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THE CONTENT OF FILMS 'amusement' art a form of art which appears at the same time everywhere: in France, Germany, America, Soviet Russia, and the East; in China, Japan, and India. This is not only a phenomenon of the ultimate victory of a technical and industrial civilisation, for the national characteristics of film in any country, including, for example, China, are distinct — in spite of Hollywood's 'internationalism'. Is it not possible that the form of the cinema is also a further phase in the art-cycle which is characterised by the stages of epos, theatre, novel as we find it in all European societies?1 All these art structures are related to specific social patterns in a continuing process of 'democratisation'. Why do they arise everywhere?
It is not possible to answer this question within the compass of this book, yet it is precisely the answer to such a question which may provide the adequate ramification and perspective for a sociological appreciation of film.
I found a significant confirmation of the immense vistas of a film sociology in Albert Thibaudet's brilliant Histoire de la Litterature Frangaise (Paris 1936), where we read the following remarks in his concluding paragraph: 'Le jeune auteur, plus que de la litterature, s'inquiete aujourd'hui du cinema. Consciemment ou inconsciemment, l'influence de l'art nouveau s'est insinuee dans une partie notable de la litterature dramatique d'apres-guerre. D'abord le cinema, soit l'art du mouvement, a fourni au spectateur moyen un champ d'entrainement, il s'est habitue a des perceptions plus rapides, ce qui a permis a l'art dramatique de deblayer: le theatre des jeunes auteurs ne vit plus dans la meme duree que le theatre des anciens auteurs, et les dernieres traces des longues expositions ont disparu. En second lieu les jeux de physionomie ont remplace ou eclaire le dialogue. Enfin il y a certaine recherche de la qualite et de la nouveaute qu'interdisent au cinema des considerations materielles, la necessite de s'adresser a un gros public, et surtout au public de province: c'est au theatre, infiniment plus souple, plus affranchi des materialites de machinerie, meme d'argent, qu'il appartient de faire fructifier litterairement le capital du vogue du cinema.' (p. 563).
Obviously the great French critic writes with the French literary scene in his mind. Paris is for France the traditional centre of art. All the same, he clearly has realised the new rapidity of the cinema which forces us to quicker 'perceptions'. 'Physiognomy' has largely taken the place of the subtle expression of the actor. In short, the 1 Cf. R. M. Meyer, Die Weltliteratur im 20. Jahrhundert, Berlin 1 9 1 3, pp. 220 sqq,
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