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I Shilling 5 Francs I Mark 35 Cents
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Copyriclf 1928 by Pool
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Editor : K. Macphef< son Assistant Editor : Bryher Published by POOL Riant Chateau - Territet - Savitzerland
CONTENTS
As Is
An Interview : A . Room .
Joan of Arc
Crashing the movies La Tragedie de la Rue. On being Bored with Films Scenes d'exterieurs an Studio Continuous Performance .
Notes
British scenarios in particular Mr. Ocrilvie : An Interview
Comment and Review
Kenxlth Macphersox. E. Hellmund-Waldow. H. D.
P. B. Wadsworth. Robert Herring. Ernest Betts. J. Lexauer. Dorothy Richardson. Freddy Chevalley.
OSWELL BlAKESTON.
R. H.
Paris Correspondent : Marc Allegret. London Correspondent : Robert Herring. Hollywood Correspondent : Clifford Howard. Xew York Editor : Symon Gould Geneva Correspondent : F. Chevalley.
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
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Vol. Ill - No I
July 1928
AS IS
BY THE EDITOR
With this number Close Up embarks on a second year. Its first has been sufficiently successful to make us confident that its future is assured, and its value recognised among the people, rapidly coming forward to fight for better fihns, who have sound, logical insight into the great. ... I will not say possibilities, for these have long been proved. . . .but oppor- tunities for development of the ver}^ best screen art into universal recognition.
Already Close Up has done much to realise its aims. Its second year will see fruition of much that it has already worked for. The ball has been set successfully rolling and goes on gathering speed. We do feel that we have brought together, as we first set out to do, hundreds of people whose individual belief in the cinema was crushed and powerless
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and alone. We have helped people to realise how much is being done, has been done, and can be done to give them films which are a true contribution to the progress not only of art or education, but of the world itself. And this will seem a far fetched statement only to those who pick up Close Up for the first time to read these words. "Old stagers" — they soon becom.e that in this world of dizzj' movement — will know what I mean, and know too how much the screen has accomplished, in sociology (take Mother or Bed and Sofa) in education (take particularly specialised films for students of medicine, surgery, physiology, etc., and in a broader sense, Moana, Grass, Mt Everest, etc) in art (take Jeanne Xey, La Tragedie, Silhne — a dozen others) in historj' (Potemkin, The End of St. Petershiirg, La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc — though I myself reject it firmly — ) in science, enlightenment, amuse- ment, poetr}/, design, refuge and delight. Naturally one does not categorise except as illustration. Almost any one of the films I quote is each and every of the random classes chosen. Mother, for instance, (the Russian Mother naturalh'. I have a sneaking respect for Belle Bennett, but not for her film of the same name) is certainly sociological, educative, art, science, enlightenment, amusement, poetry, design, refuge and delight. And in the long run any progress is world pro- gress, so don't let us pick a quarrel over that.
The first natural prejudice that had to be overcome, or ra- ther, the first impression of the public was that a journal devoted only to film art w^ould be in the main limiting, and even a little bit pernicious, in that it would be getting away
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from facts and glorifying the bizarre, the stunted, the absurd — ^that, in short, it would have the precious sterility of every clique or group taking an ''ism" for its torch.
It did not take long to prove that Close Up found "isms" as old-fashioned, dull and pompous as any progressive body must do ; that far from being caught in the just post-war flood of conventional freakishness, whose final aim was still destruction, it was suggesting that they were as responsible for the contempt of the trade toward so called '"artistic" films as were custard pie and whitewash slinging farces for the su- perstition that films were for the guttersnipe.
In a v/ord, Close Up was determined to be quite liberal, and to be a sort of battleground. It scorned dogmatism and the tiresome proselytising of the ''fashions-in-ideas" groups, •'This season the waist-line of thought will be slightly raised, and skirts a soupcon shorter" was the kind of thing at which it might have levitated any amount of justifiable wrath. Xot that it would have been necessary, since the proof of such and all puddings is in the eating, if one may make bold
enough to be so verbally dashing, yet here we were
being accused of just that very thing we most certainly had no illusions about.
This stopped pretty soon, since it became evident that we were level headed and broad minded. Then people began to be friendly. Then they sent in ideas, and suggestions, which, whenever possible, we acted upon. It was and is desired to make Close Up a really useful organ to all who be- lieve in the film, w^hether the}^ are spectators only, or v/or-
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king toward a means to have good films shown. It is their views we want, and their needs we desire to fill. If our moti- ves were in the least meretricious we would need to appear aloof and Olympian. As it is we want to bring all groups together, and make them a unit, since massed strength is. . . well, we all know about the need for massed strength. And, lest I be accused of tooting my own trumpet (which I never could see was a. fault) think only how much more I might have tooted it if this had been an advertisment page instead of an editorial !
With all its liberality, however. Close Up desires officially to state that it was in no way responsible for the development of the "talkie". This monstrosity is descending full speed upon us and I expect that most of us will be driven to the wayside movie house. Dolores Costello in Tenderloin is surely enough in itself without Dolores' voice honking mechanically through a loud speaker. Bad enough to have one's cinematic sense of criticism laid to waste, but when literary judgment too is called upon to judge such stuff the air really does become sulphurous. Let Londoners thank God for Mr. Ogilvie, whose views on the cinema you may read about in this issue. And what about the universal language of the screen ? However^ do not let us forget that we are liberal minded.
I have remembered it with Dreyer's Jeanne d'Arc, and feel justified to state, in view of the article by H. D. that although this is going to be hailed as the masterpiece of the screen, and the epic achievement of all time, I don't think it is, and advise readers to be wary in their criticism of it. Great it is, stu-
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pendous it is, stupifying it is — so stupifying that it almost does stupify one into not seeing what an incorrigibly senti- mental and softly romantic rendering it is. We are not given the superb sociological document we believe we are given. Judges are again gangsters. Joan is so lovely with her vi- sions all departed from her that you are apt to forget that genius is never quite so at the mercy of mob. Sneering gangs- ters too would have been quickly placed in the mind of a veteran campaigner. This film ignores history-, except that it uses some of Joan's answers, and has her burnt. Stripped of its peculiarly potent trimmings and technique it is as base in conception as Seventh Heaven, with its whipped innocent, its blowsy drunkard sifter, its catering to the sheer squalid luxury of pity.
Dreyer's film is great however because Dreyer does under- stand grief. He understands beauty and the awfulness of mercy, but he does not seem to understand that accusation is part of daily life, and that casual brutality is not the pan- tomimic hob-goblinish snarling of debased and elderly mons- ters. Joan was the victim of law and order, not of hooli- ganism. Pity at any price is a bad principle. To any who have an historical, political, sociological, or even logical flair, Joan will be a failure. We are tired of seeing the War anyhow, but how insufferable it would be if we saw it tricked out in a romanticism that made it just a sensation to wring our hearts. So with Joan. The attitude toward her femi- nine incorruptibibity is almost Dickensonian. And if you like such women you deserve to.
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For camera work, for uniformity, for tricks, for obvious sincerity oi purpose, for lovely pictures, for Joan herself, this picture has never been surpassed. But all the hopelessness of her case is -o much less hopeless than the one close up of the woman in Mother who simpering through lorgnettes at the trial r.i ^he bo\', whispers relisliingly to her neighbour "He's b > be convicted."" The whole film is told in the
first five minutes.
Kexxeth ]^1acphersox.
AN INTERVIEAV : A. ROOM
A. Room, who is noted among the Russian cinema directors for the independance and individuality of his ideas, is to be given charge of the direction of the first Russo-German fihn, for the D^vussa societ}' of Berlin.
The film in question will be Boide de Suif of Maupassant. This well known story of the French novehst \^ill afford A. Room the chance to make the most of his incontestable ta- lent as artist and director.
Room's special gifts were particularly e^fident in his fihn Bed and Sola, which came afier The DeatJi Boat which had shown ahead}' great promise. He owes his master}^ to a per-
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feet knovvledge of the character of his actors as well as to a rare aptitude for seizing the psychological aspect of human situa- tions, without over-dramatising them^ however, and faith- fully keeping in them all their artistic drive.
Room is a man apart, altogether apart : his technique is de- rived from a new conception of cinematographic art in the sense that it accords a fundamental value to a certain sere- nity of rhythm and the frequent repetition of pp.uses.
I was able to see Mr Room personally and here is a sum- mary of what he was kind enough to tell me.
•'We have always appreciated in the Russian cinema world, the value and force of German films, which have unfailingly been our inspiration in the realm of technique ; as for tha,t I am sure that Germany has been able during these last two or three years to realise the efforts that we have accomphshed in Russia, which have been successful in spite of the precarious means at our disposal, and able to give our fiJm-S a truly artis- tic form. It seems to me that the universal cause of film^s suf- fers actually from a sharp division, or shall we say from too accentuated a dispersal of the forces at our command.
We can reasonably expect that in two or three years things will change and that certain adjustments will help sensibly the actual situation. When two private companies have the chance to film together, the results obtained surpass all the most optimistic previsions.
I am ver}/ happy to have received the task, however bur- dened with responsibilities, of turning the first Russo-German film. For various reasons, and chiefly artistic ones, v/e deci-
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ded to film the story Boule de Suif by Maupassant. Because of these considerations we have shghtly re-worked some passa- ges of the novel, in modernising it ever such a little.
As a quite simple director, however much they may have assigned to me a distinct and independant place in the w^orld of Russian films, I will tell you also what are the opinions which prevail in m}^ personal conception of the cinema, a conception in which I sincerely believe and which I shall put in practice during the realisation of the new film of which we are speaking.
I believe that the principal value of the film has been confer- red on it by the diverse and complex character of human emo- tions.
Passion and feeling alone, have right of entry into films and I am not content myself with registering the completely super- ficial manifestations of emotion but to seize them entirely and show them in everyday life as they really are.
I want my camera to be like Roentgen, whose raj^s pierce through to the innermost of our being. I want to project on the screen the very foundation of man in order that the ana- lysis of determinate sensations, of acts and thoughts, are trans- lated into luminous images. The academic professor Bech- serevv^ who died recently, taught me long ago the science of hu- man reflexes.
I devoted several j^ears to the study of determinism, of psychic states, of the theory of repressions, of Freud in parti- cular, and of diverse manifestations of fear, anguish, sorrow and love. All that I learnt has actually been of great ser- vice to me in the preparation of my actors.
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A man who appears on the screen ought not to have a wax anatomy and we must feel that he is hving intensely, that his heart beats and that warm blood courses through his veins. Human actions are not objective and are modified by the so- cial influences of the social milieu to which the person belongs, whom we desire to represent. I have not neglected, either, this fact in working.
Besides this, I am convinced of the value of an ordered and calm rhythm in the play of the actors and in frequent pauses. I would even say that the pause has a very definite bearing on the action of a film."
« Nous avons toujours apprecie, dans le monde des cineastes russes, la va- leur et la force de films allemands, dont nous nous sommes touCours inspires dans le domaine technique... au reste, je suis certain que I'Allemagne a pu se rendre compte, dans le cours de ces 2 ou 3 demieres annees, de 1' effort ac- compli par nous autres, Russes, qui avons reussi, en depit des moyens sou- vent precaires dont nous disposons, a donner a nos films une forme reelle- ment artistique. 11 me parait que la cause universelle du film souffre actueUe- ment d'un separatisme aigu, ou mieux d'une dispersion trop accentuee des forces disponibles.
{( Nous pouvons raisonnablement esperer que dans deux ou trois ans les choses changeront de tournure et que certaines dispositions amelioreront sensiblement la situation actuelle. Lorsque deux compagnies privees ont I'oc- casion de filmer en commun, les resultats atteints depassent les previsions les plus optimistes.
« J'ai recu avec joie la tache, lourde cependant de responsabilite, de tour- nerle premier film de collaboration russo-allemande. Pour des considerations diverses, artistiques au premier abord, nous avons decide de filmer la nou- velle « Boule de Suif de Maupassant. Bn vertu de ces considerations memes, nous avons legerement remanie cerains passages de cette nouvelle, en la mo- demisant quelque peu.
« Bn ma qualite de modeste regisseur, bien que Ton m'assigne une place dis- tincte et independante dans les milieux du film russe, je vous dirais encore
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quelles sont les opinions qui prevalent dans ma conception personnelle du ci- nema conception en laquelle je crois sincerement et que je mettrai en pratique dans la realisation du nouveau film dont il est question ci-dessus.
(( J'ESTIMK QUK I.A VAI.KUR PRIXCirALK DU FILM LUI EST CONFKREE TAR I,A diversity: et la COMr-LEXITE DU CARACTE:rE et DES emotions HUMAIXES.
« La rassion, la sensibieite, seules ont droit d'acces au film, et je ne me contente pas d'enregistrer la manifestation toute exterieure des sentiments, mais bien plutot de les saisir et de les montrer tels qu'ils sont en realite, dans la vie de tons les jours.
(( Mon appareil de prise de vue, ie veux le rendre semblable a celui de Roent- gen, dont les rayons inquisiteurs percent notre nature intime. J 'aspire a pro- ieter sur la toile le fond meme de I'homme afin que I'anah^se des sensations determinantes, des pensees et des actes se traduise en images lumineuses. Le Professeur academicien Bechserew, decede actuellement, me familiarisa jadis avec la science des reflexes huniains.
(( J'ai consacre quelques annees a I'ctude du determinisme des etats pvSy- chiques, de la theorie des refoulements de Freud notamment, et des manifes- tations diverses de la peur, de I'angoisse, de la tristesse et de I'amour. Ce que i'en ai appris m'est tres utile actuellement pour la preparation des acteurs*
« L'bomme qui apparait sur I'ecran ne doit pas avoir une anatomic de cire et 11 faut que nous le sentions vivre intensement, qu'il nous prouve de suite que son coeur bat et projette un sang chaud dans ses veines. Les actions humaines ne vSont evidemment pas objectives et subissent I'influence du milieu social auquel appartient le personnage que nous voulons representer. Je n'ai garde^ naturellement, de negliger ce fait en travaillant.
« D'autre part, ie suis convaincu de la valeur d'un rythme ordonne et calme dans le jeu des acteurs, et des pauses frequentes. Je dirai meme sans . hesitation que la pause dans Taction d'un film a une portee tres definie.
E. Hellmund-Waldow.
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JOAN OF ARC
"The Passion and Death of a Saint" is a film that has caused me more unrest, more spiritual forebodings, more intellectual rackings, more emotiona.1 torment than any I have yet seen. We are presented with Jeanne d'Arc in a series of pictures, por- traits burnt on copper, bronze if you will, anj how obviously: no aura of quattrocento gold and gold dust and fieurs-de-lys in staight hieratic pattern, none of your fresco that makes the cell of Savonarola make the legend of Savonarola bearable even to this day. Jeanne d'Arc is done in hard clear line, remorse- less, poignant, bronze stations of the cross, carved upon mediae- . val cathedral doors, bronze of that particular sort of mediaeval fanaticism that says no and again no to any such weakening incense as Fra x\nge]ico gold and lilies of hea^ enly comfort. Why did and why didn't this particular Jeanne d'Arc so touch us .? Jeanne d'Arc takes us so incredibly far that having taken us so far, we are left wondering why didn't this exquisite and superb piece of screen dramatisation take us further ? Carl Dreyer, a Dane, one of the most superb of the magnificently growing list of directors, is responsible for this odd two-edged sort of feeling. His film, for that, is unique in the annals of film • art. The passion of the Jeanne is superbly, almost mediumisti-
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cally portrayed by M^^^ Falconetti. Heart and head are given over to inevitable surrender. Heart broke, head bowed. But another set of curious nerve-reactions were brought into play here. Why is it that my hands inevitably clench at the memo- ry of those pictures, at the casual poster that I pass daily in this lake-side small town ? Is it necessary to be put on guard ? Must I be made to feel on the defence this way and why ? Also why must my very hands feel that they are numb and raw and bleeding, clenched fists tightened, bleeding as if beating at those very impregnable mediaeval church doors ?
For being let into the very heart, the very secret of the mat- ter, we are left out of. . . something. I am shown Jeanne, she is indeed before me, the country child, the great lout of a hulk- ing boy or girl, blubbering actually, great tears coursing down round sun-hardened, wind-hardened, oak-tree hardened face outline and outline of cheek hollow and the indomitable small chin. Jeanne is first represented to us, small as seen from above, the merest flash of sturd}^ boy figure, walking with chained ankles toward judges (too many) seated in slices above on ecclesiastical benches. Jeanne is seen as small, as intolera- bly sturdy and intolerably broken, the sort of inhuman show- ing up of Jeanne that from the first strikes some note of de- fiance in us. Now why should we be defiant ? I think it is that we all have our Jeanne, each one of us in the secret great cavernous interior of the cathedral (if I may be fantastic) of the subconscious. Now another Jeanne strides in, an incompa- rable Jeanne, indubitably a more Jeanne-ish Jeanne than our Jeanne but it just isn't our Jeanne. Worse than that it is a
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Dey Gilbe Pass, Photos : Derussa
Die Todesharke (The Death Ship) Alexander Room's film made for Prometheus-Film previously to his Bed and Sofa, and ranking as one of the few really best films. See in this issue an interview with
A. Room.
Die Todesbarne was written by Leonidow, and ptiotographed by B. Slawinsky. The cast includes W. Jaroslawetz as the ship's engineer, A. Rawitsch as his wife. W. Ludwinskij and A. Matz- ewitsch as'^their sons. Other names below.
An old sentence, with a shot in the back to make sure of it. Furth- er principals are Kartaschewa as Anna Kutzowa, N. Saltikoff B. Sagorski, I,. Jurjenew, A. Charlamoff (the captain) and O. Gel- newa as a mother.
Two vivid impressions of the "orgy" in Jeanne Xey whose recent showing at the Avenue Pavilion in London was so great a success despite the remorseless clipping ordered by the censor.
Hans Stiiwe in Schinderkannes, the Prometheus film made by Curt Bernhardt. A review and stills of this excellent film have already appeared in our pages.
Schinderhannes (stripped left) flogged and despairing, is found by a gang of thieves in the woods. On right (in black) Albert
Steinriick.
Qualen der Xacht (Toyjiieiiis of the Xight) another Curt Bernhardt film which has brought him much recognition. Wilhelm Dieterle
plays lead.
Qualen der Nacht. Wilhelm Dieterle and Alexander Granach.
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better Jeanne, a much, much better, more authentic Jeanne that our Jeanne ; scathing reahsm has gone one better than mere imaginative ideahsm. We know we are out-witted. This is a real, real, Jeanne (poor Jeanne) little mountain Newfound- land puppy, some staunch and true and incomparably loyal creature, something so much more wonderful than any grey- hound outline or sleek wolf-hound is presented us, the very in- carnation of loyalty and integrity. . .dwarfed, below us, as if about to be tramped or kicked into a corner by giant soldier iron-heeled great boots. Marching boots, marching boots, the heavy hulk of leather and thong-like fastenings and cruel nails. . .no hint of the wings on the heels of the legions that followed the lily-banner ; the cry that sang toward Orleans is in no way ever so remotely indicated. We are allowed no comfort of mere beatific lilies, no hint of the memory of lover- comrade men's voices, the comrades that Jeanne must have lov- ed loyally, the perfect staunch child friend, the hero, the small Spartan, the very Telisila upon the walls of that Argos, that is just it. This is no Telisila upon the walls of Argos, no Athene who for the moment has laid aside her helmet for other lesser matters than that of mere courage and fidelity. This is an Athene stripped of intellect, a Telisila robbed of poetry, it is a Jeanne d'Arc that not only pretends to be real, but that is real, a Jeanne that is going to rob us of our own Jeanne.
Is that the secret of this clenching of fists, this sort of spi- ritual antagonism I have to the shaved head, the stares, de- fiant bronze-statue, from the poster that I pass on my way to market ? Is it another Jeanne in me (in each of us) that
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starts warily at the picture, the actual portrait of the mediae val girl warrior ? The Jeanne d'Arc of Carl Dreyer is so perfect that we feel somehow cheated. This must be right. This must be right. . .therefore by some odd equivocal twist of sub- conscious logic, / must be wTong. I am put in the wrong, there- fore I clench my fists. Heaven is within yoj. . .therefore I stand staring guiltily at bronze figures cut upon a church door, at f reizes upon the under-gables of a cathedral that I must &tare up at, see in sHces as that incomparable Danish artist made me see Jeanne in his perhaps over-done series of odd slic- ed portraits (making particularly striking his studies of the judges and the accusers of Jeanne, as if seen by Jeanne her self from below) ower whelming bulk of ecclesiastical political accusation. I know in my mind that this is a great tour de force, perhaps one of the greatest. But I am left v/ar^/, a little defiant. iVgain why and why and wh}' and just, just why ? Why am I defiant before one of the most exquisite and consistent works of screen art and perfected craft that it has been our immeasurable privilege to witness ?
One, I am defiant for this reason (and I have worked it out carefully and with agony I and you and the baker's boy be- side me and Mrs. Captain Jones-Smith/s second maid and our own old Nanna and somebody else's gardener and the hone\"- moon boy and girl and the old sporting colonel and the tennis teacher and the crocodile of young ladies from the second pen- sion to the left as you turn to the right by the market road that branches off before the stall where the old lady sells gentians and single pinks and Alpenrosen each in their season (just
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now it is somewhat greenish valley-hhes) are in no need of such brutality. No one of us, not one of iis is in need of this stressing and stressing, this poignant draining of hearts, this clarion call to pity. A sort of bugle note rises and with it our own defiance. I am asked to join an army of incorruptibies to which long and long since, I and the baker's boy and the tennis champion in the striped red sash have given our allegiance. This great Dane Carl Dreyer takes too damn much for granted. Do I have to be cut into slices by this inevitable pa.n-move- ment of the cam.era, these suave hues to left, up, to the right, back, all rythmical with the remorseless rhythm of a scimitar ? Isn't this incomparable Dane Dreyer a very ];lue-beard, a Turk of an ogre for remorseless cruelty ? Do v/e have to have the last twenty four hours' agonj^ of Jeanne stressed and stressed and stressed, in just this wa\s not only by the camera but by every conceivable m^ethod of dramatic and scenic technique ? Bare walls, the four scenes of the trial, the torture :^oom., the cell a.nd the outdoors about the pyre, are all calculated to drive in the pitiable truth like the very nails on the spread hands of the Christ. Do we need the Christ-nails driven in and pulled out and driven in and drawn out, v/hile Jeanne already numb and dead, gazes dead ana numb at accuser and fumbles in her dazed hypnotized manner towards som.e solution of her claustra- phobia ? I am shut in here, I want to get out. I want to get out. And instead of seeing in our minds the very ambro- sial fields toward which that stricken soul is treading, foot by foot like the very/ agony toward skull-hill, we are left pin- ned hke some senseless animal, impaled as she is impaled by
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agony. This is not not good enough. There is some shir on the whole of human consciousness, it is necessary to stress and stress and stress the brute side of mystic agony this way. Somehow, something is wrong here. An incomparable art, an incomparable artist, an actress for whom any but praise were blasphemy. . .and what happens ?
