World Film News and Television Progress (Apr 1936-Mar 1937)

Cinema, Radio, Television, Theatre T. S. Eliot (cont.) neath the action, which should be perfectly intelligible, there should be a musical pattern which intensifies our excitement by reinforcing it with feeling from a deeper and less articulate level. Everybody knows that there are things that can be said in music that cannot be said in speech. And there are things that can be said in poetic drama that caimot be said in either music or ordinary speech. The use of the chorus in the full sense has hitherto been foreign to English drama, except of course in a few plays, such as Swinburne's 'Atalanta in Calydon', which imitate the Greeks, though the essential function of the chorus, its place as a more or less detached observer or a commenter upon the action of the play, is performed by individual characters in some of Shakespeare's plays — for example, Feste the Clown in 'Twelfth Night', to whom it is given to end the play by singing a song to the audience. The chorus has an intermediate position between the characters of the play and their plot and the audience. It may be nearer to the audience, and so simply a commentator ; or it may be nearer to the action of the play, and so taking part in it. For instance, in one of W. H. Auden's plays, 'The Dog Beneath the Skin', the chorus is almost an interlude addressiag the audience. In his more recent play, 'Ascent of F.6', the chorus are two characters who are watching the play and are interested in it. In my own 'Murder in the Cathedral' the chorus is stiU more concerned with the action of the play. But the function of the chorus depends on the intention and design of that particular play. In writing the words for a chorus one finds that the larger it is the simpler their words have to be. But I have not time to say more about the special problem of the chorus. I only want to say that in making use of it we do not aim to copy Greek drama. There is a good deal about the Greek theatre that we do not know, and never shall know. But we know that some of its conventions cannot be ours. The characters frequently talk too long; the chorus has too much to say and holds up the action ; usually not enough happens ; and the Greek notion of climax is not otu'S. But the chorus has always fundamentally the same uses. It mediates between the action and the audience; it intensifies the action by projecting its emotional consequences, so that we as the audience see it doubly, by seeing its effect on other people. And it has the great advantage of being conveyed more fully in verse than in prose, and of supporting something of which I spoke at the beginning, the musical pattern, as well as the dramatic pattern, of the play. The Listener Hilda Matheson One reason, I suppose, why the B.B.C. have been able to follow an increasingly apologetic policy in regard to poetry is that there is no commercial, professional, or organised vested interest behind it. Music, about which the English have less reason to boast than about their poetry, commands the support of academies, professional musicians, the interests of theatre, opera, music publishers, and the entertainment industry. Poetry is too individual and intimate an art for organised expression. Yet those who understand and beUeve in its necessity might perhaps be more courageous than they have shown themselves in voicing their behefs, and more ready to study the special conditions and possibiUties of broadcasting. And the B.B.C. might consider whether they could not, in their own interests, enlist the active help of poets in developing a medium in which the spoken word is one of the two chief actors. Poetry requires performance no less than music, and there seems no reason why distinguished poets should not plan and present programmes as successfully as distinguished musicians have plaimed recitals of music. The Observer St. John Ervine There are sixteen cinemas in Cardiff, and by the time this article is published, a new "super-ofsuper cinema" will have been opened. Why, by the way, does not someone teach cinema people the English language? What sort of cinema is a super-of-super cinema? We shall presently have some iUiterate film person telling us that his pictures are the most perfect and the most best and the super-greatest pictures in the world — better, on doubt, than the best. Might not a collection be taken up at every cinema door to send cinema people to night schools? The Observer Philip Guedalla I am, by Act of ParUament, the British pubUc. I am the fellow you have to get 85. 6d. out of, by telling him that the six shilling seats are full up. I do not need to be told by four just men and one statutory woman what is a good picture and what is a bad picture. There is only one test of that — a machine that sits in front of a young lady in a glass box. I am by trade a writer of books. A book that no one wants to read is a bad book ; a picture that no one wants to see is a bad pictiu'e. C.E.A. {London Branch) Banquet The Spectator within ten years we may expect to find as many people enjoying television as now enjoy the radio. The Times has already told us of some of the delights in store for us. "The healthiest curiosity . . . will demand to see as much as possible of the real world, not of artificially composed entertainment." "The Coronation procession will obviously give a great opportunity to satisfy an eager public." "How delightful to watch Hammond bat and Larwood bowl. Perry play tennis and Padgham play golf." Such is the real world. Shall we also see rebeihons in Spain, misery in the depressed areas, concentration camps in Germany, the Scottsboro' boys being tried in the United States? It may be questioned. The Times' forecast of what will be good for us to see is no doubt entirely accurate. Yet one pleasure we can confidently add to The Times' list. Sir Thomas Inskip recently attributed the rise of modem dictatorships with some justice to the discovery of the microphone. It is perhaps a convenient way of taking the guilt from men and attributing it to objects; but even if it is not wholly true we need not deny the immense assistance which direct access to the ear of every citizen has given to demagogues in their ascent to power. They certainly will not miss the opportunities provided by television. Signor Mussolini's speeches are broadcast to the entire world ; there are few moments in Germany or Italy when some speech of Mussolini, Hitler, Goering, Goebbels is not being radiated. Soon now, wherever we are, to the music of their voices will be added the charm of their presence. Reflection on such prospects, or others of which we have been warned, is sobering. In his Modern Times Mr. Chaplin has given us a terrifying illustration of the possible uses of television — the face of the foreman suddenly projected on a screen and raising a menacing finger at the workman who has stayed too long in the washroom. Is it, then, only the King, the athlete, the dictator, the boss, or other figures well known to us now on the newsreel — the wife of the Cabinet Minister breaking a bottle of champagne on a battleship, the inspector of guards of honour, the poUtician making an election address, the Dionne quintuplets — whom we shall be allowed to see? If that is all we are shown, television will be, not an addition to our faculties, but merely a means of emphasising disproportionately certain aspects of life. This forecast is indeed depressing, and it may be hoped it is false. For in spite of pessimism it is not possible to regret this latest of the gifts of appUed science. Perhaps we may even become more hopeful by considering the development of the wireless by the B.B.C, which is now in control of television. It may be urged that many of the possibilities of wireless have not been exploited ; that as an instrument of education it has been used by us with far less success than by the dictators as an instrument of propaganda ; that, except in music, it has contributed little to the development or appreciation of the arts ; that it is apt to sacrifice what is best to what is merely innocuous, genteel, and soothing. . . . 13