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 #:
000146
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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94 The Soul of the Moving Picture ideas of real art have the fullest possible play — provided these ideas are effective and imbued with sufficient life to work in harmony with our business interests. The motion picture is art for the masses; there is not a shred of use to try to deny this, or to evade the conditions that this unpliable fact necessitates. Such decoration as it calls to its aid must, consequently, be of such simple, even primitive, impressiveness that its place in the motion picture becomes at once clear even to the untrained and obtuse eye. It is injudicious to launch out on any artistic enterprise which cannot be felt and appreciated by the masses. Such aesthetic hardiness as characterized Dr. Caligari, with its voguish art forms, can never be regarded as more than an unusual attempt which took the masses by surprise. Let that kind of moving picture become the rule rather than the exception, and the people who have hitherto flocked to the motion picture will fail to re-enter it and, bent on entertainment of some kind, they will betake themselves to the kino — to those narrow, moldy pits in which the canvases that are displayed consist of a spiced and peppery potpourri that is especially concocted to seduce the eye — canvases that are born of low but intense avidity, and which are given to such children of men as are most easily moved by the same impulse.