I do not mind crying (though I do mind crying) when I see a puppy kicked into a corner but I do mind standing aside and watching and watching and watching and being able to do nothing. That is something of the antagonism I think that crept in, that is something of the something that made me feel I ought to go again, to be fair, to be sure what it was that upset me, perhaps cowardice on my own part, some deep sub-cons- cious strata or layer of phobia that I myself, so un- Jeanne-like, was unwilling to face openly. I said to myself next morning I will get this right, I am numb and raw, I myse]f watched Jeanne d'Arc being burnt alive at Rouen last night. . .and I myself must go again. . .ah, that is just it. We do not go and see a thing that is real, that is real beyond reahsm, Again. I said I will go again but I did not got again. I did not and I don't think I failed any inner "light", any focus of cons- ciousness in so ceding to my own new lapse. I can not watch this thing impartially and it is the first film of the many that I have consistent^ followed that I have drawn away from. This is perhaps the last and greatest tribute to the sheer artis- try and the devilish cunning of the method and the technique of Carl Dreyer. T pay him my greatest compliment. His is one film among all film>, to be judged differently, to be approach-
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ed differently, to be viewed as a masterpiece, one of the ab- solute masterpieces of screen craft. Technically, artistically, dramatically, this is a masterpiece. But, but, but, but, but. . . there is a Jeanne sobbing before us, there is a small Jeanne about to be kicked by huge hob-nailed boots, there is a Jeanne whose sturdy child-wrist is being twisted by an ogre's paw because forsooth she wears a bit of old hard hammered unwieldy bulk of gold upon one finger, there is a numb hypno- tized creature who stares with dog-like fidelity, toward the sly sophist who directs her by half -smile, by half -nod, by im- perceptible lift of half an eye brow toward her defaming ans- wers, there is a Jeanne or a Joan whose wide great grey eyes fill with round tears at the mention of her mother (''say your pater noster, you don't know your pater noster ? you do ? well who taught it to you ?") there is Jeanne or Joan or Johan- na or Juana upon Jeanne or Jean or Johanna or Juana. They follow one another with precision, with click, with monotonyK Isn't that a little just it ? There is another side to all this., there is another series of valuations that can not perhaps be hinted at consistently in this particular presentation of this one kicked little puppy of a Jeanne or a Joan or a Johanna. Isn't it just that ? Isn't the brute side of the flawless type, the Jeanne d'Arc of all peoples, of all nations, the world's Jeanne d'Arc (as the world's Christ) a little too defiantly stress- ed, a little too acutety projected ? I know after the fi.rst half of the second reel all that. I know all, all that. Just that round child face lifted ''who taught you your pater noster P"^ gives me all, all that. I do not mean to saj^ that there could
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have been any outside sort of beatific screen craft of heavenly vision. I don't mean that. But Jeanne kicked aknost, so to speak, to death, still had her indomitabJe vision, I mean Jeanne d'Arc talked openly with angels and in this square on square of Danish protestant interior, this trial room, this tor- ture room, this cell, there v/as no hint of angels. The angels were there all the time and if Jeanne had reached the spiri- tual developement that we must believe this chosen comrade of the warrior Michael must have reached, the half -hypnotized numb dreary physical state she was in, would have its inevitable psychic recompense. The Jeanne d'Arc of the in- comparable Dreyer it seems to me, was kicked towards the angels. There were not there, nor anywhere, hint of the ange- lic wing tip, of the winged sandals and the two-edged sword of Michael or of the distillation of maternal pity of her "fami- liar" Margaret. Father, mother, the "be thou perfect" per- fected in Jeanne d' Arc as in the boy of Nazareth, were in no way psychically manifest. Such psychic manifestation I need hard- 3y say, need be in no way indicated by any outside innovation of cross lights or of superimposed shadows. It is something in something, something behind something. It is something one feels, that you feel, that the baker's boy, that the tennis champion, that the army colonel, that the crocodile of English and Dutch and mixed German-Swiss (come here to learn French) feels. We are numb and beaten. We won't go a second time. The voice behind me that says wistfully, taken unawares, ^'I wish it was one of those good American light things" even has its place in critical consciousness. For all our prepara-
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tion, we are unprepared. This Jeanne d'Arc is sprung on us and why should it be ? There is a reason for most things. I think the reason is that it doesn't link up straight with hu- man consciousness. There is a gap somewhere. We criticise many films, sometimes for crudity, sometimes for sheer vicious playing up to man's most febrile sentiment, sometimes for cruelty or insincerity. We criticise Jeanne d'Arc for none of these things.
The Jeanne d'Arc of the incomparable artist Carl Dreyer is in a class by itself. And that is the trouble with it. It shouldn't be.
H. D.
CRASHING THE MOVIES '
This is an unvarnished account of how I stormed Holly- wood, and of how I failed to "crash the Movies". I write with the hope that other intelligent young men and women of my generation will come forward and declare their attitude towards the new art of the motion picture.
The genesis of my pilgrimage to Los Angeles is to be foimd in three slight happenings in the summer of 1927. No. i. Ernest Vajda, Hungarian dramatist, author of Fata Morgana,
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was now writing original stories for Paramount. His Service for Ladies, starring Adolph Menjou, made one aware of the possibilities for the intelligent writer with the knack of the light-comedy touch. The film was not first-class, but it was excellent stuff. Two stories already suggested themselves to one's brain. No. 2. Paramount had taken a stor\' by that curious high-brow bird from Chicago, Ben Hecht, and turned it into a box-office success : Underworld. Later on one dis- covered that much of the genius in this thriller was due to the marvellous direction of Josef von Sternberg. No. 3. Through one of those dreadful chatty magazines made for Movie fans one learned that Paramount w^as looking out for new talent among young, unknown writers, that an Authors Council, headed by Owen Davis, the dramatist, had been formed to deal with this end of the business. It was stated that Paramount were going to pick out unknown young writers, transplant them to HolMvood, pay them S 200 per week for six weeks, then, if they showed promise to take them into the company under contract.
Before taking an^^ practical step in the matter I reviewed my position. What were my particular quaUfications for this Movie business. Point 1. I was not crazy to make mo- ney out of writing for the Movies. Naturally I did expect to make money if I got in, but this was not the guiding fac- tor. Point 2. I had been vitally interested in films ever since about 1911-12, about which time I must have seen The Miracle and Queen EUzaheth. In 1920 I had actually adapted a nove] into a scenario on my own initiative. I had seen films
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in many lands. I believed that the film is a new art medium. Point 3. I had travelled extensively : Asia, Europe, and the United States. I therefore felt that I knew a little about the various audiences. Point 4. I had done a certain amount of successful journalistic work, w^hich is supposed to be the general path towards a screen career. Point 5. I knew that I possessed in an unusual degree a dramatic sense. My intense interest in the legitimate stage revealed th?.t. I also believed that I possessed a great deal of visual imagination. I mention these several points to make it clear that my interest in films was not a sudden snobbish or hysterical interest, but a real growing interest. So far so good.
My first practical step, since I knevv not a single soul in this ''industry", was to goto the source of my inspiration. Para- mount. In their New York office I attempted to see Mr. Owen Davis. Of course, he w^as too busy rehearsing a new play to ^ee me. However, I was able to see a ver}^ charming young woman who listened to me sympathetically, and after eloquently pleading my case I went away with a letter of introduction to the head man in the Hollywood studio. This was all I car- ried in my port-folio to influence "these great m.en of the Movie Industry".
I will not write here of my trip to Los Angeles, of how I set out from New York with one hundred dollars in my pocket (over 3.000 miles), and a copy of "The Brothers Karamazov"' in my hand. The slow trek across the United States, with odd visits to local Movie houses to see what the "Hicks" w^ere really like (I saw Metropolis again in some small mid- American
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town) left me conscious of the kind of audiences to be found in America proper.
Arrived in Los Angeles my first visit was to som.e Russians I had met in Europe. The man I me': was secretary to the "great" Russian, w^homi I will not mention by name, but who has as great a reputation in his owa country as Reinhardt basin Gemiany. His first question was " Have you come here under contract ?" When I toJd him I had arrived on spec, he was horrified, predicting death, and desolation. He reinforced his attitude by relating their oAvn adventures in Movie-land. It appeared that they had been specially imported because of their terrific reputation. But after the shouting was over they had been practically idle for thirteen months, doing nothing but drawing their salary envelopes. The company would not let them do anything at all, and even the one story which was so botched that the "great Russian" had to repu- diate the authorship in print. They left for Moscow shortly afterwards.
]\Iy next move was a visit to Paramount armed with my precious letter. But already I had heard mutterings that letters of introduction in HoUwood were as thick as the lea- ves of Vallomxbrosa. How^ever, it did get me into the inner sanctum. I might interrupt my narrative here to give my impression of these "front" offices of the studios. They are all alike, guarded by tw^o-or three zealous keepers who are supposed to keep out all those who have no real business behind the facade of the studio. Questions of an intimate nature are asked, and since all sorts of people are sitting about there
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in an air of embarrassment. "Who do you want to see ?" -''Does he know you ?" "What^s it about ?" "You can speak to Mr. Brown on the 'phone.. here he is". iVnd one is compelled to bellow one's plea through that \\Tetched m.ediuni. If you say 3'^ou have a storj^^ for Pola Negri j^ou \dll be told to send it in to Mr. So-and-So. Often it is the stenographer- — generally called ''his secretan.^'" — who answers the telephone and assures you that the "great" m_an is much too busy to see any one at all. It took me two whole days before I saw Mr. Sheldon, head of the Editorial Department of Paramount. But although he received me cordially enough he was much too immersed in some story for Bebe Daniels to pay much attention to my ideas. "WTiat have you got to offer in m.a- nuscript form" v/as the question. Also "Have you got any ideas suitable for Miss Negri ?" To the first question I had to answer "Nothing", and to the second I had to answer "Not at present ?" "Bring some stories in and 111 read them" was the parting cry. I left his office very depressed and gloomy (") . Upstairs, installed in Room 99 (or some such number) I found Ernest Vajda, w^ho I had met casually in Budapest. I told him of my plans, and suggested that I place several ideas before him to work on. But he said that he only dealt in his own ideas, but he would be pleased to read anything I had to offer. Otherwise he had no power in the company ; he was just a contract writer.
(*) It was, however, surely very optimistic of the author to expect xesults if he had nothing to show ? Ed.
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That same week I wandered into the office of a lad}' of the press : a certain Miss Louella Parsons, Movie Chatter reporter for the Hearst chain of newspapers. I told her about a storv^ I had for Greta Garbo, and two days later I found that I was an "ambitious writer with more courage than common-sense" in coming to Holh^vood on "spec". She told me in great confidence that Pola Negri lived at the swagger Ambassador Hotel, a fact known to everyone in Los Angeles.
I next went down to Metro-Goldwyn at Culver City. There I got in without a letter. Perhaps my very English accent helped. Yes, they were looking for stories for Miss Garbo. Send something in.
Intermission for starvation act.
Then I sat down and wrote in about thirt}' pages a detailed story suitable for the talents of Greta Garbo before the dud> of Hollywood got hold of her. (I had onh seen her in one film : Joyless Street, and was completely ignorant of her artistic "ruin"). This time, at Metro-Goldwyn, I w^as shun- ted off on to a certain Mr. Harris. Before I had made two steps into his office he had decided that I was a useless "high-brow", and began telling me w^hat was the trouble with such fellows as myself. Also, was m.}^ story a "costume" story, for, so said Mr. Harris, "the public doesn't want costume stories". As a matter of fact Metro was on the point of producing a Baroness Orczy story of the i6th. century. I informed him that my story was by no means a high-brow affair, that it was merely a modern re-hash of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", the most famous love story in the world. But this did
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not affect Mr. Harris, for a few daj^s later I received back my manuscript with the painful news that it did not "fit in with our programme".
My next move was in the direction of the Fox people. One knew that Murnau was there, and Ludwig Berger had just arrived from Berlin. Both of these men, I knew, would know whether my story was worth while or not. But, alas, "try and get in", as the Americans say. Even when I had met the gifted children of Thomas Mann, who were both holi- dajdng in HoUwood, and had tried to meet the great Murnau through them, it was all in vain. I v/as closeted with one of the younger editorial stalf, who was very polite, but very dull. When I returned to get my story he rather wearily said that it was a "sordid stoiy". This in spite of the fact that it was a completely romantic story without any sex in it at all. I then put the story away, and decided thet it was a waste oft ime letting them read it. But this was not the end.
Paramount had asked me for Pola Negri. For days and days I dug deep into my mind for something suitable for her, and one night a whole clear idea appeared. It was so com- pelling that it kept me aw^ake half the night. The following day (I think I had to borrow the car fare) I rushed out to Pa- ramount full of my first-class idea which was going to bring the Negri back to public favour. But young men full of en- thusiasm are not wanted at such places. The secretary of Mr. Sheldon assured me it was impossible to see him. I must see Mrs Stickinthmud. I groaned, shouted and argued, but this only made it the harder--" another crazy fellow trying to
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crash into the movies". So the wonderful idea is still impri- soned within my brain waiting until some person is willing to listen.
Let me record one more incident. Just before I was pre- paring to leave the City of Dreadful Blight (Money and Sun- shine) some one in New York sent me a long, personal letter of introduction to one of the biggest executives in the ^letro- Goldwyn firm. At last, I thought, I shall surely get in. But not more than bis secretary's face did I see. I even went to his private house where I was practically pushed out oi the house by his wife. This ended m}^ attempt to get into the movies.
Owing to the fact that I was practically penniless most of the time my troubles were more complicated than the above bare chronicle can reveal. If I had arrived with resources enough to last out about one year, or if I bad been able to get some outside position while I was attacking the central gates of the great movie studios I might have managed by about January 1929 to get a job in one of those many rooms adapting comedies for Mr. Reginald Dennj^
Although my limited financial condition kept me from wide social intercourse I met two other young men in my position. The one was a Pole, the other a Russian Jew. Their problem was not how to become a writer for the movies, but how to become producers. Both of them had been in Los iVngeles a long time without anj^ real success. The}^ vvere just waiting for something to turn up. Los Angeles is too full of dull peo- ple to make it a pleasant waiting room.
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Apparently there is only one way for the young, unknown writer of intelligence to get on to the w^riting staff of a movie studio. He must be able to crash" his way into one of the large fiction magazines of America. This may take m.any years, for they specialise in "big" names. Otherwise, the situation seems pretty hopeless.
P. Beaumont Wadsworth.
LA TRAGEDIE DE LA RUE
Whose feet ? Where are thej' going ? That is not the kind of thing we shall know. We feel that. These are feet seeking to escape us, tripping and creeping (feet, feet, feet) close to that wall. But we know the wall, we know the mud and the cobbles, and the feet are treading through something we know.
The street, too. We know it, not only because it is photo- graphed, a httle over-luciously this time, \>y Guido Seeber. The walls and the angles that comes down here, so that there is a way going up there and a wa\^ going ever so slightly, but how differently, to the right. That second way is different from the first, one is hidden from the first, going there, one might be safe, or one might miss something. Which way did
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the feet take ? The light, the rather-too-much hght, doesn't belong here. The light says there should be no light in this street. It is put there, by lamplighter or cameraman (I have to admit, more probably by cameraman) to show light does not belong here. The street knows it, and we know it.
So this street, feet and feet, is, besides being ver}^ vividly itself, something also we know. Something of us in terms of wall and mud and a girl in a too-short skirt (a French girl killed herself once because they wouldn't give her a licence, she was too young) made visible by light that doesn't belong.
The feet have been followed by other feet. Girl's feet follo- wed by man's upstairs, into a room. Fight, rush to window scream. x\nd here is another room, with Asta Nielsen. We know her, too. We know the kind of film this will be. We can sit back. Or rather, don't sit back, sit up. Asta Nielsen in a frightening tight bodice that catches the light as she raises her arms. Asta Nielsen making the light belong. She is raising her arms to do her hair, and that means to her pulling it apart at the roots, dipping a tooth-brush in dye. A room leading off, with a girl, fluffy and obvious, we know her too. The fight opposite goes on. The fluffy girl hears the scream, and flies in to Nielsen, w^ho smiles one of those dreadful smiles, short and wise, with what shouldn't be known so absolutety. When 5^ou have lived here longer she says, dipping the tooth- brush, you will get used to that. The crowd is splitting, those earty feet will only dangle now. Into the picture sUdes Homol- ka, giving the word of "police**. He is Nielsen's man. She is a little bored with him. Why will he be proprietary ? If
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he wants to feel sei- respect, he can stop being kept by her. Why will he fuss, th/-. scarf would have been all right, if she had put it on that v\ -y. Now it isn't, and any\vay, on va des- cendre. Come on, ^ - a says to the girl, on va descendre. Has there ever been a ni ore frightening caption than that ? But the girl has no neea to descendre to-night. She is going to a supper, champagne md all. Nielsen gives her a shoulder- flower, she is helpiiig this girl on her Vv^ay. She herself is past being given champagne suppers. She goes down. This way and that, feet c /er the cobbles, feet, sway, a step or two, turn, the street, fee i, feet, fade out.
The girl is going i:u-town. Up town, too, dinner is waiting. A son has not comt home. The mother waits, and waits too, we can see, to interc- pt the storm. It is a pity to use the cliche of a key fumbling at : he door. But the son comes in. "Again ! " the mother says, ":n this state again". Father. A scene. This is, on the whole, a bad scene, not lifted up, as the rest are. Too strongly lit. The son, sick of all this, and a little sick, too, with drini:, or will be soon, flings out. Of course he hits the street. H-:mgry and giddy, he sits down. This after sometime, and the} have all been expecting him home again. Here is a flaw, though you did not notice it the first time, and might not have thr second had not ]\Iarc AUegret pointed it out. The son should be younger. That "again" of the mo- ther spoilt it. If h;: drank often, he would know what to do, he would have friends to go to, other bar-companions. And Asta Nielsen, Vv^hen -he comes back, and finds him heaped on the cobbles, wouldn t have been the first woman he is to know.
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Still, Asta Nielsen is here again, she can take everything up and make it not matter, in the bigger thing she makes.
She leads him up,, turning the other man off. She Jays the table, prepares food. And how wonderful when she talks, and is so eager, and forgets, the kettle boils, and she burns her fingers. And how good Pittschaw is, longing to eat the breads waiting till her back is turned, hating to wait tiJl her back is turned, eating hungrily^ cr\dng. How^ marvellous all this meal, Nielsen pouring coffee, the squat liqueur bottle, conversation softening from the early shyness, over the liqueur, Nielsen pouring it, to shyness brought on by this quick intimacy, as the night grows late, and night of course means sleep.
Pause now and think how well we were brought to this street. Steps, following feet to awful stairs. Not onh' eves on edge, but ears made so too, as with the cry we flash down to the street, where the filles are, up to the room the other side, where they hear the noise. I have said a film ought to be choreographed, and here it is, unobtrusively ; more unob- trusively than Jeanne d'Arc.
Fluffy girl is returning, gay, confettied. She meets Homol- ka, lolling outside Lea's house. He whines that she has a new^ one. He has just been told to keep away, "it's over between us". The girl won't see what there is to see in his eyes and in his pose ; or she has, quickly, and jumps over it, for she says, never mind, we have to do this, to come back to men like you. Once again, the caption. You can't keep us, it impHes (it says only about four w^ords) so we have to go out,.
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to come back to you. O, this street, our eyes cry, how we know it. How much a street and how more than a street it is. The girl wakes late next morning. Nielsen is getting breakfast ready. Her beetleish bodice is now a bright, white w^ooUy. She has brightened the room. She is brighter herself ^ as she sets the tea-cosey that you feel she does not ordinarily use. This means something, at last. She is, as she tells the girl, pincee. Pittschaw comes out. He wishes to go, to pay m the ordinary manner. We know what Nielsen's eyes do to us, w^e are watching them, so we know v/hat will happen. "There is no need. You can stay here as long as you like". She has collected her savings, wrapped up in stays, from which, she took last night to pay off Hom-olka, to buy a confectioners' that is for sale. She goes out, persuading the girl not to enter her room while she is away. She knows this "each-for-her- self" too well.
Smartened, less sinister, she visits the shop. Over a cup of coffee, it is settled.
Over a cup of coffee in her room, Homolka has put things
to Pittschaw. We share Lea. We the boy looks at
Homolka. We What was he feeling for Lea before ? We
do not know. Lea is old. Much more my style, says Homol- ka. The fluffy girl is yours. So the boy does not know" the girl ? Lea has been careful I Homolka fetches the girl . She struts her stuff. Last night's streamers fly around, linking them both up, hang down from the lamp. Very fine acting here by Pittschaw. The door of her room closes on what she has taken from Lea's room.
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Lea closes the shop door, bright with a picture of her and the boy serving there. On the way home, she stops in on the floor below and engages an old pianist to play in her shop. And she tells him to go on playing now, so that she can hear him as she mounts. She is so happy.
Upstairs, her room is empty. There is only what she didn't leave there, a squat liqueur bottle and streamers over the lamp. She traces the streamers to the door. She listens with her eyes. You know^ the Nielsen eyes. She beats on the door. You know the Nielsen hands. That is w^hy this old stuff is terrible to you. She even falls, taking to herself all the people that have ever fallen from doors in films before. She takes them, and gives to w^hat they did just the truth that makes this the only time any one has fallen from a door before. Through the boards, the piano sounds. Beat, beat hands this, time beat.
It i? old stuff. And one no longer reacts to the fact that harlots have hearts. And one must always react to Jeanne d'Arc, But Dryer's wonderful film has this ; it takes from us, it empties us, and this little street tragedy takes, and chan- ges and gives back to us something wt should not have had otherwise.
The boy, the other side of the door, is in ectasy of calf-love. Fluffy is a sister of Lea in this, save that she does not unders- stand why love should get mixed up in it ; this is attraction for her, a pleasant variation from routine, but part of routine nevertheless. Pittschaw comes out to face Lea. Haggard old helpless Lea. She will forget this, it can not be his fault.
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He sees only an old fille, trying to catch him, b ?cause no one else is fool enough to have her. But he, at the height of being let down by his youth, is wi'=^e. He quite understands, women like her would be expected to take boys in ; he is not going to be ruined because of a little sentimental kindness. And he, she might as well know, is in love. (Fluffy, behind the door thinks it as well to creep out.) He and the girl are going away. O yes, he who cannot see, let alone realise how impos- sible Lea's love is, that would be as tragic, but it would be a way out, he who scorns the love of filles is confident of Fluffy» Lea implores, begs, grove) s. The young man will get his affaires.
Homolka comes in. Nielsen of course realises. We knew how terrible her knowledge was. She smiles brokenly at him. She takes a chair. L^ she apologising ? Is she taking what she can get ? Well, it's a pity, but w^hat else could you have ? She pours out from that bottle. Stop, stop, this is last night's table. She drinks, makes conversation. Stop, you can't do this, can't pour from that, of all bottles. Lea^ you don't, after all, know. Lea smiles. It would be better if that girl went away, she has come between us. Again that smile, a little crooked, not quite easy. You understand. . .? If she went away. Lea goes know, yes. Homolka, skilfully fuddled, recoils. Lea goes on, bottle goes on. And after all, where is Homolka to go ? He will do it, he goes out. Lea has an interview with the boy.
Feet, feet again, Fluffy's feet are treading the same way as those earlier feet. And Homolka lurches after her. Up-
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town, mother and father wait for their son, or for news. We want to cry o:it to those feet. You can't walk hke that,
HERE.
Lea has discovered that the boy loves. After his cruelty to her, she thought him incapable of it. But even then, she would liave kept him, to have given her this chance. But he loves, he says he really does, this girl. Lea's friend. She had not simply caught him. It is incredible. Lea is aghast. If that is so, she must save her. It may be too late. She had only wanted to get her out of the wa}' . One more or less is nothing in this street, and she and the boy could have been happy. But he loves the girl. . .rush downstairs. It may be too late. Past the pianist, which way ? Homol- ka's feet close in on the girl. Shadows on the wall. Asta Nielsen is at her corner. Which way ? A way going up there and a waj^ going ever so slightly to the right. It ma}^ be too late. She goes the wrong way, x\sta Nielsen's feet, feet go the wrong way.
She finds him in a wine-shop. Drunkenly hysterical in a clod's way. People all round. Impossible to ask. She sits down. Asks, in a lull. . . .some one comes up. Now her beer is brought, now a girl talks. Will none of them go ? She looks, He nods. It is good God. . .She sits, realising. This is terrible. The cumulative effect of so manv fra\'ing inci- dents is terrible. He is sick of her for this. Where will it lead. He leaves.
