We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
THE RETURN OF A RATIONALIST
“You’re rationalizing,” he said. “You want to go back but first you want to make sure it’s acceptable to your conscience.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “That may be part of it. But I also should like to see an old misunderstanding corrected. Contrary to what you may belieye, it takes ingenuity and some persistence to supply a camera with eighty-five minutes of non-stop images. A large body of men have spent considerable time learning how to do that properly, learning a certain technique.”
“1 suppose there was technique in that abortion we saw tonight, hah?” he leered, closing in.
“No,” I said glibly. “And for that we can blame the American audience as much as Hollywood. Did anyone sitting out there offer a criticism or rise up in its defense? D’you suppose anyone went back to his tent to write Hurry-Up Pictures, Inc., demanding more thoughtful movies? Or that enough of them will make themselves heard? Indiffer¬ ence is the national vice. After all, most audiences get just about what they deserve. Why pick on the screen writers, few of whom have any illusions about turning out ageless drama?”
You can see how I was carrying the torch around in those days, lighting up some very dark places, but my friend wasn’t one who was easily persuaded. It went on like this every time we met. Occasionally I fed him the lines. It always ended in an impasse. No resilience anywhere.
★
It was more than three years before I saw my friend from Brooklyn College again. By that time the war was over. Meanwhile, I had had a fine opportunity to see a good many motion pictures in a variety of Army and Navy theaters from Labrador to India, and it had occurred to me that a whole new generation now existed which might look at the cinema with an entirely different attitude when it arrived home. It was really remarkable the way the Americans overseas went for the movies: no matter how uncomfortable the theater, or old the picture, the thing to do was to go and to look. Maybe it was a subconscious effort to be iden¬ tified with home, then again maybe it was just a way of combatting the
31