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INTRODUCTORY I I
may he be said to be an artist; but the industry of entertainment-film manufacture has no concern with artists further than this, unless actors be included, they who are purely interpretive and as clay in a director's hands.
We come now to the second large issue, really the most important, on which the average avant-garde critic comes to grief. Films of outstanding merit must necessarily be rare, just as novels and paintings and symphonies of outstanding merit are rare. There is such a thing as the relativity of merit. A world peopled exclusively by Thomas Manns, Picassos, and Sibeliuses would be unseeing of Mann's architectonic prose style, Picasso's sense of design, and Sibelius' serenity. We appreciate these qualities now because they are above the average capacity. Men possessed of such are, as Goethe would say, natures. The average person is not a nature, but that does not disqualify him from comprehending a particular creative quality in others. It is easy to fall victim to the fallacy, as Busoni did, that art is only for artists. The universality of great art is the quality by which we come eventually to distinguish its greatness.
To expect gems of exquisite sensibility (whether they be stark and real, or romantic and rose-tinted) to be continually pouring out of Hollywood is prima facie ludicrous. The complicated business of film production, distribution, and exhibition is an industry like any other. A commodity is manufactured and offered for sale, and naturally every possible means is devised so that it shall make as much money as possible for