Shadows again, and two hands. The detectives he had war- ned others of in the beginning have got him.
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Uptown, the boy crying in his mother's lap. He should have avoided that disgrace. ''Some one has been killed because of me. " He thinks he knows. They stick a notice outside Lea's house. ''Room to let." Lea's room, not only the girl's. One death more or less, what does it matter in this street ? Lea is not a tragic figure ? She should not have been so light about killing the girl ?
The girl shouldn't have been so light in taking the boy. The boy shouldn't have taken to drink. The woman should'nt have taken to the streets. It comes back to the street, the house - that - j ack - built street, where motive and moral go round and round. Lea wanted to be "good" now. She was at a stage when this life she led held no more than the life she had exchanged or refused for it. And when the boy, who was her suddenly flowering ideal come real, broke up, she still sought her "good" by the same means she had sought, and got, everything else. And in this street, everj^thing came back, to her and the boy came back to his family. Blame them, perhaps.
A.i\y way, v/e are not academicians. You will either have seen that this is no piquant mummery, but a very real con- flict or you won't, and then it is you who don't matter. What I write is only the instrument, and does not come into it. Lea was true to herself, so was the hoy, and that Vv'as fatal. There is not much hope, but when that happens ^v'ou don't need hope, because you have fulfilment.
Asta Nielsen has played many filles. None more forcibly than this. None more nobly, none more quietly, none more.
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but here is a word that does not matter. \ve have seen some- thing larger, none more beautifully. I- loes m.atter in a way. For the blending of this theme, the glrnpse of happines^^ in a life used to doing without it, the sudden arrival of all she had turned her back against, to ^^'ake what was only dormant and not dead, has to be don beautifully, I mean cleanly, with nothing super flous or w dlowing, to make it anything but wearisome Yellow Bock. And it is far from that. Three women beatingly alive, i»r all that makes a woman alive terribly, vibratingly, on a little sheet, this is the screen, Mother, Jeanne d'Arc, La Trc -edie, not Talmadge, Garbo and Gish.
Directed by Bruno Rahn, the film ha? .dready run for fifteen weeks at ihe Ursulines as I write. aas been banned for England, where the cinema is suppos d to be alive, they say.
Asta Nielsen has made a film, on c^-caine this time, with Werner Krauss. It was called ^'C.O.C. 437." but it has been changed, I quote PJioto Cine ''-pour nou: proteg^r centre quoi, grand Dieu", to a film on alcoholism, entitled Les Egares. Another Nielsen is L' Age Dangerenx, \\y:h Bernard Goetzke. La Tragedie de la Rue is held in Paris b\ M. B. Films.
Robert Herring.
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ON BEING BORED WITH FILMS
There is no boredom in the world to be compared with that of sitting through a thoroughly bad film, for a bad film is so- exasperating that you cannot even go to sleep while it is being shown. As you blink and yawn through its tedium, the germ of indifference broadens out from this one masterpiece of bore- dom into a vast cloud of horrible apathy coiling into the final query : why do films exist at all, why do we put up with their petrifying stupidity at all and the immense apparatus of their manufacture ? We shall all be turned into idiots if we stand it much longer !
And at once an infinitude of questions is struck out of the main body of our complaint. One doubts the authenticity of one's boredom. One does not enquire into the causes of bore- dom at a tea-party or at the speeches made during a film-trade luncheon. Such functions are dead from the beginning and can- not be helped. You walk away from them to something else.
But films have a life and soul of their own and must be considered. The odd thing is that in films of unquestioned quality, such as ''Sunrise" or "The Circus" there are passages which utterly fail in interest for all sorts of people, and you see them getting up and leaving the theatre and taking away with them valuable portions of one's own interest as they go.
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The stream of interest that just now was Ml and flowing, has been broken up and its quickness arrested.
I had been told that ''Barbed Wire" was a good film and it was revived at my local theatre "by request". Sharing a not too substantial belief in the common sense of public taste, I went to see the picture and was bored to death, notwithstand- ing the efficiency — the tedious efficiency — of Pola Negri, who can be depen ; d upon, like Gloria Swanson, never to be de- feated by am ^^ idng, never to be overcome or lost or lacking in the maximum percentage of American "sure-film" value.
There is a ' • atleman associated with the Turf who "never owes" anybov \^ anything. I was reminded of him then.
ible position to be in, w^hat a killing sense of He doesn't owe a penny, h( is above leaning : anything, Jike an archangel. He is complete, can be added to his stature. He resembles a 3. You put it there and it stays there for ever oeyond assistance.
/ films possess this irreclaima- - e status. They tailored" and there is not a scrap of life be- , And so you lose interest m them and spend ing in the cinema looking a : cursing the H :^e Wurlitzer and all its stops, majestic and \quisite command of the th(- id marry if she had brains, ar in front of you. Itogether, you reflect, are in i
What a deplu self-sufiicienc on humanity : and not a cu girder in a ho and is utterl A great m . are "faultles neath the cii a sleei^less e •
whom you Wij ting the scr^e Film value cess of trans 1
\\e pretty lights, lar veiling at the ire girls, one of 1 utterly forget-
.^ed of some pro- tantiation, of some illumina ring violence done
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to their complacency. Either that, or must be ill and should cancel all engagements. The boredom arising from a bad film is due to the film world being far too certain of what it wants and too secure in its technique of accomplishment. I was told the other day by a successful British film director that in Ame- rica the director stands on the floor with his watch in his hand timing each scene to the second. I registered a simple smile. A moving picture, if it is to move, has no business to live in a world of certainties. Xo artist can work in an atmosphere of complete stability, and the motion-picture is now in a con- dition in which all its values are too securely established, so that only a great artist, by incredible exertions, can knock them and get past them, and by that time he is himself a stret- cher-case and is next seen (reading from left to right) basking in the sunshine at Cap d'Antibes, with a mask of total indif- ference to the row of film beauties about him.
Some of our critics — ^probably the most bored of all those who have to do with films — have been complaining of this staleness of invention even in the work of Charlie Chaplin. But I cannot be bored with Chaplin, for although he reproduces many of the stock situations of film comedy, his power and understanding of the film medium are unmatched and he gives to comedy all the beauty of its tragic inversion. His tech- nique is so perfect that he does not have to think whether a moment or a sequence is cinematic or not. If it w^ere not, he would not have thought of it. We are in danger of for- getting that the perfect film must conjure with movement so as to keep it constantly in the air and thus justify the root-
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principle of all camera work, of films altogether — the imita- tion of life by action. Chaplin is supreme in this gift and charms us by the infinite variety of his movement, and the significance he gives to it.
But when the camera is used to show us all over again that if you drive one car into another at sixty miles an hour there will be an accident, (see — or rather, take for granted — Mou- lin Rouge) ; when it is used to present the banal excitements of a cabaret or a prize fight or a racecourse or the utterly threadbare seduction scene, in which the moving pageant of human nature is not considered for its motion-value, for what it can say with a gesture, but simply to force a sensation upon us, then I am intolerably bored. At once I am conscious of the goods being delivered for an order I never gave in a packing-case I do not acknowledge. Not I ! They are giv- ing me just what I want, in the preposterous belief that I have not had it a thousand times before. On what other grounds shall we account for the periodical panic of the film magnates, who say that the public are tired of this and are tired of that and must be given something new ? But :hey give us nothing new or they give us "new" faces. That is the shortest cut to pleasing the congenitally witless public. One might just as well expect to feed a horse by giving it a new^ nosebag. How, I ask, can a face be new ? What man among us will give a new shape to Adam's rib ? Non est inventus.
All this antique stuff and all this frenzy to cr}^ up any sort of novelty to replace it, bores me to extinction. If the makers of films want us to have something new why don't they look
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to the settings and backgrounds of their films ? We should be more entertained if most of them were scrapped. For a film never explores a thing thoroughly but goes on to the next thing before you have had time to see it. Even the shop- girl mind is beginning to be bored with the specious grandeur of the typical American interior and the acknowledged cen- tres of movie romance — Paris, the Riviera, the South Seas, the Front, the Wild West, the desert, the Yukon ; and for inte- riors, the everlasting under\vor]d the ballroom, thousands of restaurants, bar parlours, beauty parlours, board rooms, bed- roojus, bathrooms, shacks, shops, ships, casinos and muning camps. There they are — sign-posts to the eligible localities of the film world. I am not surprised that the Pathe Gazette is more interesting than man}' a feature film. It doesn't go in for all this bookstall romance. It has some of the riches and inspiration of life itself.
I have never seen Soho on the screen, or Southend. I have seen Blackpool and found it highly entertaining. I have ne- ver seen Birmingham on the screen or the packed life of Lon- don's suburbia. I have never seen Chelsea or Bbomsbury or Hampstead Heath, but I can remember seeing a drunken rec 'iisrruction of the the Thames Embankment in an American film, carried out, apparently, by a smiling pavement artist. Yet our producers, politicians, critics and Empire-builders are all shouting out for England to be placed on the screen. Eng- land no doubt has a becoming modesty which yearns to be tricked out in this misfit raiment, but if we want to see England on the screen why don't we put it there ? What are we
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waiting for ? So far as I can see, we are waiting for the Americans to come over and show us how to do it. And that is the whole trouble. We are afraid to depart from the massive but stultifying film values which they have already built up. Every film producer in the world is mort- ally afraid of losing that Hollywood complexion, ourselves most of all. It is a feeble and ludicrous state of affairs and we ought to be ashamed of it.
Finally, I am bored with the music to our films — pain- fully and insufferably bored. Not long ago when engaged in the bitter business of film criticism, I was given the task of finding out exactly what our directors of film music thought about its development and future. I now know that they thought nothing at all. As a result, films are being accompa- nied by exactly the same music to-day as they were five years ago. "Ramona", shown at the New Gallery a short time ago, is an example of what I mean. I do not know what was written on the cue sheets, but I know that I had heard it all fifty times before. And I was bored. Contrary to professional prac- tice, I nearly always pay for my boredom at pictures for the pleasure of sapng afterwards that I was bored). We have not began to take film music seriously yet, or to treat it as an orga-^ nic part of picture production. We instal vast organs in our cinemas, capable of producing the most excruciating sounds imaginable, but these effects take one's attention away from the film into a quite different world of noise. That they also produce music goes without saying, but none of it has any lo-^ gical place in the score, and the construction of the score is
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still a thing apart from the construction of the film. It is all done afterwards by the musical director, who sits before the film with a little note-book while it is exhibited ''cold", and as its storj' unfolds he wraps up the bits in their appropriate musical ganiient. He has done this so many times now that the innumerable strips torn from Massenet, Saint-Saens, Gou- nod, Sterndale Bennett, Elgar, Mendelssohn, Gershwin, Da- re wski, Wagner and Lehar — yes, they are all side by side in a line and would stretch from St. Paul's to Knightsbridge — are recalled by heart and instantty applied to the alternating moods of the film. The music is held together by a theme, which the musical director will himself compose this afternoon if he has time, and if not he will look up some other theme. In this way, all oar film music which does not come from Ameri- ca, is made to measure over here and sent carriage paid to exhibitors in the provinces.
I make no criticism just now^ of the technique employed, but I say that its conventions are much too plausible and its mate- rial utterly hackneyed, and that the whole thing is so unins- piring and antiquated that I am bored.
There are many other matters which make for boredom on the screen — ^the lack of character in British films for example, the myth about the shortage of stories, the nonsense about films for the Empire and so on. But I am beginning to lose my boredom now and developing an active rage, and this is beyond our terms of reference. Perhaps i /2 at the local cine- ma will put matters right.
Ernest Betts.
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SCENES D'EXTERIEURS AU STUDIO
J'ignore au juste quand la premiere scene d'exterieur fut tournee dans un atelier, mais ce jour-la me parait devoir etre signale comme une sombre date dans les annales du cinema. Je ^ais essayer de vous montrer les fautes que cette innovation ^ngendra et, en particulier, celles que Tavenir ne manquera pas de reveler. (Ne croyez pas que je veuille me faire passer pour prophete dans le domaine encore si vague de Testhetique cinematographique, mais cependant les exemples qui m'ont ete fournis par diverses personnalites eminentes du film m'incitent a penser que ces prises de vue sont loin de vouloir cesser. II est notoire, du reste, qu'on ne rencontre en aucun art autant d'imitateurs qu'au cinema).
Un film ne pent cacher son age a nos yeux car nous recon- naissons de suite son anciennete a la quasi impossibilite du ^este, a rimmobilite ennuyeuse et presque intolerable du ca- mera, ainsi qua la pauvrete de la decoration et de Teclaira- ge. Mais les scenes d'exterieur rachetaient en partie, dans les premiers films, les defauts signales. Toute proportion gardee, on peut dire que ces scenes etaient bonnes. (Nous voyons si sou- vent, de nos jours, des exterieurs qui ne sont gaere meiUeurs ni plus interessants) .
Uon perfectionna done Tatelier ; Teclairage devint par-
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Ten Days that Shook the World
E^ve Francis in V hwndation by Lucien Delluc. vSimple and straight. . . .one of the best French films. It was revived at the Cine I<atin this Spring.
A new standard in British film production. The designs of Hugh Gee for Tesha, Burlington film, directed by V. vSavile. Mr. Gee uses inverted lighting to bring out the angles of his otherwise
plain walls.
Photos : E. Cyril Slan borough
Mr. Gee in his designs, aims at unobtrusive spaciousness and a modernity in so far that he does not beHeve in repeating old formulae. At the same time he avoids the "modernism" of the commercial French sets.
(The Symphony of a City) Walter Ruttmann's film using neither actors nor sets.
c ^ V o
o Z
o o B
B ^
:5 ^
O
s:
cd
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-Si Si
Two close-ups of Joseph Marievsky in Robert Florey's latest impressionistic production The Love of Zero, which cost two hundred dollars. Photos exclusive to CLOSE UP
"Machine Street" and an impression of •'The Street", being scenes in Robert Florey's Love of Zero, starring Joseph Marievsky,
The celebrated " rocket" car. Photographs taken et the first trial run in Berlin. From the left at top, Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou, Fritz von Opel, who drove it, and LiHan Harvey. Below, the car with Lilian Harvey.
Photos : UFA
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tie integrante de la technique du film, forniiile mathematique presque ; des decouvertes coinme le precede Schueftan don- nerent aux regisseurs des possibilites de developpemnet infi- nies. Cette evolution si heureuse autorisa de seduisantes pers- pectives et Ton pensa alors a monter au studio le paysage et la rue, en un mot, a y tourner la nature toute entiere.
II est aise de saisir les avantages de cette innovation. Tout d'abord, il ne sera plus necessaire d'attendre que le soleil se montre puisqu'on pent le produire soi-meme, mieux que natu- re, a grand renfort de lampes Jupiter (penserent les regisseurs et directeurs de compagnies). Et puis Feconoiriie de temps et d'argent est appreciable au point de vue industriel. Les in- convenients multiples qu'entraine une prise de vue en plein air : foule habituelle de curieux troublant le jeu des acteurs, autorisations qu'il faut obtenir des autorites, etc, sont en effet indeniables. Le nouveau procede les supprime completement et facilite de ce fait grandement la tache du realisateur. (A cet egard, je m'imagine sans peine que la scene des idiots du film (( En Rade )> de Cavalcanti, tourne dans les rues de Mar- seille, dut presenter d'innombrables difficukes au regisseur ainsi qu'aux deux acteurs Heriat et Nathalie Lissenko. Mais si Ton avait tourne cette scene au studio elle aurait certaine- ment perdu les trois-quarts de sa valeur).
On pourrait egalement avancer qu'au point le vue purement esthetique, la tentative de creer, par des ni )yens artificiels, une nature plus artistique qu'elle n'est scuvent en realite, semble interessante. Cette maniere de penser pent seduire un cerveau d'artiste ; ce n'en est pas moins, malgre tout, un so-
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phisme. On confond en raisonnant de la sorte, artistique avec artificiel et Ton oublie qu'un atelier si bien illumine soit-il par des naoj^ens techniques artificiels ne saurait jamais egaler un mileu en plein air, sous Tauthentique lumiere du soleil, L'atmosphere exterieure se fait sentir dans toute photogra- phies de film et ces prises de vue au studio sentent le renferme car il leur manque la pulsation propre de la nature.
Sans doute la stylisation trouve son excuse dans Tart. Ne perdons pas de vue cependant que le film, qui n'est pas a la verite une pure forme de Tart, mais une manifestcttion essen- tiellement animee de vie (vita ipsa, dirait le celebre prophete du cinema, Pierre Altebberg), sinon aujourd'hui, du m-oins dans un avenir prochain, ne pent accorder trop de place a la stylisation s'il ne veut perdre sa chaleur et sa force naturelle. Les experiences nouvelles sont toujours les bienvenues car ce sont elles qui assurent le perfectionnement technique du film, seulement ce ne sont que des experiences, ne Toublions pas.
Les films americains tournes recemment empruntent consi- derablement aux moyens techniques artificiels et nous mon- trent jastement cette tendance d'exterieurs au studio sous son jour le plus alarment. (( L'Aurore » de Murnau est bien le pro- totype de ce genre et il f aut considerer cette bande uniquement comme un essai car en tant que film, c'est manque. Si le spec- tateur y admire en effet la maitrise technique du realisateur, iJ n'est jamais ebranle toutefois. L'athmospere suffocant e des exterieurs tournes en atelier tue irresistiblement toute sen- sation delicate et ne pent creer cet accent de verite humaine
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qui se saisit de nous comme la vie elle-meme. ' Nous avons vu la grandiose exhibition du maitre et sortons de la salle desap- pointes quand meme.
Le meme defaut se revele, bien que dans une plus faible mesure, dans « Therese Raquin » de Jacques Feyder ou la scene de la noyade en mer, si elle avait ete tournee a la clarte na- turelle aurait gagne en emotivite et puissance par le contras- te saisissant offert par la nature inondee de lumiere et de force vis a vis des autres plans plus sombres et definis..
II ne s'ensuit pas de la que toute scene exterieure, sans exception, doive etre tournee a la lumiere naturelle. Ce qu'il faut eviter surtout c'est d'appliquer a tort les moyens tech- niques de Tatelier afin de ne pas enlever au film Tatmosphere qui lui est necessaire et dont il ne saurait se passer. Nous pourrions interpreter comme un signe de decadence le fait de preferer a la banale vision de la nature simple et sans appret, qui n'eveille plus assez en nous le sentiment artistique, une representation oil se mele volontairement Tinfluence d'un cer- veau imaginatif . Ne negligeons pas cependant la merveilleuse energie latente qui se degage d/une image a laquelle le soleil et le vent conf erent f raicheur et j eunesse et ne nous refusons pas ]a jouissance visuelle que seule pent nous donner une pho- tographic animee fidele au rythme de la vie.
Si le film n'est plus, a Tavenir, impregne de cette authen- tique essence de vie et de mobilite naturelle, qu'il devient la creation technique exclusive d'un esprit scientifique, nous courrons alors le risque d'une lente asphyxie qui, en diminuant sans cessez Tespace de ] 'action, conduira infailliblement a une
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decheance precoce et au suicide de I'art muet. Ce n'est pas la pourtant le but entrevu par ceux qui ont precede aux essais dont nous venous de parler.
Jean Lenauer.
CONTINUOUS PERFORMANCE
XII
THE CINEMA IX ARCADY
Hedge-toppsd banks form a breezeless corridor upon whose floor, white with dust, the sun beats down. Dust films the edges and mo3t of the flowering things that brought forget- fulness of the hidden distances have fled. We trudged avert- ed from beauty dsfaced, hearing bird-song in the unspoiled Madges of fresh invisible fields and watching for the bend of the long lane and the reward : shelter or high trees that there begia their descending march and, for our shaded eyes, the view of the little grey harbour town at our feet screened by misty tree-tops of spring, the wide estuary beyond it, sapphire backed by golden sand-dunes, miniatures of the tors standing in distant amber light along the horizon. The bend came and th3 twin poplars thit frame the prospect for which our wait-
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ing eyes were raised ; to see, fastened from trunk to trunk an obliterating sign-board : Ccme to the Pictures.
Jealously the 3^ear before we had resented the walls of the small palace rising in unearthly whiteness at the angle of a grey ramshackle by-street. iVnd even while we knew that what we were resenting was the invasion of our retreat by any kind of culture and even while we were moved by the thought of the marvels about to appear before the astonished eyes of villagers and fisherfolk, we still had our doubts. And this placard de- facing the loveliest view in the neighbourhood seemed sym- bolically to confirm them. We doubted because we had found in these people a curious completeness ; wisdom, and a strange sophisticated self-sufiiciency. We told ourselves that they were an ancient aristocratic people and made romantic ge- neralisations ffrom every scrap of favourable evidence. And though it may perhaps fairly be claimed that these lively, life- educated people of the coast villages and fishing stations do not need, as do the relatively isolated people of crowded towns, the socialising influence of the cinema, we were obliged in the end to admit that our objections were indefensible.
There, at any rate, the cinema presently was. We ignored and succeeded in forgetting it until the placard appeared and in imagination we saw an epidemic of placards, in ancient ham- lets, in meadows, on cliffsides and we went forth to battle. We battled for months for the restoration of the hillside lands- cape. In vain. Urban district councillors were sympathe- tic and dubious. The villagers w^ere for living and letting live and the harbour towns-folk would not come out against a fel-
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low townsman. Generally our wrathful sorrow provoked a mild amusement. The placard was regarded as a homely harmless affair as inoffensive as a neighour's out hung wash- ing, except by those few who were voluble in execration of the cinema and all its works. From these we collected evidence recalling the recorded depredations of strong drink amongst pri- mitive peoples. Crediting all we heard we should see the entire youthful population of the parish, and man}' of the middle- aged, centred upon the pictures, living for them. We heard of youths and maidens once frugal, homely and dutiful, who now squander their earnings not only twice weekly when the picture is changed, but nightly. Of debt. Of tradesmen's bills that mount and mount unpaid as never before. The prize story is of a one-time solid matron now so demoralised that rather than miss a picture she will obtain groceries on credit and sell of them to her neighbours.
It is clear that down here amongst these full-living hard- working lansdpeople the enchatment has worked at least as potently as in the towns. And reflection suggests an ex- planation that would apply equally to almost any rural dis- trict where life is lived all the year round in the open or be- tween transparent walls, lived from birth to death in the white light of a publicity for which towns can offer no parallel. Dra- ma is continuous. No day passes without bringing to some group or member of the large scattered family a happening more or less shared by everyone else and fruitful of eloquence. Speech is relatively continuous. Solitude almost unknown. And these people have turned to the pictures as members of a
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family who know each other by heart will turn to the visi- tor who brings the breath of otherness. And whereas in the towns those who frequent the cinema may obtain together with its other gifts admission to a generalized social hf e, a thing unknown in slum and tenement, lodging-house and the smal- ler and poorer villadom, these people of village and hamlet, already socially educated and having always before their eyes the spectacle of life in the raw throughout its entire length, the assemblage of every kind of human felicity and tribulation, find in the cinema together with all else it has to offer them, their only escape from ceaseless association, their only soli- tude, the solitude that is said to be possible only in cities. They become for a while citizens of a world whose every face is that of a stranger. The mere sight of these unknown people is refreshment. And the central figures of romance are heaven- born, are the onlookers as they are to themselves, heroes and heroines unknown to their neighbours. To cease for a mo- ment to be just John or Mary carrying about with you wherever you go your whole known record, to be oblivious of the scene upon which your Uf e is lived and your future unalterably cast, is to enter into your own eternity.
