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No director has one mere to raise the artistic standard of British pictures than George Pearson, whose genius is stamped on every production that goes to the screen under the Welsh-Pearson-Gaumont banner.
Pictures and P/'c/\jrepuer
DECEMBER 1924
The Art of
f George Pearson
When the history of British filmmaking comes to be written, as it assuredly must, one of the few bright spots in the unhappy compiler's heartbreaking task will be the chapters headed " George Pearson, the Man and His Art." The man, because he has the soul of a poet, imaginative fire far, far ahead of his century, and a full and complete understanding of human nature. His Art, because it is simple, original, and sincere, illuminated always by unexpected and vivid flashes of genius and representative of the best of its kind that England can offer.
George Pearson is a Londoner who left his Oxford college to become a teacher. Seeing clearly that, even in its days of infancy, the screen was the greatest educationist in the world, he made it his hobby. He seriously studied its possibilities and its drawbacks as exemplified by the work of the early British pioneers, then commenced writing scenarios. From writing he came to producing. Came and saw and conquered, but not readily and not all at once.
He takes his work entirely seriously, too, witness a few extracts from a memorable speech he made in nineteen-twentythree. " What are the greatest obstacles in the development of the screen to-day ? These : A complete misunderstanding of the word ' Art,' a total absence of standards, an entire
misapprehension of the foundations upon which art must firmly stand, and a series of human obstacles to art, the critic, the scenarist, the studio workers, the film printer, and, greatest of all, the actor and producer.
" I plead for the art of the screen which is something so great that 1 ache with longing to free this great dumb
thing that is with us, this great dumb
giant. To strike off the gyves of the spoken word and all its puny conventionality. The kinema is the greatest, the most tremendously powerful force for the bringing about of that universal brotherhood of the world that mankind has ever known, and only by living for it, giving oneself to it, housing it, seeing it, and believing in it, can great things from it be achieved."
Feiv people who watch a short close-up
on the screen realise the patient care and
rehearsing necessary to secure a particular
shade of expression.
The artistic lighting and draping of sets is a feature of all Pearson's productions.