai this V manner of communicating their ideas was truly a new form of art — the strangest, the mosl ^k powerful and perhaps the mosl fruitful known, since its mvs '• A teriotis and inexhaustible aids are light and life. It was at least an interesting experiment. I have no idea of disclosing here things that were told me in confidence, nor shall I enter into personalities. Moreover, I am not speaking of my own experience, but o what I saw and heard going on about me. Well. I saw several of these scenarios. They made no pretense of revolutionizing the art of the screen. They brought no new revelation — lor revelations in art as in religion are less frequent and less facile than is common!} supposed. Bui ii can be said with certainty thai precisely because they were written specially lor projection, by writer who had given study to the peculiar technique ol conveying thoughts and feeling through pictures, these scenario. were palpably superior to those taken from even the besl novels; and at all hazards they were as good as the lour or live good films adapted from the stage which I mentioned above and which had achieved a popular success that surprised the producer-. The directors of the big establishments and their technica advisers — good busines; men, and to till the truth better business men than artists — looked at these scenarios and agreed that they were indeed meritorious — but rather risky. However, before a decision (Continued on page 10f) while to found a sort of preservation of truly fine museum or films.