It is not possible perfectly to disentangle from that of the wrireless, the popular newspaper and the gramophone, the influence of the cinema in rural districts. Certain things how- •ever, emerge more or less clearly. There is for example no evid- ence, at any rate down here in the west, of any increased desire for town life. Rather the contrary, for the prestige of that hfe lias suffered more than a little as a result of realistic represen-
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tation and the strongest communicable impression whe- ther of London, New York or other large city — all much of a muchness and equally remote, though not more so than Ply- mouth— is that of insecurity. Neither in railway station, ho- tel, or crowded street is either money or life for a single mo- ment free from risk. And the undenied charm of the Far West is similarly overshadowed : you must be prepared either to shoot or to be shot. And although condemnation goes hand in hand with envy of the apparently limitless possibili- ties of acquisition and independance, the vote on the whole goes steadily for the civilisation and safety of rural conditions.
Melodrama and farcical comedy are prime favourites and an intensity of interest centres about the gazette, the pictures of what is actualh' going on in various parts of the world. That there is alwa\^s something worth seeing and that the music is ''lovely" is almost universal testimony. It is probable that the desire for perpetual cinema will presently abate. A year of constant film-seeing is not overmuch for those without thea- tre, music-hall or any kind of large scale public entertaine- ment. Meantime one clearly visible incidental result of this intensive cultivation is to be noted : these people, and parti- cularty the younger generation, have no longer quite the local quality they had even a year ago. They are amplified, aware of resources whose extent is unknown to them and have a joyful half-conscious preoccupation with this new world that has been brought into their midst, a preoccupation that on the whole^ and if one excludes the weaklings who would in any case be the prey of desirable or undesirable external forces, serves ta
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enhance the daily life. They no longer for one reason and another, amongst which the cinema is indisputably the fore- most, it to their local lives as closely as of yore. Evidence of this change is to be found even in their bearing. The "yokel" is less of a lout than he was wont to be and the dairj^Tnaid even on workdays is indistinguishable from her urban counterpart. And though doubtless something is lost and the lyric poet is shedding many an unavailing tear, much undeniably is gained. These youths and maidens in becoming world citizens, in getting into communication with the unknown, become alsa recruits available, as their earth and-cottage-bound forbears never could have been for the world-wide conversations now increasingly upon us in which the cinema may play, amongst its numerous other roles, so powerful a part.
Dorothy M. Richardson.
NOTES
Le Cinema gobe-mouches cree les heros a forfait et punit in- lassablement les mechants. Entre ces deux categories il n'y a place pour personne. . . pas meme pour les neutres que nous sommes tons.
★
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Actrices capiteuses ! De rAmour ! de la Beaute ! de TArt ! Comment ne mordrais-tu pas a rhamecon dore, mon frere !
*
Tel ecrivain, pour s'exprimer de facon originale et trancher avec le reste des mortels, aura recours aux barbarismes, a la erudite des propos ou aux expressions ramassees en forme de bombes... aussi verrons-nous, et peut-etre avons-nous vu deja, des ecrans barbouilles de visions saugrenues, symboles d'un art jaouveau etd'un nouvel agent tres actif d'hyperemie cerebrale.
*
La vie que cree le cinema est certainement plus agreable que celle dont nous nous contentons. D'abord ne voyons-nous pas qu'elle commence a i8 ans et se termine a 30 presque invaiia- blement, stabilisant chacun, de la sorte, a une epoque avan- tageuse de Texistence. Une sante de fer pour tons. Jamais le moindre rhume, car nous n'apercevons pas trace de mouchoirs. Outre cela, une temperature constante et par la exemption generale de toute sensation extreme du froid ou du chaud. Mieux encore, personne n^est astreint a travailler, chacun a son p)etit home a soi, recoit, sort et se promene a loisir, il n'est meme plus besoin de sortir son gousset car les cheques remplacent la menue monnaie. Pour un rien, n'importe qui sortira son petit camet a souches et vous tendra avec un sourire enchante le petit billet que vous soUicitez.
Encore un privilege unique qui n'est pas le notre, helas ; Tab- sence de ce facheux fabricant d' ennuis qui est le hasard. Bien
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:inieux, tout est prevu, arrange, calcule avec soin et dnssiez- yous etre tentes de vous jeter a Teau ou de vous etendre sur la voie du chemin de f er, a n importe quelle heure et n'importe ou -soyez certains que les choses s'arrangeront pour le mieux et qu'il se trouvera la, Mesdames, un chevalier errant qui vous auvera la vie en capturant du meme coup votre coeur. Nous ■sommes bien^loin, n'est-ce pas, des realites brutales denotre monde terrestre !
Encore une petite particularite qui ne vous aura pas echappe les 24 heures cinematographiques comprennent deux phases bien distinctes : le jour, aveuglant, ensoleille, et la nuit, opa- que, d'un noir d'encre a copier. L'aube et le crepuscule sont •deux stades de transition qui nous appartiennent en propre. II en est de meme du dimanche qui, chez nous, differe sensible- inent des autres jours. La-haut il n'y a pas de dimanche, ou pour mieux dire, ce ne sont que journees endimanchees.
Freddy Che valley.
II I
BRITISH SCENARIOS IN PARTICULAR
Have you ever noticed them ? Soiled, creased, lumpy, -threadbare, the carpets in British films. Smooth out the crea-
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ses, nail down the carpet, and you may disguise the fact that it has just been dragged from the property department and unrolled on the studio floor. But why worn.', it is onh' a Bri- tish picture, a quota picture I The quota, a drig which has lulled the executive staff into apathy — the exhibitor must buj^ I As the carpets so the plots. Lifted from the dusty shelves of the scenario editor's office and bundled into the picture with- out any of the wrinkles smoothed or the stains removed.
The press are fond of calling these transpontine pictures, "machine-made" melodrama. "Machine-made", a favour- ite cliche which gives the whole secret of the British scena- rist to the British public ; most of these stories are actually made with a machine — a plot machine 1 Xo, I am not joking, and if you think of some recent British pictures you will be grateful that in some cases, at least, it is a machine, and not a man, which has fallen so low. (As examples of recent Bri- tish pictures shown to the trade I might mention "Silver Li- ning", "Remembrance", and "Tommy Aktins"). Naturally the machine is not very ingenious but it is reverently placed on the desks of many highly paid British script manufactu- rers.
x\ plot machine is made by dismantling a calendar, one of the kind that are known as "perpetual calendars". You twiddle a knob and the day of the week revolves on a roller behind a slit in the cardboard front ; another knob gives the month ; while the date is printed on a strip of material which runs be- tween to other rollers. A piece of clean paper is pasted round the existing rollers, and new rollers made ; also a fresh card-
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board front is cut out so that each roller will have a separate slit. Then each roller is devoted to some ingredient of the plot. Supposing one roller is given to "Incidents", instead of harmless months or days, it would be filled in with a list of cinematic happenings ; shipwreck, train collision, parachute descent, fire, flood, earthquake, tidal wave, (for such is the 'movie' mind). Another might be given to "Character" coward, thief, drug-taker, sex-maniac, murderer, red-headed momma. And so on thoughout the weary list.
The gentleman, whose name features so prominently on the subtitles, takes the plot machine and turns its face to the wall, operates the knobs and trusts that resulting combination will inspire him to contribute to the great cause of bigger and better "mov^ies". If he can construct no box-oflice patchwork from subtly suggestive groupings, such as "coward" and "fire", he tries again.
Maybe a gifted psycho-analyst could turn the simple toy into something quite sophisticated, but can you wonder at the childishness of British screen-plays when they are fashioned round such jejune scaffolding ?
The delight of the British scenarist knows no bounds when he does it on an idea of his own. In his childlike simplicity he hastens to tell us all about it. We see it in the long shot ; it is emphasized in an extra large close-up ; ringed round with irises, vignettes, and cut-offs. The poor chap is determined that we shall not miss the full import of his masterstroke, and we become so sickened that w^e repeat with the music-hall come- dian ; "Even if that was good I wouldn't like it". Whereas
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mediocre pictures like ''The Trial of Donald Westhof become interesting because good ideas are used in the long shots with- out fussy elaboration. The obvious conclusion is that the Continental scenarist is more fecund.
In England nothing must be left to the imagination of the public. After quick cutting a faint uncertainty as to what is happ3ning is ths more pD .verfal factor in holding the attention of an audience. I wojld like to do a film in which there was only one set, the corridor in an hotel, and from the actions of my characters in the corridor suggest the dramas which were being enacted in the different rooms. Against it I am compel- led to say that the subject is rather 'filmish' ; I mean there would probably be a murder in one room, adultery in another; in fact it looks a? if the idea was corrupted by too close an asso- ciation with British Studios ani plot machines. At any rate it would be an exercise in imagination to visualize the inner man behind the closed doors, from a glimpse of the outer man, cons- cious in the corridor of the possible scrutiny of others.
The first steps toward perceptional education is to abohsh the sphtting of long or medium shots. Let me give an exam- ple from a recent Continental film. A beautiful lady, of breed- ing and refinement, triumphs over her 'rival. We are shown a medium shot of her, too well-bred to laugh or betray the slighest exaltation ; but her maid, in the background, cannot restrain a rapturous grin. Presented in one scene it is an idea. Spilt the scene into two close-ups and it is laboured.
All this is elementary compared vath the dramatic signi- ficance of the size of some shots. As I have hinted, the Bri-
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tish scenarist sorts out his sizes for reasons of stress, if he has a bright idea of his own, or banal exploitation of some star's fea- tures. He cannot realize the importance of size or he would have evolved a more elaborate s\^^stem for his script, as the ordinarv^ British script of to-day contains but four classifi- cations : long shot, medium long shot, medium close-up, and close-up. There should be the twice as mams arranged accord- ing to where they cut on the actors ; large head, knees upward^'.: figure with floor, etc.
I feel that letters from indignant readers are imminent who \\ill accuse me of being spiteful yet once again about the Bri- ' tish film. Well let them endure "Silver Lining", '*Remem~: brance", and "Tommy Atkins."
OSWELL BlAKESTOX.
Mr. OGILVIE ; AN INTERVIEW
I have frequently said what I thought about London pro- grammes, indeed I have never missed an apportunit}' to com- plain, so it is only fair I should be one of the first to put on record Mr. Ogilvie's efforts at the Avenue Pavilion in Lon- don.
Mr. Ogilvie is the manager of this cinema in Shaftesbury
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Avenue and he is appointed by his firm, Gaumont-British ; he has therefore to earn his hving, and make the cinema pay. He is not a free agent, he is not a rich man determined to put his money into showing as many good films as he can while the mony lasts, and he has no financial backing. From first to last he is a business man, and he shows films because it is his job. But he has found that, even in London, it is just as possible to show good films as bad, and that good films pay, once censors and customs officials can be placated. He has deci- ded to let London have something approaching the Ursuli- nes, and the way he has set about it, because he is a business man, is interesting.
He did not say "Here is an Ursulines, come along and see exotic films", and make a gallant stand against the indiffe- rence such a statement would have caused among his patrons. He first showed his patrons several good films and saw how they liked them. They did like them, and so did others who heard there was a film one could enjoy at the Avenue Pavilion. He thus made sure of his regular audience, and added to it. Ivan Moskvin's The Postmaster was shown, so were Impetuous Youth and Jeanne Ney. Jeanne Ney was such a success that Mr. Ogilvie wishes to put it on again, but cannot until it has teen generally released. Vaudeville was put on for a week. Although it had been on in the West End during the winter, it proved so popular that it w^as kept on for two. As I write, Grune's The Street is runrjing, to be follow^ed by The Nihel- ungs.
It is one of the great fallacies, encouraged by men of h-
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mited outlook and by stunted artists themselves, that people don't like good pictures. They do, if not always for the same reasons that you or I do. The}^ don't like dis- honest pictures, or pretentious, ''arty" ones. I have recently seen an audience restless before the trickeries of Gance's Napoleon when they took quietly, with appreciation, the real audacities of Dreyer in La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, a film that, incidentally, has made a tremendous profit. People like good pictures, when they can get them, and it is not al- ways the managers' fault that they can't. Mr. Ogilvie's greatest difficulty is not the public, but the man who looks after the public, the censor. This institute of inhibtion has banned La Tragedie de la Rue and Joyless Street for pubHc exhibition. The film Society gave this latter film once, but it was cut in such a way that when I saw it later in Brussels, I saw almost another film, neither version being the correct one of Pabst.
The duties, again, are extremely high, and so against a man bringing in foreign films of any but the most obvious general appeal. It cost altogether €150 when Waxworks was first brought into the country, Mr. Ogilvie told me. This is a lot for a manager to risk, as Mr. Ogilvie would have to risk it. Sixty pounds, he said, w^as all very well. One could show the film for a fortnight and lose nothing, but it would need a run of a month to pay for such a duty on a film. It is not that the public do not respond (while I was there, each time, the telephone rang constantly. . . . Six seats. . . . Four seats. . .what time does the film come on. . . .) but simply that these duties are
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placed above the public's capacity to refund the manager.
Foreign firms, too, have got so used to the type of Aafa comedy that is wanted, to the "EngHsh versions'' that have to be prepared, that they are chary of sending over their best or their better, work. But Mr. Ogilvie has plans, and he has confidence. There are people looking abroad for the films he wants, and there is the public waiting at home to see them. It is an interesting public . The Avenue Pavilion is in what used to be called theatr eland, and it is also in Soho. Waiters and chauffeurs and factory-girls have long gone there, and the}^ continue to. But cars begin to drive up, and people in din- ner-jackets get out. The prices are not high, the theatre is comfortable, and it is easy to get to. There are all these auxiliary reasons for its success, and also it is not snobbish. The cinema has not been painted orange and black since the experiment was made, there is no air that you are assisting at something rather extraordinary in seeing good films. There is nothing to tell it from an ordinar\^ London cinema, save that there are no prologues and that the pictures are w^orth seeing.
' People are often writing to me and sa^dng that they like good movies, but whenever they go in London, the atmosphere is so ''precious", that they are put off. Well, here is the cine- ma for them, and for most other people. There is nothing of the Phoenix Society or Everyman about it.
]\Ir. Ogilvie himself is not one of those ''enthusiasts" who talk about the blacks and whites. The whole time I talked to him, I never heard him use the word ''art". He talked only
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of good films, and he seemed to know what a good film is. And also what a film is not, a photographed play, like The Vor- tex to use his own instance, with the story told by the subtitles and the actors suiting the action to the w^ords. He is against talking films, too. In fact, there is quite a lot of hope about the Avenue Pavilion, a popular cinema in the heart of Lon- don, where one should soon be able to be sure there will be something on worth seeing. It deserves support, and the more continuous support it gets, the better movies it will be able to show. We hope it may flourish as it has begun, and that the censor wil) even see that are a number of people in England who take their films seriously, and that their needs are served by a young manager doing his best, despite foolish rules.
Copies of Kean and of W^^'^i'^g Shadows have been found, but they are in such bad condition, that it is doubtful if they can be shown. Other films it is proposed to show are Stro- heim's Greed and Merry Widow, The Birth of a Nation, Trilhy, The Marriage Circle and also Lady Windermere's Fan of Lubi- tsch, / Will Repay with Asta Nielsen, The Student of Prague, The Marriage of the Bear and if possible Voyage au Congo. Not all these are of equal merit, but they accord with Mr. Ogil- vie's policy of showing only films that would not be seen elsewhere. At present, the second features are the general releases ; these afford an opportunity of contrast, but it is plan- ned to replace these in time with old comics and with travel and ''interest" films.
It would be trite to say that Mr, Ogilvie is doing good. One
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can see the effect he is having, even though most managers think him mad, by the fuss the trade papers are making over the banning of Potemkin, Cinema is enquiring how long the pubhc are to be dependent for their films on "the artistic mediocrity of casual councillors" which is not bad for a trade paper. A monthly programme is issued by The Avenue, which can be obtained on demand, and Mr. Ogilvie earnestly asks for any suggestions anj'one may have of films it would be interesting to get hold of.
R. H.
COMMENT AND REVIEW
Regrettably the stills from early films which we were try- ing to procure for this month's Close Up have not been forth- coming yet, and w^e are unable to give them in our supplement. We hope to be able to print them in the August issue.
★
A German-Spanish film,
A Spanish director, Benito Perojo together with Gustav Uci- eky is now making for Emelka a film of the South, entitled
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Herzen ohne Ziel (Aimless Hearts) from the Spanish romance by Thilde Forster. Spring in Spain is the season, and lovers of this country are promised some lovely scenery. The cast includes Hanna Ralph, Betty Byrd, Livio Pavanelli, Imperio Argentina and Valentino Parera. Exteriors have aires dy been began in Madrid. Barcelona, Biarritz, San Sebastian and other places will feature. The cameraman is Franz Koch.
*
Max Glass Production is now making Unfug der Liehe, direct- ed by Robert Wiene, and starring Maria Jacobini. The sce- nario is from the story by Alexander Ferenczy. Other mem- bers of the cast are Jack Trevor, Angelo Ferrari, Betty Astor, Ferry Sikla, Oreste Bilancia and Willy Forst.
*
Kurt Bernhardt (director of Schinderhannes) will direct a film for Terra entitled FrUhlingserwachen (Spring s Awaken- ing). Production will begin in September.
Karl Grune will direct Die Frau, nach der man sick sehfit (The Desired Woman) also for Terra. From the romance of Max Brod.
*
Alfred Hugenberg, Ufa's great man, and Mussolini, Italy's great man have made an agreement to w^ork hand in hand in the making of propagandistic films. Somehow they w^ould ! The actual agreement is between Ufa and the Instituo Nazion ale Luce. Fullest facilities are to be exchanged, and it is
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expected that Italian films will have a recrudescence. Re- member Messalina ? Ufa is to train Italian technicians and to exploit Italian films wherever it expoits its own. German nationalist picture making can in return more or less have the run: of Italy. In the words of the popular song, "How d'you like it?"
Italian films, therefore, will be propagandistic on a wide scale. We take the liberty of quoting from the Observer of June 17. "As is well known, the policy of the Ufa Company in Germany is largely directed by the Nationalist magnate Alfred Hugenberg, whose influence in the topical news sec- tion is paramount. (Not exclusive however, as Emelka run pretty close with their Emelka Woche. Ed.) It is this news section which is regarded as more important in its general tendency than the big films whose story is so largely dependant upon "production values". These would seldom include as main theme the glorification of a Communist hero, or the happy home life of a Socialist family. But a resolute determination to boycott all topical films taken of strikes and demonstra- tions, parades inspected by generals and expensive sporting contests in the cinemas controlled by those who believe La- bour should be kept in its place is a powerful propagandist weapon."
The article goes on to point out that instructional films, which can contain no political bias, will also play an impor- tant part in the exchange.
* -
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The End of St. Petersbourg, Pudowkin's wonderful epic of the Russian Revolution, has had a great success in Xew York. It will be remembered that this film, together with Mother .and Ten Days that Shook the World were taken back by Arthur Hammerstein. It is just as well to balance the sugar coated pro-Imperialist, "Russians are fiends" attitude with a state- ment of fact, no matter what the political feelings of the au- dience.
PRODUCTION LIST FOR TERRA FILIYI
DAS PRODUKTIONS — & VERLEIK — PROGRAMM DER TERRA
Saison 1928/29
Direcktor Morawsky hat fur die Saison 1928-29 ein um- iangreiches Produktions-und Verleih-Programm ausgearbeitet, das 20 Filme umfasst. Es ist ein Programm der Xamen, ein Programm der Oualitat. Autoren von Weltruf, die erfol- greichsten Regisseure, und die beliebtesten Darsteller bilden ein Arbeits-Kollektiv so hohen Ranges, dass der Terra nicht nur eine Erfolg-Saison in Deutschland sicher ist, sondem auch ■ein starker Absatz der Terra-Filme im Ausland zu gewartigen steht. Eine grosse Unterstiitzung wird hierbei die Auswahl der Sujets bieten, die dem Produktionsprogramm Zugkraft und Abwechslung verleihen.
Von den Themen, die im Programm der Terra erscheinen, sind besonders interessant :
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Revolutionshochzeit von Sophus Michaelis (Regiebuch Nor- bert Falk u. Robert Liebmann).
Wedekinds : Friihlingserwachen
Stendhal mit seinem Roman
(( Rouge et noir )>, der unter dem Titel ; Der geheime. Kurier von Curt I. Braun und Walter Jonas als Terra-Greenbaum-Film bearbeitet wird.
Von Hans Milller, dem Autor der « Flamme » zunachst ein Thema :
Das hrennende Herz, das Ludwig Berger fiir Mady Christians inszeniert.
Alfred Capus bekanntes Lustspiel : Leontines Ehemdnner, und
Unfug der Liehe, nach dem Roman von Alexander Castel, die Max Glass fiir den Film bearbeitet hat.
Die bekannte Operette : Fine Frau von Format
ein grosser Abenteurerfilm
Hotel Babylon, nach dem Roman von Arnold Bennett und
von dem bekannten Autor Max Brod.
Die Frau, nach der man sich sehnt.
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LIST OF DIRECTORS
Die Regisseur — Liste weist stattliche Namen auf . Unter anderen seien besonders erwahnt :
LuDWiG Berger, Kurt Bernhard, Karl Grune, Lupu Pick, Gennaro Righelli, A. W. Sandberg, Robert Wiene und Fritz Wendhausen.
Die Darsteller-Liste des Terra-Programms ist so zahlreich, dass nur einige Stars genannt werden konnen :
Mady christians und Grete Mosheim die ausschltessltch fur die Terra arbeiten, ferner
Karina Bell, Anita Dorris, Lilian Harvey, Maria Jacobini Diana Karenne, Claire Rommer und Suzy Vernon.
Von der Mannern vor allem :
IWAN MOSJUKIN GOSTA EkMANN
die ja beide Welstars sind, weiterhin
Georg Alexander, Fritz Kortner, Peter C. Leska, Wal- THER RiLLA, Hans Thiming und Jack Trevor.
Das Terra-Prohgramm ist in einer Zusammenstellung ein einheitliches Ganzes, und diirfte nicht nur im Inlande, son- dern auch im Auslande einen starken Widerhall finden.
A distinguished and gratifying list of directors, artists, and material. The results should be of the greatest interest, and our thanks are due to Terra for their brilliant choice.
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HOLLYWOOD NOTES
HoUwood now has its little film theatre — Filmarte. Like the Cameo, of New- York, and the Studio des Ursulines, of Paris, Filmarte is dedicated to the showing of the exceptional, the artistic, the experimental in celluloid production, as well as the reviving of films of yesteryear.
The reception accorded its initial program augurs well for its success. The Swedish film, The Golden Clon'n, with Gosta Ekman, was its chief feature ; while Robert Florey's futu- ristic fantasy, The Love of Zero, notable alike for its economj^ in cost of production and its bizarre treatment, provided the special Holh^vood novelty.
: The promoter and presiding genius of Filmarte is a young woman, Miss Regge Doran, who brings to her position as direc- tor of the theatre an extensive managerial experience, in addition to livety enthusiasm and enterprise.
Filmarte is Holh^vood's third attempt to establish an athe- neum of this character. Whether the previous attempts failed =because of a then unappreciative provincialism or because of ultra-sophistication in matters cinematic, is a question difficult to determine. At all events, the present venture has got off to a good start and its future appears assured.
★
The various producing companies have completed their schedules for the coming twelve months, and the resulting fi-
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gures are of interest. A total of eight hundred pictures will be made in Hollywood during the 1928-29 fiscal year. These productions will involve a cost of one hundred and fifteen million dollars and will call for the emplo3niient of twenty- five thousand persons. The combined payroll will not be less than a million and a half, a week.
Together the different producing companies will spend close to seventy millions in advertising. All available mediums will be used for this purpose, including radio. For a number of years such advertising as was done in the magazines was confined to trade journals devoted to the interest of exhibi- tors ; but now, in addition, the public is being directly reached by regular and extensive advertisment^ in the leading popular w^eeklies.
All in all, Holh^vood looks forward to a busy year. With a now total investment in the picture industrj^ of one billion one hundred and twenty- five million dollars, it cannot indeed afford to be other than busy if it is to pay dividends on this enormous capital.
