Theory of the film : (character and growth of a new art) (1952)

34 VISUAL CULTURE FILM CULTURE The evolution of the human capacity for understanding which was brought about by the art of the film, opened a new chapter in the history of human culture. Just as musical hearing and musical understanding develop under the influence of music, so the development of the material richness of film art leads to a parallel development of film vision and film appreciation. The forms of expression of the silent film developed gradually, but the rate of development was fast enough and together with it the public developed the ability to understand the new form-language. We were witnesses not only of the development of a new art but of the development of a new sensibility, a new understanding, a new culture in its public. THE COLONIAL ENGLISHMAN There is a story about an English colonial administrator, who, during the first world war and for some time after it, lived in a backward community. He regularly received newspapers and periodicals from home, thus knew of films, and had seen pictures of the stars and had read film reviews and film stories; but he had never seen a motion picture. As soon as he reached a place where there was a cinema, he went to see a film. A number of children around him seemed to enjoy it very much, but he was completely baffled by what he saw and was quite exhausted when at last the film came to an end. 'Well, how did you like it?' asked a friend. Tt was very interesting,' he said, 'but what was it all about?' He had not understood what was going on, because he did not understand the form-language in which the story of the film was told, a form-language every town-dweller already knew at that time. THE SIBERIAN GIRL This story was told to me by a friend in Moscow. A cousin had arrived on a visit from a Siberian collective farm — an intelligent girl, with a good education, but who had never