Reel Life (Sep 1913 - Mar 1914)

36 Reel Life Judge Stevens in "The Lackey" Majestic Spottisford Aitken and Runa Hodges In "The Two Slaves" Relia)ue Music and the "Movies " Is the moving picture craze harmful to music and the other arts? The pianist, Joseif Hofman, thinks so, and he cannot be accused of being prejudiced against mechanical inventions. As a boy his favorite toy was the typewriter ; a little older he turned to the automobile and found his joy in tinkering with motors and devising new appliances; very likely he will turn next to the flying machine. He has a mechanical bent and likes new inventions, yet he thinks the motion-picture has set artistic interest back many years. To stimulate tihe imagination, he is quoted by an interviewer for the New York Times as saying, "You must make a man guess ; give him a few outlines only, in such an attractive form that he will complete the structure for himself. The moving picture leaves nothing to guess at.'' This deadening efifect, he thinks, has a specially adverse ef¥ect upon music. People reason that if they go to concerts they have to study and work and guess, while the moving picture does it all ifor them, leaving them to sit back in comfort. It is all made so easy if or them. And the trouble of it is that it captivates every class, from the highest to the lowest in intellect. I go to them myself, so I am no better than anyone else. But in my case I think it does me no harm, for my mental qualities are settled and it cannot displace them. But you can see what it will do for the young generation to wthich it supplies the whole means of relaxation. The moving picture will work more harm here than it will in any other civilization, because it is exactly adapted to your demands. You want your impressions quick and complete. In Europe a man is the subject of newspaper comment, they describe him. Here they print his picture. The newspapers here are very close to the people's thoughts so there is no more accurate authority on what the people want than the newspapers. Of course, every newspaper here is different, and the difiference is apparent in details, but the general principles remain the same. That same atmosphere is carried into your artistic life, and who could imagine it otherwise? You associate artistic penformance here with excitement. You want your moods, whatever they are. to be excited to the fullest degree. Abroad they will listen to things which have an easy course and no particularly striking effects. But here you must be "waked up" every once in so often. It would be unfair to hold the motion picture responsible for a mental habit which he correctly describes, but it is true that it does satisfy better than almost any other form of entertainment a taste which many modern conditions have helped to develop. It is not alertness, and a quick curiosity as to a great variety of things that can be seen. This incessant appeal to the optic nerve is undeniably a stimulus, but unless supplemented its effect is likely to be superficial. One image follows another with too little time for reflection and ainalysis ; one set of ifaculties is stimulated at the expense of the rest. To this condition the art which Mr. Hofmann so admirably represents affords an excellent corrective, if only because it introduces sensations through another channel, and sets the mind to functioning in a different way. Educators have long been complaining that people are becoming too eye-minded, that pupils have difficulty in hearing straight or in remembering what they hear. It is a tendency which much reading increases, and the motion-picture habit, while it exercises the mind in a different way, is appealing, and even more strongly, to the visual sense. A good training should not be so one-sided ; it should exercise the ear as well as the eye. The importance in education of the rhythmic sense is coming to be recognized, and it is to be cultivated precisely through the arts which address the ear, notably music, poetry and the dance, which is inseparably associated with music. But the dance, which is quite sufficiently cultivated just now, while it lays an excellent foundation for the rhythmic arts, stops there ; its esthetic content, though genuine, is of a limiteil range, and it falls as far short Of music and verse as the motion picture falls short of painting and sculpture in the stimulation of the higher faculties. All these things are good, but they should be combined in the right proportions. Is there not some danger, as Mr. Hofmann suggests, that so brisk and energetic a people as the Americans may be tempted to stop short with those more superficial arts which give a quick and easy gratification of tlie senses? Thanhouser Thanhouser Kidlet and Harry Benham in "Coals of Fire"