*
Director Murnau will divide his summer w^ork between Alas- ka and Kansas. Scenes in one of his forthcoming pictures call for arctic locations, while the harvest fields of the prairies are the required mise-en-scene of another — Our Daily Bread.
Going afield for locations is perhaps unavoidable in the case «of these two prospective pictures ; but studios, in their present
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efforts to economize, are becoming steadily less inclined to incur the expense entailed by these geographical excursions. With the use of stage built exteriors of miniature sets, painted backgrounds, double exposures, and trick photography, coupl- ed with the unparalleled variety of landscape within a short radius of Hollywood, there are but few parts of the earth that cannot be readily and realistically duplicated for the screen. In The King of Kings, for example, all of the Palestrinian ex- teriors were either natural California scener}' or were built on the stages. The impressive Garden of Gethsemane and Calvary were both stage sets, designed by the de Mille art di- rector.
*
A unique feature of Hollywood's amusement life is the film premiere — the first night's showing of some new picture of spe- cial note. It is a feature peculiarly and exclusively Holly- woodian ; a spectacle wdthout its counterpart in any other com- munity of the world.
The prices charged on one of these " first nights" range from five to ten dollars a ticket, and the audience consists largely of members of the film colony. The interested public for the most part gets its enjoyment out of the affair by crowding about the brilliantly lighted theatre entrance and gazing upon the movie celebrities as they arrive. Many thousands w^ho would avoid the jam on the streets, remain at home and tune in on the broadcast by the announcer who stands before a mi-
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crophone at the theatre entrance and heralds by name each noted arrival, besides giving a brief description of the evening apparel of the feminine stars as they step from their limousines and pass thru the theatre courtyard. Frequently, too, these attending stars, as well as other prominent film folks, are induced to speak a few words of public greeting into the mi- crophone. Within the theatre, under the direction of some Hollywood notable acting as master of ceremonies, the showing of the film is preceded by a special program of speeches or smiling bows from the personages connected with the picture. And altogether the affair is one to gladden the hearts of the publicity-loving film colonists and the hero-worshiping onlook- ers.
The recent premiere of Drums of Love was invested with special interest, in that it was made the occasion for celebrat- ing the twentieth year of Griffith's work as a director, as well as extending a welcome to this his first picture made in Holly- wood after an absence in New York of several years. Cecil de Mille, his oldest brother director, acted as master of cere- monies, seconded by Charlie Chaplin, and w^as applauded in his tributes to Griffith by a brillant galaxy of Hollywood's first-magnitude stars.
*
The Hollywood Association of Foreign Correspondents is the latest of HoUjAvood's movie-born organizations. Only recently inaugurated, it already has a list of a hundred mem-
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bers — men and women serving as cinema correspondents for newspapers and periodicals outside of the United States. Its personnel represents more than a score of nationalities, and its coming into being serves tangibly to emphazise the world's interest in HoUjwood.
C. H.
NOTES
To make room for the interview with Mr. Ogilvie, received as we were going to press, the list of films recommended by CLOSE UP, is held over until next month. We feel that readers of CLOSE UP will wish to have full information as to Mr. Ogilvie's endeavour to make the Avenue Pavilion, the Ursulines of London.
We have been delighted to receive several more letters with regard to the formation of film societies during the past month and at Mr. Marshall's desire, print the following noti- fication.
Now being formed in London. Ax amateur BiiyAi saciEXY for private pro- jection and production.
1. Protection of films not shown in England by the usual cinemas. Past films of interest, and NEW if, and when, funds permit. Formation of film Library.
2. Production, under technical direction, but as much original work by members as possible.
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3. Exchange of films and co-operation with other societies. And all as economically as possible.
Write Organising Secretary :
H.P.J. Marshal. , 51 High Road, Ilford. London.
ENGLISH RELEASES FOR JULY
Many interesting pictures are being put on at the Avenue Pavilion, an article on which will be found in this issue. For the rest, the most reward- ing releases would seem to be these. It must be remembered that in many cases these films have not been seen, and are only recommended as those we should be most likely to take a chance on ourselves.
Out of the Mist,
Deta production, with Mady Christians and Werner Fuetterer Directed by Fritz Wendhausen, distributed by Butcher. See notice in Close Up for October. Warmly recommended.
The Crowd.
Directed by King Vidor. Good performances by Eleanor Boardman and James Murray, in a film that sets out to give the soul of middle class life in New York. Fine camera work. The story weakens at times, and this is not the masterpiece America thinks, but it Is the American equivalent of Berlin and Rien que les Heures. Metro-Gold wyn.
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Loves Crucifixion.
German film, directed b}' Carmine Gallone, \vith Olga Tschechowa and Hans Stuewe, W. and F. Pre-release only.
The Living Image.
A French film that should interest because it is directed b}' Marcel L'Her- bier. Western Import. Pre-release only.
40.000 Miles with Lindbergh.
American interest film. Some beautiful shots of New York with tape and paper streaming from skyscraper windows. The reactions of Lind- bergh on his tour also interesting. Metro-Goldwyn.
Secrets of the Soul.
The commercial version of Pabst's analytic film is generally released, with Werner Krauss, Ruth Weyher and Jack Trevor. Wardour. Horri- bly cut, but worth seeing for many reasons.
The Chess Player.
The Chess Player, with Bdith Jehanne, and The Emden were on at the end of June in Dorset, so these ma}- be found during July in the country, where many people ^vill be.
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Vol. Ill No. 2 August 1928
AS IS
BY THE EDITOR
This will be more or less a brief account of what is happening in Berlin at the moment, actually or about to happen. Perhaps the most important thing is Derussa, The Russian film, certainly. But in addition there is a great amount of activity and life for the " off-season Pabst is about to make Wedekin's Box of Pandora, and is (as I write) held up only by not being able to find a suitable leading lady. Having interviewed over six hundred applicants, and tested many of them, he is by now sending cables to America. By the time this appears no doubt somebody will have been chosen, and production will be in progress. Eisenstein is expected early in August to make for Derussa in Berlin a non- political film. Pudowkin is making a third, the first stills from which were shown to me by Prometheus Film G.m.b.H. As they were the first, I w^as unable to cajole any, but I shall have some in due course. They were full of vigor and beauty, and I want Close Up readers to see as many as I can print.
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I am interested, too, to hear that nearlv everybody here says The End of St. Petersburg is much better than Ten Days That Stunned the World. 1 will not dispute this, being but one among* critics as good and better than myself, but, having seen the two, I think there is little to choose between them. Here thev saw Si. Petersburg first, and naturally accepted it as the masterpiece it is. I myself saw Ten Days first, and perhaps that has something to do with my feeling that the scenes of the revolt were more dynamic, more stark, more vivid than in St. Petersburg, though I am sure that nothing could be greater or more terrible than the war scenes in the latter, blending and commenting on civil life in St. Petersburg itself. Ten Days, they say, is a document — meaning news reel. So, if we are to believe it, is St. Petersburg. The personal element simply concentrates attention and sympathy on the individual. This is excellent, and adds great power to the lilm. But Ayhat of the personal element in Ten Days? What of Lenin and his terribly effective entrance and his wild gesticulations? What of the woman whose body lies on the great bridge, which, opening slowly, lifts her streaming hair, and takes with it a dead horse harnessed to its cab, with the horse dangling white and stark over the water, and the cab balancing its weight on the other side? This moment, with the bridge rising, and the horse rising higher and higher in the air, hanging more and more absurdly from incredible height, until the strain is too great and cab crashes down the slope to the road and the horse plunges into the water, is one of sheerest personal terror, and only to be compared with the toppling of the upright pram down the steps in Potemkin.
I want to register my opinion because, if I am any judge,
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St. Petersburg is not greater than Potemkin. I am sure it is as great, but not greater. Pudowkin is apt to err in present- ing his ruling classes as caricatures. Their indifference and brutahty is just a Httle apt to be over-stressed. Their position, naturally, was as often due to ignorance as great as the people they oppressed. I am not saying that Lebedefl' was in any way overdrawn, nor the cheering crowds urging their countrymen to light, while the whole of St. Petersburg decked in flags and flower garlands was reminiscent of a Roman festival. Women waving, and jov evervwhere, we can all remember, was how war was greeted by many. But the impression, and this conveys exactly what I mean, of oppression was just as surely conveyed by Eisenstein in Ten Days by adroit photographs of gaudy chandeliers, statues, decor, gigantic, over-ornate trapping of the Winter Palace, contrasted with the pitiful misery of the people. This subtlety seemed to me very dignified and very fine. I know how many directors would have, or could have, visualised nothing but bare baccantes and a hiccoughing sovereign to express their meaning.
This may seem, but is not actuallv deviating from my account of what is happening in Berlin at the moment. These two films are still being much discussed, and will be for years to come. Close Up will have much to say of them from time to time. The cutting out of Trotsky from Ten Days, an act of censorship, is as inexplicable as most of the inhibitions for which that department is universally famous, especially since we have Lenin. Presumably we are supposed to realise that Trotsky figured in the history of these days, and to have every reference to him deleted leaves a gap. It is a pity that political
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reasons of to-day should in a case like this be allowed to misrepresent history.
Potemkin, on the other hand, has been going the rounds in its uncut version; that is to say, with the inclusion of the formerly banned scenes of the drowning officers, the raising of the red flag, and the toppling pram. Meisel's music, with this, have made the presentation more than noteworthy. And speaking of Meisel, Berlin has been playing at the Tauentzien Palast to crowded audiences. Meisel's gorgeous music again exhilarates. Perhaps there are too manv trams in Berlin. At least, it has been stated so. Is it not, however, purelv a question of temperament? If you watcli Berlin objectively it may lack much that individuals would claim to be part of daily life in a great city. If its images are allowed to pass subjectively before your eyes, it does not lack hypnotic force, and carries all the movement and clatter of the streets.
Anna Karenina, with Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, is havmg a huge success at the Gloria Palast. As this is the rottenest possible film, it is clear that its success is due to the beauty of Greta Garbo, who has a Belle Bennett part of mother love. In twenty years they will be trying vainly to give her those parts for which her youth and beauty now make her suited. As I say, the film is just tripe, and Greta's clothes an abomination. If ever bad taste plus vulgarity and tawdriness meant anything they w^ould here, but for the fact of Greta's loveliness and utter inability to look like anything but an overgrown adolescent dressing up for a school play.
Kleinstadtsiinder, with Asta Nielsen, has been on at one of the Ufa. houses, and revivals, notes on which will be found in Comment and Review, at various houses.
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Denissa have very kindly shown me some of the best lilms I have yet seen. I am to see more this coming week, so cannot comment on them in this issue, though I will in the next, so will limit myself to two as yet unrealeased films, Der Sohn {The Son) and Das Dorf der Sunde (The Village of Sin), The latter, made by a woman director, Olga Preobrashenskaja, is non-political, but sociological, and (partly because I prefer sociology to poHtics) gives me almost greater delight than any of the others. I want you to remember the name, because it is without question a film that could and should be shown everywhere. I shall hope to give stills next month, and full information about it, and will content myself now by saying only that here is a fihii that every woman and everv thoughtful man will acclaim. It states the case for women, for children, for decent laws and decent education as only a woman could have done it. Beyond this, Olga Preobrashenskaja has great power and poetry. Her exteriors, taken on panchromatic stock, have never been equalled. Here is peasant life, and here is corn. Corn blowing, waving, she has it from every angle, near and far. It is a great ethereal sea, with crisp, swift waves. Its beauty is indescribable. Her technique is strong, her types well chosen and never over-emphasised. I do hope that CAose Up readers will have the opportunity to see this film.
Der Sohn, with Anna Sten, is less good, but still a remarkable and beautiful film. Anna vSten has never been so good. The story is intellectual, and intellectually conceived and intellectuallv directed. We will have more to say of this also, but space for the moment forbids. Der Gelbe Pass is also not so good. It has moments of great beauty, and J.
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Kowal-Samborski is most attractive in his role of the voung peasant. But it is over-melodramatic. Its propaganda fails because the oppressors in this case are simply pathological cases, and would be in any circumstances or conditions. Surely a wealthy land-owner, requested for land to farm from two of his serfs, would be enough of a business man to sav to himself here are two strong, capable and enthusiastic young people. They wall do good work with their land, and I will have good rent. Instead of w^hich he reluctantlv rents them barren soil full of stones. That is what I call bad technique. We do not feel that this man is much more than a fool, cer- tainly not worthy of the propaganda made against him. In the beginning, also, Marie (Anna Sten) was seen definitely employed in the fields, and Jacob (Kowal-Samborski), returning from military service, was greeted by all his fellow peasants. If these two were so well known, it would not have been difficult for them to find employment in the fields again instead of Marie having to go as nurse to the house of the land-owner miles away. There were lovely moments between the young wife and her husband, and the interiors of the brothel were straight, strong and unsentimental. But this is less good than some of the other films. It is not marked with the same intellectualitv and freedom from conventional dramatic impasse as are the others. That is the enthralling thing about such films as Mother, Das Dorf Der Siinde, Ten Days. There is none of the old tired-to-death plot and counter-plot of the average scenario. One could not say quite the same of such Russian films (distinguished more for their treatment) as Ivan the Terrible, The Postmaster, and that other barren example of boredom, Taras Biilha; or even of
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Der Sohn der Berge {Son of the Hills). These have the old tricks, the old jig-saw business of mate and checkmate, and are not to be ranked among the best, among Bett und Sofa, The End of St, Petersburg, Das Dorf der Siinde, These have such a new approach that thev are, in a sense, a regener- ation of the films. Let us hope that the Russian endeavour to secure an international market for its films will not mean deterioration. One or two recent ones have shown a much weaker tendency. Xot all, however, thank goodness.
What a vast pity it is that Britishers, quite justly famed for their sense of fair play, should have refused to listen to " the other side " of the question. The English public would be the first to appreciate and give fair judgment to such films as Ten Days, and also to take their chance to realise that Russia really is building magnificently, and that the Revolution was not canaille ousting their betters, but bitterly oppressed and wronged people making a final, desperate bid for life.
\\^ell, these are the questions, the problems, and the movements of Berlin of the moment. Next month I will give more details of the beginning of the autumn season. With Pudowkin, Eisenstein, Room, Pabst and other distinguished directors making or about to make new films, there will be plenty to occupy our interest for some months to come. The new season may be more rewarding than the last.
Kexxeth Macphersox.
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By RICHARD WATTS, Jr.
To an American cinema season that threatened to be singularly arid and unprofitable, the European producers have come gallantly to the rescue. It is only fair to add, lest this summary sound like just another anti-Hollywood blast, that the rescue did come as something of a surprise. During the last season or two the so-called " art theaters " of New York have been showing us pompousl}' heralded examples of the European photoplay which — with the exception of Czar Ivan the Terrible — have seemed so crude and amateurish in workmanship, beside even the most routine of the local product, that the pictures made abroad had come into pretty general disrepute.
Certainly, though, the Hollywood output of the last six months, despite a certain standard of technical proficiency, has been a discouraging one, even to the most generous and optimistic of observers. A frantic desire to imitate has become the one notable tendency in American film-making. A constant succession of crook pictures, nightclub melo- dramas, mystery dramas and romances about shopgirls who married the millionaire has been our weekly screen fare because some firm or other had once turned out a successful crook picture, nightclub melodrama, mystery drama or
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romance about a shopgirl who married the millionaire. Xo imagination, no originality, no resource and a more and more complete reliance on the support of elaborate accompanying stage shows to bring in the customers ! Now^ comes the talking picture as the latest fad, and there are some observers who welcome even this surrender of the first principle of the screen as at least a temporary relief from the dreariness of the same three or four stories endlessly repeated.
All of this is, of course, a commonplace of American cinema criticism, but it is necessary to repeat it to suggest the proper background for the earlier mentioned rescue. For into the dullness and general uneventfulness of the most dis- couraging of screen seasons there was — though not quite suddenly — tossed a Russian picture and a British picture, and, immediately, the photoplav situation took on new life and eagerness. Now, it was not so surprising to find a Russian production an invigorating influence, but to see an English film also acting as ptilmotor is surprising enough to deserve comment.
The picture is, of course, that Herbert Wilcox production called Dawn, w^iich deals with the wartime activities and execution of the nurse, Edith Cavell. In my opinion, Dawn is an interesting work because it tells a straightforward story straightforwardly, is beautifully acted by Sybil Thorndike, and, dealing with a theme still full of dynamite, it was thoroughly impartial and honourable in its treatment. But no one could say it w^as really important as a piece of cinema- making.
What made it of importance to New York's photoplay season w^as its controversial angle. Because the film dealt
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with the subject it did and had been banned in the country of its manufacture, the feeHng was widespread that it would reaw^aken national hatreds, and something of a local publicity war waged over the propriety of showing it. The point I would make is that the very fact a motion picture could stir up the controversy Dawn created was of high value to the cinema season. One of the chief defects of our motion pictures is that they are determined to offend no one; to deal with no idea or theme w^orth taking seriously. One of their chief weaknesses is that no one ever gets excited enough to take them with much earnestness. But here was a photoplay that caused people to become indignant enough to want to fight a little. For the moment, a motion picture actually started a battle. You can't tell me that doesn't come under the head of progress.
Of infinitely more importance, of course, as pure cinema, is the Russian film, The End of St. Petersburg, which reached town the evening after Dawn, and would have been shown earlier had not the State Department been somewhat in doubt about the whole matter. It will not be the purpose of this survey to tell of the magnificent cinematic values of this pictorial account of the overthrow of Russia's old regime; of its magnificent war scenes, the only real anti-war episodes in picture history ; of its amazing use of shots of inanimate objects; of its skill in making every scene count. I will only say that the film served a purpose that was of high value in tw^o directions. First, the highly charged subject matter of the film, with its frank anti-capitalist propaganda, attracted wide attention and discussion, and then, the attention having been drawn, it was riveted by the qualities of a film that
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combined the technical values of Potemkin with the additional element of being a good show
One result of this was that a week after The End of St, Petersburg opened, not only were all the motion picture critics writing enthusiastically about it, but their more valued colleagues, the dramatic critics, were talking excitedly of the film also. Accustomed to sneering the usual theater-goer's sneer at the contemptible object they call the movies, these somewhat condescending gentlemen remained to marvel at the dramatic possibilities of this humble medium. American defenders of the cinema are constantly met by this attitude of contempt that their cultured fellow-countrymen bear towards the cinema, and a picture like The End of St. Petersburg is, therefore, of infinite value in overthrowing this destructively cynical point of view. Add to that the importance of the work in restoring the morale of the unfortunate film advocates, beaten down after a succession of fourth-rate pictures, and you ma}' gain some faint idea of what the Russian production has already done for us here.
As for the recent American-made photoplays, only two are worthy of consideration, and one of these was directed by a German. This is The Man Who Laughs, a surprisingly faithful adaptation of the Hugo novel, directed with fine atmospheric effectiveness by Paul Leni and splendidly acted by Conrad Veidt and Olga Baclanova. The other is The Big Noise, a humble enough program picture which was given a certain, at least, local importance by the fact that it actually satirized American political conditions and even had the irreverance to poke fun at New York's mayor.
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FILMS FOR CHILDRExN
For the first time in questions of cinematography, I am afraid. I have often been angry, but as Miss Loos has said,
you can't keep a good fihn down " — Joyless Street is being revived, Jeanne Ney was cheered in London, and quite a lot of people here walked out on Rin-tin-tin. But one cannot pick up a trade paper in any language w^ithout finding that a lot of societies of health, education and moral welfare have got together to discuss exactly what films they will permit to be shown to the young.
And one knows so well what they will choose.
A short time ago a film was shown here that w-as endorsed by all possible educational societies. Parents were enjoined, almost sumuK^ned to send their children. It was about the glories of scouting. And it was about as foolish a piece of work as any to date encountered. The hero, rather than break his word, allowed every other person in the film to risk their life and their happiness. But because he had not broken his word or his scout pole, or something equally dogmatic, he was a HERO. And children were to copv him. This is the kind of thing that makes me fear for the future.
Children, naturallv, are blindlv obedient. What they need to be taught is self-reliance and discrimination. To know when a thing is right and w^hen it isn't. There is no set road
16
The moment that Miriam (Dolores Costello) is about to be slain by an arrow from the bow of the high priest, as a sacrifice to one of the temple idols.
Interior of pagan temple as flood waters pour in upon it.
Exterior scene of deluge.
Interior of Ark showing Japheth (George O'Brien) with :\Iiriam (Dolores Costello) in his arms — Xoah (Paul McAllister). Japheth has rescued Miriam from the deluge that overwhelmed the temple as she was about to be offered up as a sacrifice. Shem (Malcolm White) and Ham (Guinn Williams), together with their wives and the wife of Xoah, are looking on.
The T ell-Tale Heart. The madman (Otto Matiesen), driven to murder- ous frenzy by his victim's vulture-like eye and the beating of his terrified
heart.
The Tell-Tale Heart. The old man awakens in terror as the madman appears in his room, bent upon kilHng him.
Tilt Ttll-Tale Heart. The madman (Otto Matiesen), after he has succeeded in clearing himself of suspicion, is driven to reveal his crime by the fancied beating of the heart of his murdered victim, whose body he had successfully concealed under the floor.
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of good and evil. Everything changes according to time and environment. The good of yesterday may be the evil of to-day;
Glancing at random over some American educational papers, 1 tind that you may take your child to Two Arabian KnightSj but you must not take him to The Kin go j Kings. Why ? Sadie Thompson is considered of " doubtful value/' but you are especially cautioned against letting him see Wings. A pictorial record by a scientific expedition to New Guinea is not for the young. (Presumably on account of the customs of the savages !) The Crowd is strong and beyond them. The Student Prince is excellent. You may even, because it is so beautiful, take them to see Garbo and Gilbert in Love.
Probing behind the apparently incongruous listing, you will find that every picture that has the slightest relationship to reality is barred.
The King of Kings has passages of great beauty and simplicity, but because it presents the story without any particular dogmatic coloring, we presume, it is unfit for children. Though thev will not be harmed by the vulgarities of Two Arabian K7iights. (I felt, when I saw this, that though it did not much m.atter, it was one of the few pictures to which I should prefer not to take a child.) The Student Prince will show them life as it is not and therefore is quite safe, as the prince does his duty by his father and his father- land in the end. The Crowd, which apparently (I have not seen it yet) sets out to show the average existence of the average family, is '' too strong," and I cannot imagine why Wings should be so improper? Is it the war stuff? But
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then they are taught to approve of war stuff in most schools. Has Wings some hidden meaning to which even a psycho- logical student cannot penetrate? Or are they afraid that small boys may purloin aeroplanes to escape another term at
school ?
In Germany you may take your child to Buster Keaton or to The Dangers of Ignorance, and nothing much between.
In Switzerland you can take a child to anything provided it is accompanied by a parent : otherwise it cannot go alone until over fifteen unless it is labelled a programme de famille. This, incidentally, I feel is the ideal arrangement.
In England everything is censored in order to conform with what a certain group considers wholesome for children.
Now I am very doubtful if the cinema in any of its forms is responsible for much harm. It cannot be more harmful than the average daily Press nor the average education. Of course, there are a lot of films that one would prefer a child not to see ; just as there are bad forms of any art that one prefers they should escape if possible. But I would run the risk of their seeing any film I know of to date, rather than that some absurd system of censorship should bar them from the films that matter — from Mother, from Jeanne Ney, and others in that category. But these would be the first to be barred under a policy of restriction.
Once a child is fourteen in mental age there is no reason why it should not see any film : particularly, if I could, I would see they went to films such as Joyless Street and Bett und Sofa, For children under fourteen care, if necessary, not from any point of view that their morals might be damaged, but because many great films treat of subjects outside their
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experience and many stupid films might blunt their discrim- ination.
But, as one should be constructive, not destructive, what films should be chosen to show children aged say, between eight and fourteen ?
