The soul of the moving picture (1924)

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Introduction earth are and remain, first of all, business concerns that must pay. Film art is expensive, and no gratuitous distributor of private funds is going to give one penny which will not bear him interest. If there be anyone so blind as not to be able to grasp this simple principle, he is unable to grasp the underlying principle of the motion picture as an art. To fail to recognize commercial success as the basic condition on which film art rests is to call down upon one's head the irritation that ensues from ineffectual grumbling. Consequently, the much lauded redeemer of the film will be he, and he only, who can create what is at once of enduring artistic value and financial potentiality. And every film will have this artistic and commercial success which glows with real passion because it has been wrung from powerful feeling. The art, the very soul of the motion picture, cherishes no desire for subtle, intellectual form or forms. It longs, indeed, for a soul form of elementary force. This is true, for the unique though inexhaustible domain of the motion picture is the eternal feelings of man, the initial and primeval feelings that rise from out of the senses and mount to the soul. Love or hate, and the joy, sorrow, grief, hope, lamentation and good fortune that emanate XV