The soul of the moving picture (1924)

Record Details:

Title:
The soul of the moving picture
Date:
1924
Publisher:
New York : E. P. Dutton & Company
Volume:
The soul of the moving picture
Leaf #:
00043
Language:
English
Collection:
Books
Format:
Books
Contributor:
Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum
Sponsor:
Media History Digital Library
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
Date Added:
December 21, 2023
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Tools of the Trade 13 and originality is the sole ground on which art of any sort justifies its continued existence. Therefore, grant to the motion picture its mute play of moving bodies, for if you are unwilling to do this, you will doom the film to become merely a hackneyed, parrot-like imitation of the regular stage. But man is so constituted that he makes those inventions which he can make and not others, regardless always as to whether these inventions are beneficial to human kind or not; regardless as to whether they are of a beneficent or a malevolent nature. This proposition must be accepted, or it is impossible to account for the invention of the cannon. And so, in all probability quite soon, the speaking and resounding film will challenge the mute film to the arena. The outcome of the ensuing struggle is hard to predict. It is altogether probable that the film public will suddenly be brought to realize that the silent, speechless motion picture gives it more stimulation and more pleasure than the speaking film, for the latter will have nothing original about it. And it remains a solemn fact that the public always wants to see something original; it wants to be conducted straight to the visionary land of a colorful fancy where such adventures as men have never seen literally grow on the trees before them. Let us wait then and see how the world receives