First of all, if I were arranging a programme for children, I should be careful to see that the films were not too long* They do not, as a rule, enjoy sitting still for longer than an hour and a half. Then I should suggest the following nine pictures, which shown, one a week, would roughlv cover a school term. I should show one film only at each perform- ance, with the addition of the current news gazette, or any one reel documentaire.
1. Moana of the South Seas. — This has proved, from personal experience, the favorite picture of a great number of children. If the programme is strictly educational, it can be linked up with the geography of the Pacific Islands. If possible, the fuller French version should be shown, as the more interesting portions for children were largely omitted from the English copy.
2. Chang. — This will add Siam and Asia to their map of the world. If possible, some of the interesting articles on how the picture was filmed ^vhich have appeared in Asia and National Geographic Magazine) should be given them to read afterwards.
3. The King of Kings. — This film will give them more than hours of dogmatic religious instruction. It would be well to point out that the colored prologue and preposterous banquet are not in accordance with the verity of the rest of the picture.
4. Tier gang in Ahyssinien. — This is a wonderful record of the expedition sent to Abyssinia to collect African animals for the Berlin Zoo, and has some very beautiful pictures of wild birds. But it is more than a mere documentaire and contains many scenes of Abyssinian life, one of the oldest cultures of Africa.
5. Voyage An Congo. — Not so many animals, but very valuable to show children the beauty and interest of negro life in West Africa. Every country has its negro problem, and it will be well for all concerned if
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children realise that Africa is a land of complex civilisations and not a strip of sand where ignorant natives run from the white man in terror.
6. Kraft und Schoenheit. — This would need to be shortened. The scenes in the stadium^ contrast of modern life, the training of tiny babies, the slow-motion pictures of boxing, fencing, ju-jitsu, etc., would probably be more enjoyed by children than the various forms of dancing. But I should not insult the intelligence and artistic sense of the children by cutting out the nudes.
7. Under Arctic Skies, — This gives a good idea of Northern life and links up, via Siberia, with Asia. Nanook of the North might be substituted, but I have always missed this picture. At any rate, the bears playing
- in the stream, the birds on the Siberian shore, will help the children to circle the world with their minds.
8. Son of the Mountains. — This is a Goskino film, taken in the Caucasus. The story is poor; it is, in fact, a Russian " Western," but probably the children won't object. The scenes of village life are excellent, and they will like the riding and the fighting. The chief reason, however, why this film is suggested is that most people link up Russia with the Arctic and forget completely the Asiatic and Mohammedan fringes, that suffer from intense heat rather than from cold. With this, as it is not very long, might be shown Cooper and Schoedsack's Grass, an interest- ing picture of tribal migration across the Persian mountains.
9. Mother. — Directed by Pudowkin. Perhaps the most religious film yet made. It is not revolutionary in spirit : it is universal. And it is absurd to deny a film of so great a vision to children simply because it happens to have been made in Russia. To do this is to place ourselves on the level of the women jeering at the prisoners in this picture.
I am afraid my list is very different to the current English experiments. Not one patriotic film and not one fairy tale. But, except for the Voyage au Congo, I have taken children to all the films I have suggested and noted their criticism and reactions. The adult world (perhaps from nervousness) too often surrounds childhood with falseness. These pictures will show it the world as it is — its beauty, its ugliness, its possibility of adventure.
Bryher.
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FILMS FOR CHILDREN
The failure of the theatre to provide for juveniles anything more than the annual Christmas pantomime, or Blue Bird, or Peter Pan, is presumably to be accounted for by the assumption that upper and middle class children are excluded from evening* outings, except during holidays, and that in the long summer vacation they are away from town. But, as a matter of fact, few children are rigorously excluded for the whole of term-time from evening entertainments, and an adequate Juvenile Theatre could count upon a daily audience during the season, even if only a percentage of the available children paid each a single visit — and it is to be remembered that children are the best of advertising agents. Again, there is no reason why a summer holiday season should be less successful than that of the winter pantomime. For though most of the patrons are away for a part of the holiday, few are away for the whole of the six weeks, and all are in the privileged position of having earned relaxations.
But if it is strange that no one has yet risked the safe experiment of a Children's Theatre, it is far stranger that we have to date no Children's Cinema. For children of all classes and all ages go all the year round to the cinema. And if it is the truth that the trade fears to specialise, fears to do anything but cater all the time for a mixed house, then the
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waiting opportunity calls aloud to the enterprise of the amateur association.
Meanwhile educated adults discussing the desirability of films for children have fallen into three groups : the pros, the contras, and those who, regretfully accepting the fact that the film has bolted with humanity and is by no means to be restrained, urge on behalf of the juveniles a restriction to the severely instructional. Most educationalists who believe in the film come heavily to their support. Comparatively few consider its artistic possibilities. Amongst these few is conspicuous Mr. Hughes Mearns, who, in his interesting contribution to the May Close Up, demonstrated the use of the film as artistic experience, as a means by which children may be trained to discriminate, to detect the commonplace in style and in sentiment, to reach, for instance, the point of blushing with shame for a poet who offers them the heart of a rose.'* His plea is, in fact, for the children's film regarded as an elevator of the taste of the rising generation.
Training in taste is incontestably an admirable ideal for those whose business it may be to select films for the use of schools — provided the children are not too overtly acquainted with the nature of the intended process. Much, if not everything, that the film can do is at stake the moment the onlookers are aware that they are being challenged to judge, and particularly is this the case with children of normal ego- centricity and love of power. A large, perhaps the larger, part of education '' is unconscious, its vehicle a whole- hearted irresponsible collaborating enjoyment. In proof, let any adult recall his early experience and compare his response to those things that were presented to him with credentials
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from above with that called forth by what he discovered accidentally " on his own account. To admit the superiority of the latter is not to attempt to decry systematised education. It is merely to note that even the best efforts of the accredited teacher cannot achieve the overwhelming influence of what offers itself without the taint of ulterior motive. Train up a child in . . . by all means, and the obligations of the school screen are inexorable to the limit of the term. But however psychologically enlightened our schools may become, how- ever imbued with the spirit of free collaboration between teachers and taught, they will remain schools, training- grounds for youth that must recognise its state of pupillage. And there is that in every man which not only revolts against the state of pupillage but ceaselessly is outside it, is born adult and more than adult. And it is to this free persistent inner man that art in all its forms is addressed, that the art of the children's cinema will address itself and will do so freely onlv in circumstances allowing the children to feel themselves simply an audience in surroundings to which they innocently betake themselves for recreation and delight.
All over the world this young audience is now waiting in its millions, and there are almost no films available for it beyond those of its beloved Clown and his imitators. This audience may, and can and does, together with its elders, reap the many gifts offered by the film independently of what is represented. But its individual needs are ignored as they are in no other branch of contemporary art. There are, it is true, the films,- many of them excellent, issued by the British Instructional for use outside the theatre. Most of these are directly instructional, some only incidentally so. Very many of them
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might serve as items in public programmes for children. Apart from these and the selection that might be made of the films already publicly exhibited, there is to hand no material wherewith to draw up programmes for children's shows.
It may not unreasonably be objected that the children themselves do not want children's shows, that a cinema for juveniks equipped with no matter what enticements would be tarred for the average child with the same brush as is every institution, educational or otherwise, supposed to be adapted to its needs, and that unless they were denied admission to other cinemas children would treat the newcomer with con- temptuous neglect. Some of them would. Many would not. Most parents of cinema-visiting children would rally round the experiment. Those who doubt its final capture of the children may be invited to consider the case of the child amongst his favourite books. For the relationship between child and film finds its nearest parallel in that between child and picture-book. Children's films, in nearly all their desiderata, are akin to children's books, with the difference that the film, with its freedom from the restrictions of language, is more nearly universal than the book and can incorporate, for the benefit of the rest, the originality of each race unhampered by the veil of translation.
Apart from racial divergencies, films for children, like children's books, call for certain common characteristics. The child has ceased to be a born criminal, a subject for continuous repression and admonition, and is ceasing to be a toy adult, a person whose mind is a small blank sheet upon which the enterprising elder may inscribe what he will. Something of these he still is, but the something else, the
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unlimited opportunity he represents, overshadows the rest. And films for children are, as Mr. Mearns points out, the film *s great opportunity. An opportunity that can be used to its utmost only by such films as may operate upon the child without need of adult intervention. Films are by their nature precluded from emulating those children's books, many of them excellent, which are intended to be read aloud and expounded. And the pull of the film is just here, in its unsupplemented directness, in the way it can secure collabo- ration in independence of the grown-up medium who may so easily, by the business of exposition carried too far, inhibit, or at least retard, in the child, the natural desire to explore on its own account. Interpretation should be, as far as possible, implicit. A good picture will tell its own story. The caption, at its utmost only the passing shadow of inter- vention, is usually indispensable, particularly for the instructional film, which at present is apt to be rather insufficiently captioned. Psychologists have quite justifiably protested in horror and dismav at the way the average nature " film lends to the depicted natural processes an unnatural smooth swiftness and unreality that the child's lack of experience renders it unable to correct. Most of these films appear to have been devised merely to astonish, to give sensational exhibitions of the wonders of nature." In- adequate captioning leaves these marvels to lie about in the child's mind unrelated to any kind of actuality. The chick emerging from its shell with the ease and swiftness of a conjuring trick is a well-known example of a method of presentation whose evil can be mitigated only by careful captional commentary. —
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But, in the child's film proper, as distinct from the instructional film, captions should be reduced to the minimum and should remain impersonal, avoiding intrusion, running commentary, any kind of archness or the roguery so detested by children even while they politely respond to it, avoiding any steering of the onlooker's thoughts or emotions — everything but necessary statement or indication. The child's note is sincerity, and a steadiness that its immature physical and mental gestures fail, to its own vast annoyance, to convey. Only an immense steadiness through thick and thin, a complete serenity of presentation of no matter what, will secure its full collaboration.
Technically, just as its book should be clear in type and easy to read, its film should be clear, avoiding complications — though the child's passion for detail is not to be forgotten — unhurried, and not afraid of repetitions. Youthful eyesight is to be considered and the fact that children look chiefly at, and only very slightly through, what they see, only through within the limits of their small experience. Presentation should incline therefore to the primitive, avoiding highly elaborated technique. The late and deeply lamented " Felix " has revealed the enchanting possibilities of the drawn film. Let us pray that an artist may arise who will be moved to produce, with all the magic there is for children of five and of fifty in primitive drawing, film fantasies, grotesques, burlesques and what not.
The available subject matter for children's films is, of course, inexhaustible. World history, travel, adventure in all their guises and gradations, stories grave and gay. Satire is acceptable if quiet in tone and matter-of-fact. For the
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young child, dreams are inestimable treasure. To it, as to God, all things are possible. Its animism is normal and beneficent and at least as true,'' regarded as interpretation, as the varying descriptions of the nature of existence that later take its place. It may be well in the case of elder children to anticipate the strange embarrassment awaiting them in the discovery of themselves as more or less central. But the young child's rose should be allowed to keep its heart. If you strike, it is not at the imagined heart of the rose, but at that of the child, who gave the rose its heart. Let it keep the magic garden, the dreams and fantasies and fairytales, to which eternally it belongs, together with the city of familiar life within which soon enough it must learn its place.
Most children, like most adults, object to being preached at. Yet direct moral teaching has its place, and what a priceless chance here has the film as against the moralising author, who must make his choice between fable, sly parable and sermon. Author, as preacher, is in a dangerous situation unless he be part artist and part saint. But the picture is impersonal. The children sit before it as ladies and gentle- men of the jury, ^sop and La Fontaine, remaining because they are works of art, offer admirable material. So does Strewelpeter, which contains the makings of enchanting grotesque moral films.
Dorothy M. Richardson.
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THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF SOUND
By Wilbur Needham
Those who listen with delight when the heroine actually shouts Oh God! Not that! Anything but that!*' will have no interest in this sketch. And those who hope, like the three Warner brothers, to make a fortune out of canned noise, will be ready for a major crime if they chance upon this. Let all such be warned : there will be no hope offered here for the
vitaphone " — indeed, this is not even a discussion of sound devices, except as a prelude to consideration of the photography of sound.
Possibly for that larger public without which American pictures cannot survive financially, motion pictures accom- panied by metallic gasps and mechanical shrieks will monopolize the film theatre of the future. Possibly, I say, because by this costly addition to the picture, the movie magnates are actually narrowing their market to English- speaking races, destroying the universal language of the screen — unless they are willing always to make the vitaphone and the photoplay records separately, a method that will prove of staggering expense. And, as my friend Barnet Braverman points out, they are driving away many half dollars brought to the theatre by unhappy people who come to the films for
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oblivion, relaxation— or to sleep ! It is not unreasonable to suppose that there may not even be a theatre in the near future (although the lure of the crowd ought to persist in bringing humans out of their homes), since broadcasting of talking-films by radio is not far ahead of us. But, however that may be, for the minority motion pictures will always be pantomime; and if the time arrives when we can no longer watch our pictures in silence — if we are to see the frightful day when a pantomime must also be an elocutionist — -I know a growing audience that will quietly leave the film theatre,^ never to return.
But I am limiting the motion picture, denying it a logical development in its progress toward the complete absorption of all the other arts? But I am limiting nothing, denying nothing. If I have said elsewhere that the photoplay is a robber of the arts, I have not meant that it must devour them all, cast aside their empty husks, and remain itself alone, shining and supreme. The motion picture can take on the qualities of sculpture, painting, the stage, music, without conjuring itself into a mere versatile artistic parrot; it can strut the world stage well enough in borrowed — and transmuted — plumage and yet leave a few feathers to its elder sisters. Forgive the metaphors. Even with the addition of the human voice, the films can never hope entirely to supplant the stage. Lack of the voice has heretofore been regarded as the motion picture's only limitation and the one thing (aside from color, which the films already use with moderate success) whereby the stage asserts its right to life ; but presence of the voice in reality imposes a limitation on the screen. Pantomime remains real onlv as long as it is pantomime. Echoing from
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photographs upon a screen in which the actors have reality only by their silence, the human voice shatters that reality.
Beyond that . . . the films already have their voice : have always had it. Perhaps few have consciously realized it, even among little theatre audiences. It is probable, too, that not more than a dozen directors have known that they were using sounds in their silent screen work ; but in all the better work> and in spots throughout the lesser films, the human voice has been speaking, the sounds of life have been caught by the screen and carried to the sensitive in audiences. The thing is so obvious that it seems I must be uttering platitudes in asserting it. But I have asked many intelligent men and women, and few of them have admitted that they hear what I hear.
The gong in Metropolis, A mere gong, banging away, is nothing. One acknowledges that there is a noise, but one does not feel it as one feels the boom of that gong alarming the workers. You have to feel noise, as you taste color, hear sights, and see feeling. It rests upon an interchange of senses. Only the hyper-sensitive realize this fully ; but in men of any feeling at all, the talent is ready to assert itself in varying degrees, when brought forth by an understanding hand upon the camera. In Metropolis, the effect was achieved by Fritz Lang — and I am sure consciously — by swinging the hammer toward the audience. As the hammer struck the gong, a booming sound was born, and this was at once carried into the theatre by the enlarging of the hammer as it swung nearer the camera. Soon the ears of the sensitive were filled with a swelling volume of sound.
In the same way, all the sounds of life can be made audible.
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Motion is not enough. A man walking across the screen is only a man walking ; a photograph of his feet moving is no more than that. But catch his footfalls with the proper shade of emphasis, and the screen reproduces the sound and sends it winging out to the mental ears of the audience. These same footfalls can be muted, too. A dog barks silently until you level the camera at him from his own height, and catch the sound at an angle — a different angle for each tone, low for a bark, high for a howl, straight in the dog's face for a snarl. You will remember — how could anyone forget ? — the howling of the sledge dogs at the end of Nanook of the North. Flaherty sent chills down my spine with that; and I have watched many dogs, and even wolves, howl upon the screen and have remained indifferent.
So with the human voice. Two actors bellowing at each other produce only a jarring noise, or what is worse, a rapid movement of lips without sound; but when their words are photographed with delicate shades of emphasis, the spectator hears every word, because he feels it all. In What Price Glory, Raoul Walsh achieved this effect sensationally, transferring stage dialogue to the screen with splendid skill. . .
Probably the wailing movies are necessary for the unimaginative. Still, even clods must tire, eventually, of this new toy ; and what a gorgeous financial crash it is going to be for producers and exhibitors, with their costly invest- ment in reproductive and broadcasting devices ! The very men who would not risk a few thousands to experiment with new ideas in pictures have cast millions into the maw of this mechanical apparatus, with a future perilously doubtful.
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If you are among those sensitive people whose mental ears catch the faintest Sounds of life as a story is projected teUinglv on the screen, you will not need the raucous howls of the talking films. Let us hope you will never have them thrust upon you.
' A JOKE BEHIND THE SCENES
O. B.
But/' they say, " how interesting for you. So many amusing things must happen behind the scenes."
It is vain to tell them that famous comedians do not fall off ladders in between scenes just to amuse the studio staff, in fact, the studio staff is generally coerced into doubling for fan^ous comedians when the script calls on them to fall off ladders. Why watching the wheels go round should be an hilarious occupation, I don't know. Fascinating, certainly. Yet they insist that life behind the scenes is a mixture of occasional thrill and perpetual laughter. Except, of course, the younger ones, who say : Oh ! how wonderful ! You have met Mr. X or Miss Y, and are they really so divine?**
If a brother artist acquires too generous a figure for juvenile parts, that is an irresistible behind-the-scenes jest ; and a brother technician cannot stop chuckling when he remembers that the other chap is only getting half the salary ! Customary manifestations of ambition, slightly gone to seed, and the
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universal love of scandal, which must be made at anv cost ; these are intimate little absurdities which cannot be flavoured by anyone not in the know\ Esoteric witticisms about the mistakes and misfortunes of others. Poor old So-and-so, the wretched camera man, took such and such a scene with a cap on his lens ! Little knots of stage hands gather in corners of the studio and repeat the story with appreciative roars of laughter.
We are simple folk and our humour is fittingly rudimen- tary, not at all the sort of thing that is fashioned for the delectation of outsiders ; so to satisfv the curiositv of the many I have chosen some classical jokes of the cinema world.
First of all there are the memories of the early days of the industry. Incredible blunders, unbelieveable gaucheries^ fatuities : Memories w^hich go back to the days when a camera w^as cranked by two niggers turning the wheels of a tandem I
Years and years ago, and this happened. A well-known figure in the artistic world was engaged to direct a picture. He talked a lot about composition and d^cor, and with a few pointed insinuations mortallv offended the cameraman, who, in revenge, refused to allow^ him to look through the camera. Not till tlie middle of the picture did the director get a chance of seeing the set in the view finder. The cameraman was called away for a few minutes, and the director seized his opportunity, then, groaning in the true melodramatic manner, he paced up and down, uttering inartistic imprecations.
You have done this on purpose. You w^ant to ruin me. What is the matter? Whv, the whole picture is upside down!"
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Another tale is more technical, but it deserves inclusion because it happened not so long ago. An actor standing at a writing desk was told to cross to the mantelpiece, take a cigarette, and walk back to the desk. The cameraman
paned with the actor, but the stage manager was sitting outside the set busily drawing up his chart for the next day's " takes When the picture was shown on the screen it was discovered that the cameraman had come off the set, for the white-coated figure of the stage manager was visible when the camera ** paned to the mantelpiece. It was an important scene in the picture, and the actor, who had finished his contract, was leaving for Germany. Nothing daunted, the ingenious cameraman took a ruler and scraped half the emul- sion off the film! Everyone was content; some may even have thought it clever, an innovation, a new way of conveying an emotion.
There ought to be many strange incidents to record about the actors, and those pathetic beings who dream of being actors ; but once in the studio they obey the megaphone and individualities (respectability, romance, sordidness) vanish in the crowd. I love, however, the legend of the lean director who was playing a hearty role in his own picture. He was a man of brusque disposition who rapped out orders to the actors, stepped into the set, ignored the warning signals of his staff, shot the scene, and nine times out of ten found that he had forgotten the pads to fill out his cheeks.
I am afraid that the following has been elaborated, embroidered and enriched, as it has been passed from mouth to mouth. Scene: an historical drama. Assistant director rushes from cottage (about to be burnt down to make a high
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spot " in the picture) with a flaming torch, and sets alight to
a gentleman wearing a property beard. Keep still," yelled
the cameraman, if youVe got to burn you might as well
burn in the picture !"
My favourite is an Arabian adventure of a kind nonentity
who took pity on tw^o children. Flies had clustered round the
children's mouth and eyes, and while the camera was being
moved in for a close-up, he chased them away. Fury ! The
producer yelled : Put those flies back at once. How in
hell's name am I going to match up with the long shot?"
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A joke behind the scenes may not be a joke in an armchair. I feel that I should have said this at the beginning, but then you might not have read anv further.
O. B.
loo PER CENT. CINEMA
(The Film Arts Guild, pioneers in the " little cinema movement " of America, whose series of presentations of foreign films as well as American films at the Cameo Theatre, New^ York, during 1926 and 1927, may be said to have formally launched the film art movement, has consummated plans for the erection of its own cinema in the Greenw^ich Village section of Xew York, which will be opened to the public during September, 1928.
Realizing that the art film, to grow to any influential
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stature, must be not only individual in conception, form and content, but s'iiould be presented as well in a structure embodying a new type of architecture, and inspired bv the fundamental necessities of pure cinema, Svmon Gould, the director of the Film Arts Guild, has engaged Frederick Kiesler, of \^ienna, Paris and New York, a noted architect and stage designer who was formerly identified with the International Theatre Exposition.
The Film Guild has given Mr. Kiesler full rein to conceive, plan and design both the exterior and the interior of the Film Guild Cinema as well as unicjue projection ideas invented bv him. He has given the cinema and its individual needs intensive research and study since 1920. He has evolved a new science called " optophonetics '\ which is a radical treat- ment of color, sound and sight from the cinema standpoint. He pavs special attention to what he terms ''visual-acoustics'', a screen which permits new methods of projection, a new scheme of atmospheric decorations of a chameleon-nature and other ideas which emphasize radically the quintessence of the cinema.
Mr. Kiesler embodies his suggestions and ideas in the following Cimema Manifesto :)
THE CINE^IA ^lANIFESTO.
We ail know that our present-daA' cinema, or motion picture houses, are not cinemas, but merely imitations of old European theatres into which a screen was hung. But not all of us know that the Film has matured enough to create its own form of architecture, which must signify— 100 per cent. Cinema.
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Our age is an optical age. The rapidity of events and their brief duration require a receiving apparatus which can register as speedily as possible. It is the Eye.
The speed of light waves exceeds that of all other waves.
The Film is the optical flying-machine of our era.
I will repeat what I published as earlv as 1922 : The elementar}' difference between Cinema and Theatre consists in the fact that the Film is a play on a surface — the Theater a plav in space.
This difference has not been realized concretely either in the Theater architecture nor in the Cinema architecture up to the present day.
I estabhshed an ideal project for the Theatre in The Endless Theatre," in Paris, 1925. In contrast to it, I have now also adapted the Ideal Cinema to the American Building- Laws, in New York, 192G.
While the ideal Theatre is dedicated to the Spoken Word, the ideal Cinema is " The House of Silence " The Wordless House or rather " The House of Sounding- Vibrations ".
The Theatre must give up the present " Peepshow form which will pass over, in a purified state, to the Cinema as the ideal picture-theatre. This new form, of the Cinema will give the most artistic and economical possibilities, much more than in any Cinema of to-dav.
The constructivistic experiments in decoration of the Russians (Tairoft', ^^IcA^erhold and others), the futuristic attempts of tlie Italians, and the expressionistic work of the Germans (Jessner, Poelzig and others) have achieved no
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results for the new Stage, nor for the new Architecture of the Theatre in general. They remained stuck fast in mere decoration, and after a brief existence of a few years they perished in the artistic reaction of 1926 to 1927.
