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THE SCREEN WRITER
humor, bitterness, grandeur and love — in a word everything that we have. We may not all be equally rich, but we are all equally generous. A film — and I am speaking here only of films of quality, the only ones that count, — a film always means a great deal of ambition. Always there is something of ourselves in these more or less successful films which, as you very well know, commit us and only us, writers and direc¬ tors who spend our lives making the gift of ourselves to the unknown! . .
And now in Washington certain people have sold our souls.
Can souls really be worth all that on the international market?
Is there really anywhere a set of market quotations on the value of souls?
Well, these miserable agreements which spell out our death sen¬ tence in absentia — we simply do not accept them, and we come to you as friends asking you to take our defense to a court of appeals.
Please understand me: there is no question here of I know not what sordid competition and I know not what commercial and financial quarrel. American comrades, we gladly lend you our screens — not quite so much as some people would like, but very gladly, — and with¬ out any ulterior motive.
But then, lend us yours.
In civilized countries, one act of politeness calls for another.
We receive you in the grand ballroom after having led you up the stairway of honor.
Don’t receive us shamefacedly on a step of the servants’ entrance . . .
We no longer want to be undesirable aliens in America.
. . . Yes, yes, of course in New York, from time to time, through some overwhelming ruse, a French film runs in a little specialized theatre .... a sort of cinema of tolerance . . . Immediately our papers tell our indifferent public about this phenomenon in the column devoted to quirks of the news, unusual happenings and slips that pass in the night.
. . . This is no way of doing things.
In order to live, the cinema must travel.
We would be very happy to be on your screens just as many days as you are on ours . . .
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