Plan for cinema (1936)

Page scan 000116 from Plan for cinema

Record Details:

Title:
Plan for cinema
Date:
1936
Publisher:
London : J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.
Volume:
Plan for cinema
Leaf #:
000116
Language:
English
Collection:
Books
Format:
Books
Contributor:
Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum
Sponsor:
Media History Digital Library
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
Date Added:
June 27, 2024
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CHAPTER III OPERA AND CINEMA . . . the monstrous and unholy hybrid, begotten upon music by drama, which is the opera of Strauss, Puccini, and most other writers of to-day, is not a form at all. It is neither drama, music, nor anything whatsoever.— Cecil Grey, Survey of Contemporary Music. § i. Of all the arts, opera has probably had more mud thrown at it than any. The pros and cons of it as a genuine form have been discussed so many times, and in such elaborate detail, that it would be redundant to enter into them again here at any length. Suffice it to repeat the time-worn axiom thatjt is a matter of accepting a convention or not accepting it. People do not sing during the normal course of the daily round. Neither is art a copy of life. After that, there seems nothing more to be said by way of apology. Not to accept the convention of opera that the characters in the drama sing their emotions instead of speaking them, is as if we swept painting on to the rubbish heap for being two-dimensional, when we are conscious of three dimensions in life. The damage which has been done to the fuller acceptance of the genuineness of a form which has given us one or two of the greatest masterpieces of all art is mainly due to chasing after the unattainable false ideal of theatrical realism. ioo