While in the Theatre every single spectator is an atom of the mass of spectators and loses his individuality in order to be fused into complete unity with the actors, the Cinema which I have designed is the ideal house of the inactive spectator, of the passive spectator, of the individual spectator, the house of absolute Individuality.
The most important quality of the auditorium is, on the one hand, its power of suggesting concentration of attention. Even more important is its power of destroying the sensation of confinement which may be involved in the focal concentra- tion of the spectator upon the screen. I mean that the Reflex which the film creates in the psyche of the spectator must make it possible for him to lose himself in imaginary, endless space, to feel himself alone in universal space, even though the projection surface, the screen, implies the opposite : All for one point, the SCREEN.
The architectural form of the ideal Cinema, contrary to the Theatre, must vary according to the size of the audience. Every capacity implies its corresponding elementary architec- tural form. A cinema for 300 spectators will have its special form (involving, of course, the size of the building ground), which will be essentially different from the form of a cinema for 1,000. The latter will differ from one designed for 2,000, this in turn from those designed for a capacity of 4,000, 6,000 and 10,000. Beyond 10,000 spectators, the architectural form will remain the same.
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The factor of next importance is Acoustics.
Mechanized music differs in its acoustic results from ordmary music. It has been proved that the Film cannot exist of itself. The silent film is a dead film, the film without music is exhausting, impossible for any length of time, especially the length of a whole evening.
The films are exhausting because they make all their demands on a single sense, the sense of sight. This is opposed to the laws of the human organism. Every one of the five senses must be supported by one of the others to attain its highest powers. We see better while hearing, and we hear better while seeing. We must be able to see music, just as we must be able to hear a spectacle or a picture.
For this reason there is a complete misunderstanding of elementary facts and artistic misconception in the complete refusal to accept the sounding-film or the color-film. On^ must not be misled by the absolutely unsatisfactory first attempts. Some day MUSIC, combined with COLOR and FILM, will be brought to a new perfect unity in a new art which I have named OPTOPHONETICS.
But as long as the film expresses itself in black and white, and because of the very lack of color, it is from the beginning not an imitation of nature, but a new form of artistic creation. But when the color-film reproduces merely a photograph, a copy of scenery, the cleavage between nature and art, between the spectator and nature, grows less ; and so in a work of pure imitation, the artistic effect and every effect on the psyche of the spectator fails completely. All sense of illusion is lost, because the separation between nature and art is lacking.
In the Film, as in every other art, everything depends on
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how its mediums (means) are utilized and not on what is employed ; and in the film of the future all depends on how the black-and-white-color and sound can be fused into an optophonetic union.
The attempts at speaking-films have failed completely in the cinema. Speaking is too natural, too concretely a part of an individuality, to be changed from nature to abstract art. But singing, on the contrary, like instrumental music, will be employed as accompaniment to optical drama, for singing, the abstract form of speech, can at once be combined with the optical drama in the realm of art. The reproduction of speech, however, falls into the realm of the radiophone and of television — a transfer into space of the material of facts (news reels).
The acoustics and the general form of the cinema depend essentially on the establishment of these facts, as do the position of the orchestra, of the organ, and all related details.
There is no doubt whatever that the film is not a final goal, but a transition to a new art which I call OPTO- PHOXETICvS. The house of Optophonetics, as the ideal cinema, is the OPTOPHON.
The problems which determined my plans and which have received an entirely original solution bv me were :
1. The elementary difference between Theatre and Cinema- architecture. 2. The possibilities of utilizing film theatres when there is nothing on the screen. 3. The variety of architectural forms according to the capacity of the house. 4. The problem of handling the audience in the cinema (the traffic problem in the cinema). 5. Light-intermissions (con- tinuous and discontinuous method of presentation). 6. The
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Auditorium (more seats and more comfort). 7. Decoration. 8. The ideal screen. 9. The ideal projection-box. 10. The new acoustics. 11. Musicians and mechanized music. 12. The color problem. 13. The fover. 14. The entrance into tl^e auditorium. 15. The ticket box. IG. The facade. 17. The entrance.
Frederick Kiesler.
CECIL B. DE MILLE
Xew York, autumn, 191 •). The particular da\' is immatericil. Two men are lingering over their luncli together, discussing plans for a new venture.
One of them, at thirtv-three, is alreadv a veteran soldier of fortune. He has been a newspaper reporter in San Francisco ; a gold hunter in Alaska; a cornet player in a Honolulu orchestra; the manager for a prestidigitator in Xew York: and is now a vaudeville booking agent. The other, a vear \'otmger, the son of a dramatist and one-time college professor, is an actor in a Xew York stock companv. He has also played in road shows; has sung in light opera; has managed a theatrical companv; has written several plays; and has been an assistant producer, with David Belasco.
Fach has worked hard to win a name for himself; but the big world has so far failed to recognise either of them. Instead, she h.as given both of them many rude bumps and
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much discouragement — a gloomy trick which fate now and again employs for the making of brilliant history.
This was fifteen years ago. The two young men whom niggardly fortune was that day prompting to seek a new outlet for their ambitions were Jesse Lasky and Cecil de Mille. They had heard of a little place in Southern California called Hollywood, where conditions were reported as ideal for making motion pictures. They would pool their experiences and their talents and what little capital they had between them, go out to the Coast, and try their luck with this pioneer enterprise.
It was a bold undertaking ; w^ith a touch, too, of defiance and rebellion in it. Especially for De Mille, the man of the stage, and steeped in the atmosphere of its classic traditions. For the cinema then was outside the pale of legitimacy. An Ishmaelite, unworthy of welcome or recognition. Crude, cheap, trivial, born of a toy, and without pedigree, it had no place among the chosen.
But with his gift of vision De Mille foresaw the possibilities of this little waif of the amusement world. Its present chief handicap was lack of opportunity. He saw in it a new form of dramatic art, as yet wholly uncertain of itself and groping for adequate expression. He would bring to it the teachings and experiences of his own historic profession ; invest it with definition, life, beauty, meaning; endow it with the technique of the theatre ; substitute its awkward presentations with genuine drama translated from the stage.
And so the modern photoplay was conceived, and a few months later had its birth in Hollyw^ood with the production of The Squaw Man.
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Lacking sufficient funds between them to carry on the venture, De Mille and Lasky secured the financial partnership of Samuel Goldwyn, and these three, together with Dustin Farnum, the actor, constituted the original organisation. Others who were invited to come in and lend support to the infant enterprise shook their heads and tucked their pocket- books out of sight. What did De Mille and his associates know about making moving pictures? In truth, they knew nothing about it ; nor would they have been any better equipped if they had known w^hat little there w^as to know about it at that time. Quite frankly, they were adventurers, pioneers, experimenters, setting out to do something different, some- thing new, something worth while; and a common faith in De Mille's vision and a trust in his native ability as a director inspired them with the assurance of success.
A few thousand dollars invested then in that faith and that trust w^ould to-day be worth as many millions. And to-day there are individuals in Hollywood, thankful to earn a hun- dred a week, who were offered this opportunity, and who not only declined it, but, as one friend to another, also admonished De Mille against throwing away his future. Faith in Providence is common enough, but faith in man and events calls for inspired courage.
The history of the photoplay and its development are personified in De Mille — epitomised in his Hollywood career as director and producer. He began his work in an abandoned barn ; its stalls serving as dressing rooms. He and Lasky, as well as the actors and the hired hands, walked to work each morning and brought their lunches with them in paper bags. The stage in the rear of the barn was open to the air
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and sunlight. The dependable California sun was then the one and only means of lighting a set. Strips of white cloth were hung on overhead wires and moved back and forth to secure a proper diffusion of light. The sets were built of compoboard or of canvas stretched on wooden frames. A shelf of books, a rose trellis, or any other desired bit of background was provided by a scene painter.
These primitive devices were not peculiar to the Lasky companw They represented the then common mode of picture making. And it was De Mille, brimming with ideas and calling on his extensive knowledge of the theatre, who instituted the first radical changes. It was he who introduced
practical " sets and properties — real, usable, substantially built walls, doors, windo\\s, bookcases, stairwavs, pillars, fireplaces. And those who believe that the camera does not detect tlie difference between the semblance and the substance need only compare some of the early-day films with those of the present.
It was De Mille, too, who introduced artificial lighting, and thereby led the motion picture away from its primitive flat photography to true pictorial values. Here is the story of the genesis of this innovation, as told by De Mille himself in a lecture at Harvard University a year or two ago :
When we first went to California we used only sunlight. There was no artificial light employed at all. Having come from the stage, I was desirous of getting a certain effect in a picture I was making of The Warrens of Virginia. The particular scene was that of a spy coming through a curtain, and I wanted to light only half of his face. So I borrowed a spotlight from an old theatre in Los Angeles, and gave his face just a smash of light from one side, the other side going dark. I saw the effect on the screen and carried out that idea of lighting all through the rest of the picture — that is, a smash of light from one side or the other; a method tiiat we now >ise constantly.
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When I sent the picture on to the sales department I received a most amazing telegram from the then head of the department, saying, " Have you gone mad? Do you expect us. to be able to sell a picture for full price when you show only half of the man?" And the exhibitor, in his turn, offered the same protest — that the picture was no good because we showed only half of the man. So the sales department wired me again, " We don't know what to do; we can't sell the picture."
^For a moment I was in despair. But, as I have already told vou, it is the duty of a director to meet all emergencies. In this instance Allah was good to me and suggested the phrase " Rembrandt lighting." So I telegraphed the New York office : " If you fellows don't know Rem^brandt lighting when you see it, don't blame me."
The sales department, greatly impressed, exclaimed, Rembrandt lightingi What a sales argumenti " On the strength of that they took the picture out and charged the exhibitor twice as much for it — because it had Rembrandt lighting.
And that is the origin of the present-day use of artificial lighting.
But while De Mille thus drew upon his experiences with the theatre for many of the teclinical innovations in picture making, he came in time to reahse the limitations of stage technique in this new field. And while he was the first to give dramatic dignity to the screen by replacing its paltry, incoherent stories with plays taken from the stage, he soon learned, also, that the screen demanded its own stories and its own manner of presenting them.
Accordingly, while retaining all that was adaptable from the stage, he developed the art of photodramaturgy within its specialised field and in accordance with its individual requirements.
His experiments with the close-up, with color, with lighting, with camera effects, with stage settings, with various mechanical and optical devices, together with his many original ideas in scenario construction, to-day constitute the
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basis of much that enters into tne craft of picture making and gives the screen its distinctive character and import.
Judged by his pictures, De Mille's rank as a director must be left to individual appraisement, as must that of any other director. Cinema standards are still too indefinite, and popular tastes too varied, to permit of any acceptable common ground for comparison. Relative values of accomplishment can only be intelligently determined in historical perspective, and the perspective of screen history is yet too short for such determination. The only practical criterion at present possible is that of success ; and according to this, as measured in fame and fortune, together with a record of fifteen fruitful years without a failure, the rank of first place among cinema directors belongs unquestionably to Cecil de Mille.
The making of pictures is to him primarily what the writing of a book is to the novelist or the building of a bridge to an engineer — the joy of creative w^ork. And its unparalleled diversity of scope, together with its never-ending problems and possibilities, has its especial appeal to a man of De Mille's temperament and serves as a constant challenge to his energies and resourcefulness.
Picture making embraces not only all fields of creative art, but it calls also for the balancing elements of business sagacity, for the skill of generalship, and for the experienced ability of the showman. And in each of these practical respects De Mille is as much the adept as he is in the realm of the imagination.
Moreover, he has not concerned himself with any attempted educating of the masses. He has left that for those afflicted with the missionary spirit. He realises, in agreement with
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Confucius, that you can guide the people, but you cannot enlighten them. He accepts them as he finds them, but with mind and energies ever alert to give guidance to their developing picture tastes and their self-created readiness to respond to advanced thought and more subtle forms of art presentation.
Of De Mille's fifty-three pictures, only two have been relatively lacking in popularity — The Whispering Chorus and The Road to Yesterday, The first, produced about ten years ago, is a sombre psychological study; and the latter, which was released in 1925, deals with the occult subject of reincarnation. Each of them was purposely experimental, a testing of the public's reaction to a theme of spiritual import treated with appropriate artistry.
Although they cleared a financial profit, these two pictures were more or less of a popular disappointment. Yet, artistically speaking, they are to be recorded among the best things De Mille has ever done. Particularly is this true of The Road to Yesterday. As an example of photodramatic craftsmanship it is singularly beautiful and significant. It serves to demonstrate what De Mille is truly capable of doing, and offers a glimpse of what we may expect from him when the Jacks and Mollies of the Vv^orld, to whom his work is wisely dedicated, are prepared to accept and enjoy the higher reaches of cinema art.
Clifford Howard.
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COMMENT AND REVIEW
All enquiries, subsrriptions, business matters, mav be addressed by English • readers or by readers in England to the London office at 24, Devonshire Street, London, W.C.I. Editorial matter should be sent to Switzerland, however, and not to the London address. Will those whom it mav concern kindlv note this.
* * '
The list of recommended tilms is again held over until the next issue on account of the summer vacation. Next month it will be amplified, and indications given for the autumn lists of the various companies. Also a list of film.s to be avoided, which has already been suggested bv various readers.
* * *
Berlin has just been rewarded bv several revivals, number- ing among them an early Lubitsch, in which Pola Negri, as an Arab girl in beads, is wooed bv Harrv Liedke in a sun helmet, and persecuted by Emil Jannings in a robe. Pola gives in the course of this presentation the world's most unseductive Eastern dance, weighed down by jet and chiffon. Harry Liedke is not so fat, and Jannings painted brown is reminiscent of the Duncan sisters' Topsy and Eva. Two
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Photo: Derussa
significantlv powerful photograph of J. Tschuwilelf as the country orker \vho comes to St, Petersburg, in Pudowkin's wonderful film The End of St. Petershitvg.
•sburg
Photo: Derussa
The worker is cast into prison. Tschuwileft, who is by profession an accountant, and had never before played in films, has caused such a sensation in The End of St. Petevshur^, that it is expected he will take up film work as a 'career. Pabst has already booked him for
his next film.
Photos : Derussa
W. Baranowskaja again takes her opportunity to make her part unforgettable in beauty and in grief.
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Patriots in St. Petersburg are ecstatic at the nobility of their fellow countrymen. Here is one of them enjoying the sufferings of war.
P hoi OS : Derussa
And here are the noble fellow countrymen, soon to become " rabble, fiends, and devils." War as war, and war as flag waving, and flower-decked guns are set side by side in this film with shattering
contrast.
The Yelloi^ Passport (Der Geihe Pass) Anna Sten (standing by post) is caught in a park raid, and denounced as a prostitute.
Photos : Derussa
In the House. A more expHcit, and swiftly drawn interior of a brothel has not yet been seen, The director of The YcUo:.i Passport was F. Ozep, who also wrote the manuscript.
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potted palms and a cartload of sand are the Sahara, and it is interesting to note early use of the travelling camera, which recedes in front of jannings' advancing and threatening figure. Pola is so rent by this harrowing spectacle she falls down dead. Herr Jannings stabs himself and Liedke rushes out into the night, while a final sub-tible savs " Too late, too late."
Next an early (and how !) Henny Porten. Could it really have been made in 1901? Henny 's hair is like two bolsters, one perched one either temple. Her waist is 16 inches, and as she walks her skirt picks up and deposits all the dust of the vicinitv. This is a strong drama with " fast scenes ", and has an aged father and a lover she meets on street corners. Next a 1912 Asta Nielsen. This was perhaps the most re- w^arding of the three. Close ups and panning camera show film technique well on the move. Asta Nielsen is gorgeous, and even then was the Nielsen of to-day — a great actress, with subtle and exlraordinarv magnetism. Dressed as a small girl, getting in everybody's way, an overgrown hoyden in the toils of first love, this film, with its ample view of her beautifully thin legs (and all that thereon is), was certainly one of those which must have caused countless elderly persons to begin to say what they and their offspring have gone on saying ever since, Those dreadful films. They are corrupting the youth of the w^hole world !" Its wildest abandon, needless to say, was positively ascetic in comparison with modern films of similar genre, but there it is. It was charming to see Asta Nielsen — then at the height of her youthful beauty — so integral, and sound, and convincing.
Other revivals have come from the early beginnings of
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cinematography, when emotions were registered like im- promptu dumb charades. Sub-title : She is overcome with remorse. View of lady in plush chair with pompoms, and a palm on a stand. She jigs backward and forward, slapping herself heartily on the forehead and masticating her mouth as far in every direction as she can reach. Flings her hands heavenward. Rolls her eyes, and that is that. She sits there waiting for her next emotion.
Indeed, revivals seem to be the order of the day. Paris and Switzerland have shown a most entertaining series of news reels, entitled Paris Twenty Years Ago. The Tauentzien Palast gives sly insertions of hand-coloured fashions for ladies worn by the most restless mannequins it is possible to con- ceive. And dramas from the school of the dying child, where a large, fat and elderly female angel appears from a puff of smoke, and waddling to the bed, hoists up the departing spirit with considerable difficulty and again vanishes in a puff of smoke, while father is gambolling with loose women in the nearest house of ill repute.
These films are greeted with pure delight. The public love them, and they have, moreover, a real value. It occurred to the writer during one of them, for which a large, important voice was supplied to amplify the absurdity, that here was the logical effect that must come of the talkie. Scenes over pro- longing themselves to the point of sheer meaninglessness while the characters speak their beastly lines. The talkie will be a matter of changing the film in order to suit the spoken matter. In other words, the film will play second fiddle to a noise you can have far more convincingly in the nearest Hippodrome.
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We think it will interest our readers to know that among the films Avhich may be rented from Messrs. Wardour Ltd. for private showing (at two guineas) are the following : —
Impetuous Youth (Czinner),
The Waltz Dream,
The Two Brothers,
Faust,
Wrath of the Gods,
Cinderella,
Secrets of the Soul,
Metropolis,
Prey of the Wind (Rene Clair), as well as many others, some of w^hich, of course, are worthless for the student of cinematography.
HOLLYWOOD NOTES
The disinclination on the part of American producers to import foreign films is being offset in increasing measure by the importing of foreign actors and directors. During the past several months many studio executives have visited Europe, and not one has returned without having contracted for further notable additions to Hollyw^ood's already numerous foreign colony.
Typical of this situation is Samuel Goldwyn's recent acquisition of Lily Damita, whose w^ork in German and Hungarian films has given her an international reputation.
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Pabst, Wiene and Curtiz are numbered among the notable directors of her European pictures, among which will be 'remembered Red Hills, Coach iVo. 13, The Road to Happiness, The Queen Was in the Parlor, Butterfly on the Wheel, The Adventuress, as well as others no less noteworthy.
Her first role in an American film will be that of Mrs. Travers in the screen adaptation of Joseph Conrad's The Rescue, to be directed by Herbert Brenon. Ronald Colman is cast as the star, in the character of Tom Lingard, while Theodore von Eltz will play the part of Carter. Others in the cast are Bernard Siegel, Duke Kahanamoku, the champion Hawaiian swimmer, and the distinguished Japanese actor, Sojin.
^ =^
HoUywood's present vogue of catering to international interest by employing foreign actors and directors in many of its leading productions is further strikingly exemplified by Goldwyn's forthcoming picture, The Aivakening. Heading the cast are Vilma Banky, the Hungarian star, and Walter Byron, a former officer of the British Royal Fusiliers. The storv is laid in Alsace-Lorraine. A troop of German Uhlans plays a prominent part in it: and with one exception (Capt. Richard Murphy, of the 2nd Field Artillery, United States Army), the principal characters of this troop are impersonated by foreign armv ofticers. Six of them are former German Uhlans themselves, and the others include military repre- sentatives of England, Australia, Finland, Sweden, Austria and Russia. The Russian is General Wiatsheslav Savitsky, who for eighteen years was a member of the personal body- guard of the late Czar. During the War he commanded a
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cavalry division against the Germans, and now by a bizarre quirk of fate he appears in the role of an Uhlan officer.
*
H. B. Warner, the English actor, who has only recently been afforded an opportunity to display in full measure his splendid talents and versatility, through the medium of The King of Kings and Sorrell and Soji, is scheduled to play a leading role in Warner Brothers vitaphone production, The Candle of the Wind. Monte Blue will share stellar honors with him, and Michael Curtiz will direct the picture. A novel feature of the story is its antarctic locale ; but that which will undoubtedly most appeal to admirers of Warner is the oppor- tunity offered by the film to hear his voice on the screen.
Following this he will be starred in two pictures to be produced bv a newly-formed Hollywood company, the Quality Corporation. The tentative titles of the pictures are Drink and The Romance of a Rogue,
^ ^ ^
A celluloid version of Poe's morbid story. The Tell-Tale Heart, is Hollywood's latest contribution to the collectanea of art films. It had its initial showing at the Filmarte Theatre, and received instant recognition as an opus of unusual character and craftsmanship — perhaps the most finished production of its kind that has yet come out of the Hollywood proper. The psychology of the story — the effect upon the madman of the beating of his victim's heart — presents a dis- tinctly difficult problem for film translation ; yet at the hand of Charles F. Klein, the translator and the creator of the picture.
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'^together with the admirable acting of Otto Mattiesen, the task has been accomplished with almost uncanny fidelity.
Klein has brought to the work not only a long European experience as a cameraman with such companies as Emelka and UFA, but also a rare versatility of artistic and technical abilities, coupled with native skill as a director. While much of the camera work on the picture is his own, he had the assistance of Leon Shamroy, the young Russian cameraman, whose notable work in The Last Moment definitely established him as one of the few real camera geniuses of Hollywood.
* * *
Concrete evidence that the Hollywood producers are assured of the permanence of phono-films, or talking movies, is offered by the Fox Company in their recent construction of a five-hundred-thousand-dollar movietone film laboratory. In keeping with the present trend of studio architecture, the building is an artistic structure of Spanish motif. One of the leading engineers of the Eastman Kodak Company was employed to supervise its construction and the equipment of its various departments. Besides its departments for experi- mental work, chemical research, and movietone printing, the laboratory contains several projection rooms, a screen laboratory, a machine shop, twenty dark rooms and a number of offices.
* * *
Following a number of pictures in which the vitaphone was used to a greater or less extent, the Warner Brothers have now produced a film which is equipped from beginning to end with their sound device. The title of the picture, credit
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titles, the cast, sub-titles, and dialog titles are all spoken from the film. No printed words appear on the screen for any purpose. The picture is an adaptation of Edgar Wallace's stage play, The Terror, popular for many years in England. The cast consists of Edward Everet Horton, May McAvoy, Alec Francis, Louise Fazenda, Holmes Herbert and John Miljean.
* *
William K. Howard's latest picture. The River Pirate, directed for the Fox Company, has won him a five-year con- tract w^ith that company. The River Pirate is a w^orthy successor to his many previous picture achievements, notably White Gold, Gigolo, and His Country, and is destined to win him further recognition as one of Hollywood's most capable and artistic directors.
^ ^
•TV* "TV" "TV"
Exclusive " stills " from the Biblical sequence of Warner Brothers' two-million-dollar cinema spectacle, NoaWs Ark, directed by Michael Curtiz, appear in this issue. Close Up has the privilege of being first in the field to print scenes from this yet unfinished production, of w^hich no other photographs have yet appeared. The leading roles are played by Dolores Costello and George O'Brien. Others in the cast include Xoah Beery, Louise Fazenda, Nigel de Brulier, Guinn Williams, Anders Randolph, Armand Kaliz, Myrna Loy, William Mong and ]\Ialcolm Waite.
All of these actors play parts in both the deluvian and the modern secjuences of the film. In the former. Miss Costello enacts the role of a fictitious character, Miriam, whom Noah's
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son Japheth, in the person of O'Brien, rescues from the flood and gives refuge in the ark.
Imagination is given free rein in this Noachian chapter of the picture story, and Curtiz here indulges himself in spec- tacular fancy and untramme^ed fiction. The action takes place for the most part in and about a gigantic temple dedicated to idolatry and orgiastic rites, typifying the moral corruption which aroused the Lord's determination to destroy the world. The scenes of the flood overwhelming this temple and its thousands of worshippers are stupendously impres- sive, and accompanied, as they will be, by magnified sound effects, they present a spectacle of almost terrifying realism.
The picture is scheduled to be released the latter part of the year.
^
"Tv" "TV"
The Tell-Tale Hearty a Hollywood film version of Poe's gruesome psychological story, was produced and directed by Charles F. Klein, with Leon Shamroy as cameraman and Otto Matiesen enacting the role of the madman of the story.
The picture, which is in two reels, is admirably done. Direction, acting and camera work unite perfectlv in har- monising the film with the spirit and atmosphere of the weird tale of the madman who is driven to murder an inoffensive old man because of a vulture-like expression in one of his eyes, and whose heart-beat, as he is about to be killed, preys upon the mind of the murderer and compels him to reveal his crime after he has cunningly concealed the body and successfully overcome the suspicions of the law officers.
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The Last Moment, sl film study in subjectivity, was produced in sympathetic collaboration by Paul Fejos as the director, Otto Matiesen as the actor, and Leon Shamroy as the cameraman — Hungary, Scandinavia, Russia, in a brotherhood of artistry.
The picture opens with a figure of a man (Matiesen) in Pierrot costume sinking from sight in the dark night waters of a lake. As his upraised hand disappears with a despairing gesture, a lone bubble comes to the surface of the water. Symbolic of the drowning man's final moment of life, the bubble dissolves into a rapid succession of coherent yet intermingled visions — life's panorama flashing in review before his mind's eye — the vicissitudinous career of a man ambitious to become a great actor, brought to a tragic close by the death of his wife and his subsequent suicide. Forty years compressed into sixty seconds. Five reels of celluloid crowded with a phantasmagoric onrush of events, incidents, tragedies, trivialities, loves, hates, impulses, emotions, thoughts — flashing, fading, dissolving. No uttered line or word. A film of dream-stuff.
The picture is one of Hollywood's most ambitious attempts at cinematic psychologic analysis and subjective treatment. None of its stills afford an adequate conception of it, for its values are essentially and peculiarly involved in motion, change, transition. Commercially, the film has won but scant success ; but among the little theatres of the country it is receiving the appreciation it deserves as a signal example of the cinema's capabilities in the realm of impressionism.
C. H.
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We beg to call attention to an error in our June and July issues, in which the film Danton was announced in the Lubitsch advertisement as having been made by that director. Mr. Lubitsch's productions are as follows : —
1. Gypsy Blood
2. One Arabian Night
3. Passion ...
4. Deception
5. Momitain Cat ...
6. The Loves of Pharaoh
7. Montmartre
8. Rosita
9. Marriage Circle
10. Three Women ...
11. Forbidden Paradise
12. Kiss Me Again .13. Lady Windermere^ s Fan
14. So This Is Paris
15. Old Heidelberg IT), l^he Patriot
Berlin — Germany
Hollywood — California
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BOOK REVIEWS
Two excellent textbooks for students interested in visual instruction have reached us from America. They are both published by the Educational Screen, 5, South Wabash Avenue, Chicago, at the price of a dollar each. A money order for this amount can be obtained easily at any post office, and the average amount of time taken to obtain the volumes if sent for from London would be just over a fortnight.
Picture Values in Education, by Weber, should be valuable to all who teach. Everything is explained carefully, there is a full description of some tests given with photographs, stereo- graphs and magic lanterns, with some reference also to the cinema. The general results of these tests were found very favorable to the film-aided " lesson as the pupils under- stood it better and enjoyed it more '\ In some instances where the film was shown at the beginning of the lesson, learning capacity was increased by as much as fifty per cent. Four hundred and seventy-six voted on the method. The result was thirteen to one in favor of it. Forty per cent, of the children went to the cinema regularly outside lesson hours and others apparently never went at all. It is interesting to note that the results (with regard to the lesson) appeared to be the same with either set of children.
Fundamentals in Visual Instruction, by Johnson, contains much also of interest, including a very significant story that the Central Illinois Railway, finding their losses terrific owing to freight being improperly handled, showed a film to all the men they employed which depicted the right methods to handle it, and showed how it could be damaged if other methods were employed. It is said that they reduced their
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expenses through this film by over a million dollars.
Both these books deserve a place in the library of teachers and those interested in cinematography from an educational view point.
Les documents internationaux de Vesprit nouveau, cine poemes de B. Fondane avec 2 photos de Man Ray, is a privately printed book, and is indicative of one side of the modern French feeling for the cinema. There are three " avant garde " scenarios, and the two photographs are well chosen. It is extremely difficult to judge a printed scenario, which must depend upon its realisation in pictures for its effects, but those who are in search of experimental scenarios from a fantastic angle will find these cine poems worth their attention. The format and printing of the book are extremely tasteful and harmonious, and a real visual sense is apparent in the form of the three scenarios. We are unaware if the book is obtainable, but take this opportunity of thanking the author for allowing us an opportunity to read it.
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The Avenue Pavilion
101 Shaftesbury Avenue, W. 1
A GAUMONT-BRITISH THEATRE The Home of International Film Art.
Managing Director - Reginald C. Bromhead. Manager - Leslie Ogilvie. Director of Music - Arthur Dulay.
The following attractions will be presented exclusive to this theatre :
WAXWORKS
(The film which was banned). Directed by Paul Leni. Featuring Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt & Werner Krauss.
WARNING SHADOWS
Directed by Dr. Arthur Robinson. Featuring Ruth Weyher, Fritz Kortner, Fritz Rasp &
Alexander Granach.
KEAN
Directed by M. A. Volkoff. Featuring Ivan Mosjukine.
MARRIAGE OF THE BEAR
Directed by Konstantin Eggert. Featuring Konstantin Eggert.
STUDENT OF PRAGUE
Directed by Henrik Galeen. Featuring Conrad Veidt, Werner Krauss & Elizza la Porte.
ATONEMENT OF GOSTA BERLING
(From the story by Dr. Selma Lagerlof, for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize. She is an Honorary Doctor of the University (Sweden).) Directed by Mahritz Stiller. Featuring Lars Hansen, Greta Garbo, Jenny Hasselquist, Gerda Lunequist Dahlstrom & Ellen Cederstrom.
The following are being negotiated :
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Russian Films . Progress . Writers and Pictures Six Russian Films Making Little Films . Dope or Stimulus Comment and Review
Kenneth Macpherson Richard Watts, Jun. H.D.
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Clifford Howard K.M.
P. A. le Neve Foster Bryher
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Vol. Ill No. 3 September 1928
AS IS
BY THE EDITOR.
We have called this a Russian number. We had to, be- cause with a rush of new films from Russia into Germany, there was nothing else to write about. Everything else paled into insignificance. But don't be misled by the term. By Russian number we do not mean that in this issue, and this issue alone we imagine we can give one fraction of the con- sideration and attention necessary. We can only make a beginning. Russia has imposed — without knowing it — a difficult task on Close Up. For we cannot begin where Russia begins. The ground is not yet ready. Before critical discussions can be made, an impartially critical attitude must be established, and before we can begin to cope with the films as films, we have to cope with the public which has been care- fully nurtured to believe that all Russian films are veiled digs at Europe's dwindling thrones, or that — as a London critic (who had probably seen only The Postmaster in the whole course of his career) said — even the Russian films, of which
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the highbrows talk so loftily, have only the same old stories, and the screen needs new material, etc., etc.
And you can get up and say Bunk to this, but it doesn't get you far, because if you start to dilate on the many excellen- cies; of the New Technique, of the virtual regeneration, or rather the revolution of the film, of its utterly new adaptation and use, most of your listeners will dislike you for being superior, or else breathe ardently I know, I know. The Way of All Flesh was like that." And where have you got to? Certainly no further forward than you were.
To begin to prepare the ground then, if you are going to state that the Russian film is a thing apart, and a new splen- dour to the earth, you must give reasons. And you would be safe to say fairly early that not all of them are splendid or good or even bad, but that the important films, the super films are almost without exception, marvellous. Those who have seen only the early ones — The Marriage of the Bear^ The Postmaster, Poly Kuschka, with their strong adherence still to the theatre, are in no way equipped to judge of the developments wrought by such masters are Eisenstein, Pudowkin, Room, Preobrashenskaja, Stabavoj, and several others. The impasse has arrived when not to have seen the films of these masters means that one is actually left behind in this onrush, and one's conception of the cinema dated. And how many have or will have the chance to see them ? I don't mean hacked and changed and mutilated and misre- presented with false subtitles, but straight and in their ori- ginal form? How can this resolve itself? How can Russia go on making films so far ahead of those made anywhere else, and any sort of balance remain? You cannot have one
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country being ten or twenty years ahead in its ideas of other countries. And if Russia is going to continue as it has started, and we are going to continue as we have been going on, we will be in the same relation to modern existence as The Doomsday Book was to Queen Elizabeth.
They have quaint little ways these oddities who decide that Russian films shall not under any circumstances be shown. They could not for the life of them give you a good reason or indeed any reason at all why they should not be seen. But they are emphatic. And to be emphatic is a positive condition, and a positive condition of mind, soul or spirit must be a rare treat to them. So far as one can judge that is the only cause for their behaviour. And they probably feel that anything which throws them into any sort of posi- tive condition must be a menace, and that the positive con- dition itself is a sure sign of their so to speak papal infalli- bility in selective misjudgment.
Again then, Russian films (to generalise) are the arrow- point of cinema progress. How and why?
What is a Russian film, and to go even further, what is Russia ?
The two questions can be answered in one. Russia is a country inhabited by one hundred and forty-seven nationali- ties, quite different from each other in tradition, in conven- tion and speech (not unlike America this), and its films are the product of these peoples banded together by the Soviet Constitution into the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. The first main reason for the greatness of their films is that they are designed to educate, to develop, and link up remote villages with the progress of the big towns. They are de-
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signed with a serious purpose, each has its constructive, scientific and psychological foundation in some point of real eugenic value. Unlike any other country, the cinema is not an industry apart, confined to professional workers in studios, but is taken right into the centre of civic life, and is part of the national trend in ideas and cultural development. That is to say, the Russian populace does not assume merely the role of spectator, but is frequently active in participa- tion, and always carries the right to vote its approval of a film subject before the film is made. There are numerous organizations devoted to collaboration between producing units and the people, in order that the real tastes of the Re- public may be ministered to. The direct and interesting result of this is that the taste of the public reveals itself in a choice of films that are on a level of intellect, spiritual value and truth which has never been approached in any medium.
Nowadays it is fairly generally known that Russia has formed State schools to train workers in every branch of cinema work, and that its greatest directors were students in these schools.
I have given these reasons first in explanation, as it seems to me that the first important thing, if you are to have a film of real value, is an idea of value. Take any of the ideas used by the Russians. They are burning and vibrant and of the greatest importance, not abstractly, but in their direct application to humanity. I say to humanity, because they are far too great in conception and in execution to be con-
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fined within national limits. Here are noble ideas applic- able to every country equally, and to everybody.
Do not let me be accused of political bias. Politics are not my world. I would like to state that it has always seemed to me that the best party politics you could devise would mean always that some people were on top and some oppressed. Politics are hardly the solution to the world's problems. Sociology, yes. And that is why the Russian films touch me so deeply, and command my unquestioning homage. They are not — as the International Press Con- spiracy would have us believe — rabid incitement to rise up and massacre, but on the other hand, the most eloquent pleading for beauty and understanding that man has made. It would not take an intellectual to see this. You would see it. I see it. Any king would see it. What are people then afraid of? It can only be that something would be shown up. We would be made to see how little beauty and understanding have been allowed in our lives. Too many people still prefer blind bias. They have founded their values upon it, and been forced to make their protection out of it. Finally we trace back the prejudice and fear not to any reason connected with social overthrow or revolution but to the danger of losing those valuations which have given spiritual nurture and protection.
To admit too much understanding, or too much compas- sion might mean that somebody else would get ahead, some- body else crush one out of existence. For one would not then have the ruthlessness or justification of so-called virtue by which one now^ must crush out others to survive. It is, in short, a deeply-rooted instinctual process of self-preservation.
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It is easy to say that the present period of social recon- struction in the USSR affords unsurpassed film subjects. That is quite evident. But the point is that these subjects are not furbished up in the trimmings of conventional drama, not romanticised, not used as the mise'enscene to the trivial love affairs of trivial people, as they would be anywhere else, and also they are not made with any conces- sion to accepted dramatic tradition. They are made from the heart and the brain and the spirit. They are swept by greatness and tears. We are not asked to sympathise with one woman and her vicissitudes, or with one hero, but with mankind and with every hero in the world. The hearts that have been given to these films have bled, and the souls been lacerated. They have not had time to waste on idle themes, and pretty ideas. Their themes and their ideas are burning flames. They are teachers in the highest sense. Their message repeated again and again is have done ivith useless sufferings and they show how to have done with useless suffering, and they show how useless suffering is. Such films can and will end degradation, and wars and hate.
With this equipment the cinema is used more widely even than radio, which plays so wide a part in cultural instruc- tion throughout the USSR. Russia, it must be remem- bered, has vast tracks of sparsely populated or unpopulated land. Tiny villages lie dotted far from everywhere, where formerly darkest ignorance reigned. These had to be reached and brought into line. And for this purpose travel- ling cinemas were instituted. In 1926 these numbered 976. To-day they amount to nearly 2,000. Each travelling cinema takes a monthly route visiting roughly 20 villages.
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When it has completed its circuit it starts out again with a new programme. The fixed price for peasants is the equi- valent of from one penny to twopence admission. Special low rental rates are given to these cinemas, determined by the economic standard of the districts toured. If the film— which is always of some sociological importance — is shown to a semi-literate audience, an explanation and reason is given by one of the educated peasants. In many cases a precis of the film, together with an outline of its application to daily life is given prior to its showing.
In addition to the travelling cinemas there are the perman- ent cinemas in the larger villages, devoted to more highly developed cultural work. The growth of these can be seen from the following 'figures : —
1925 50
1926 114
1927 ... 232
1928 408
For workers and soldiers of the Red Army there exist in the RSFSR altogether 2,562 cinemas. These are worked on the same principles as those applied in the working of the village cinemas. There is by this means a public of 35,000,000 film-goers, composed of town and country workers. The cinema is the most popular of all arts.
M. Ozep, who made The Yellow Passport (Der Gelbe Pass) informed me that no attention is paid ever to any prob- lem in connection with a film until the makers are quite satis- fied that it is right artistically. When they are perfectly satisfied with it as a work of art, then and then only, they
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being to discuss the other points in connection with its exploitation.
• •••••
The Moscow High School of Cinematography was founded in 1919, to prepare cinema directors, actors, camera- men, electricians and assistants. There are about four hundred pupils. The studies are based upon general tech- nology and on the artistic value of right presentation. In this connection, the principal object of attention and in- struction is the cutting. The Russian director makes a profound and exhaustive study of the new art of cutting which has grown up in Russia alone, and which is unique in the world of the cinema. The basic principle is never to repeat the same shot twice, and never to prolong, any scene, whether a street with people, or a close up, or swift action, one moment longer than is necessary to convey the meaning to the spectator. This means that instead of about four to five hundred cuts in the film there may be anything from a thousand to four thousand. The brisk, virile and stimulat- ing effect thus achieved goes far in assisting the power of the subjects chosen. As an example, I will cite a moment from Eisenstein's Ten Days (October) of a soldier firing a machine gun. The most astonishing effect was achieved by cutting alternately from a close up of the soldier's head to the spit- ting gun, with the rapidity of the actual familiar crackle of the machine gun. The impression was so swift as to almost baffle the eye, and lasted about one second, but the feeling of deadliness and death, and the harsh splutter of the gun were as vivid as if someone had actually turned a Maxim on the auditorium.
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It is, then, to the achievement of such effects as this, that the intensive study of film cutting is devoted ; not to produce something brilliant and impressionistic, rather to give realism and the reaction of an actual participant. One often reads of the camera being used as an eye. The Russian method uses it not as an eye, but as a brain. It darts surely and exactly from one vital thing to another vital thing. Its penetration is acute and deep, and very rarely (in its best films never) led astray by side-issues or sentimentality.
It is only right to say again that not all, indeed very many of their films do not touch this level. I have, for instance, never seen a more dreadful film that Tzar and Poet, dealing with the life of Pouschkin. Their method, to begin with, is for now and the future, and does not lend itself to bygone periods. The cinema obviously belong to to-day. But, this aside, Tsar and Poet remains in my mind as one of the really boring hours I have spent in a projection room.
But when it comes to Ten Days (October), The End of St. Petersburg, Two Days, The Peasant Women of Riazanj, etc., there are no words to express their value not only as films, but as contribution to the progressive thought of the world. And to have made one such film would entitle them to the respect of the world. As it is, there are many, and so we are able to safely feel that the future of pure cinema is safe in their hands, and that the excrescent and reactionary strivings of talking films, and talking-colour films need not unduly disturb us. KENNETH MACPHERSON.
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By RICHARD WATTS, Jr.
The talking pictures have hit New York like an avalanche, or a thunderbolt, or' a sledgehammer, or whatever your favorite simile for an overwhelming fad happens to be. They are the only topic of discussion among people who discuss motion pictures; the critics can write of nothing else; actors of stage and screen are, respectively, fascinated and terrified by them, and the public rushes madly to see them. Every film organisation is making wildeyed plans for synchronisa- tion, and advocates of spoken and silent drama are a bit aghast lest their favorite art forms be superseded by a shoddy amalgamation.
Amid all this tumult of concern with the matter of a proposed new medium, there is little consideration of two rather obvious facts inherent in the problem. The first is that the paying spectators are flocking to the audible films chiefly because they are a novelty, and only to a far lesser degree because they have any natural enthusiasm for them as a medium. You need but to stop in the lobby of a theater showing the talking films just as the performance is letting out to see how unconvinced the general public is of the new manner. The second thought is that the film producers are only enthusiastic about the device because it is so much easier to throw the audiences a sop for their appetites in the way of a
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fad than it is to go to the task of developing the great, if puzzling, silent medium that lies open to them.
About the only thing there has been time for, as a matter of fact, is the denunciation of those who are skeptical of the talking pictures as blind and ancient reactionaries. We who feel that this supposed advance is really a serious and unfor- tunate step in retrograde are regarded as foes of progress. When we proclaim that the addition of dialogue to film means casting aside all the pioneer progress toward creating a new art form specialising in dynamic pantomime, we are reminded of the sad and rather ridiculous fate of the unfortunate King Canute. All the same, the matters we bring forward have not yet been faced by the advocates of screen talk.
Almost hysterically we have recalled to the enemies of silence that the cinema, handicapped by all the disadvantages a youthful medium of expression could well face, was actually on the verge of getting somewhere as a distinctive art medium. Proclaiming that the combination of cinematic pantomime with music was potentially the most tremendous assault on the emotions yet devised, w^e have protested against this new and slavish attempt to imitate stage technique just when this idea was about to be developed.
A speaking film, our manifesto went, was, even if handled with the highest skill, bound to remain little but a pale, inadequate reflection of the stage, lacking the virtues of both cinema and theater. The appeal of motion pictures, we recalled, was essentially visual, and their outstanding virtues the broad, sweeping canvas and the rapid shifting of position they offer for dynamic dramatic narration. All the important scenes in screen history, we added, from the stampede of
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the elephants in Chang to the war scenes in The End of St. Petersburg^ have been essentially visual rather than audible.
To quote from an article of mine in The New York Herald Tribune : If the cinema is going in for talk, it must inevitably take its accent from the use of stories with essentially visual power, utterly fresh from the contamination of a completely different medium and place it on the employment of scenes that talk. Fewer and longer scenes and less freedom of pictorial sweep are bound to result from this amalgamation, with the result that the screen will use its potential identity as a separate art, with its own code of esthetics, and become an unattractive hybrid that compromises so completely between the pictorial and the conversational that it merely results in a lack of dramatic force.''
In addition to this, we reactionaries have loudly proclaimed that the use of words in photoplays threatened the vaunted power of American films in foreign lands ; that the pantomimic merit of some of the greatest players, from Jannings and Chaplin to Janet Gaynor, might be gravely threatened through the stressing of vocal values, where these stars might be less expert than, say, Milton Sills or Madge Bellamy ; that the talking device, though suited to news reels and short subjects, was only a handicap in full length photoplays. To the end we have cried out that talking films were but a lazy director's way of telling a story he was not shrewd enough to present through dynamic pantomime.
It is only fair to add that so far all our claims have shown themselves completely justified. True enough, the apologists for the talking films have defended their medium by remind- ing its foes that the efforts so far seen are but pioneer ones,
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F. E. Samytschkowskij as the caretaker in Two Days ; a noble and terrible part played perfectly. Reading his son's letter in the empty house. The evening of the first day.
The caretaker conceals his young master, (returned after having lost his fleeing family at the railway station) from the Bolshevists who have taken possession of the house. His son is among them.
From The Peasant Women of Rianzanj {Das Dorf der Siinde) a Sovkino film, (Derussa) made by a woman director, Olga Preobrashen- skaja. It is her first film, and ranks among the very few real master- pieces of the screen. The film has been sent to England, and if it passes the censor . . . ! !
R. Pushnaja as Anna, the ill-fated and lovely young wife, victim of her own ignorance and the malice of others. Politicallvnon-propagandistic,
The spring festival. Throwing blossom wreaths into the water. Just before the tragedy. Apart from sociological importance, The Peasant Women of Riaiizanj is replete with beauty, poetry and swift action.
Wassilissa (E. Zessarskaja) daughter of the corrupt Wassily, having been refused her father's consent to marry, leaves his house and goes to live with her lover. Here in his smith v, she is refusin.s: to be intimi-
Thejfather, Wassilv, (E. Fastrebitski) and his mistress (O. Xarbekowa) whose interpretation of a bitter, rapacious and sheerly animal type, yet respected because she conforms to village conventions, is quite
mao^nificent.
At the marriage of Ivan, Wassily's son, and Anna. The viUagers are already whispering that Wassily has contrived it in order that he may take Anna for himself.
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to be compared with the first airplane or the earhest locomo- tive. The chief answer to this is that the producers of audible films have shown no skill for profiting bv the simplest lessons of the silent films or, for that matter, of the spoken stage, and that the examples so far offered have revealed every weakness the esthetic theories of silence have suspected. In addition, the actors for the talking pictures, recruited from the ranks of screen players who tried to substitute voice for pantomime, have, without exception, been terrible.
So far we have had Tenderloin, in which the dialogue was so incredible that it was laughed off the screen; Glorious Betsy, which had but a few talking sequences, all ineft'ective ; The Lion and the Mouse, a futile photograph of a stage antique; and Lights of Xeu' York, done entirely with spoken dialogue, which was a fifth-rate melodrama, badly done. On the other hand, the Movietone news-reel and such short sub- jects as Bernard Shaw's talk have been highly interesting.
Altogether, the evidence so far presented is that the talking film as applied to the full length photoplay or to any other purpose, save that of record, is entirely ineft'ective, dramati- cally and esthetically. But it must at least be said for it that it can't possibly be as bad as has so far seemed. Certainly it deserves a better test than Tenderloin or Lights of Xew York.
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RUSSIAN FILMS
The Editor of Close Up has asked me to write about Russian Films. I say, I want to write about Russian Films, and then I say but why should I ? One does not sit down and write about the Book of Job or about Ruth in the corn, or about the harlot Rahab. The new great outstanding Russian films are in spirit Biblical films, they do not need to be written about. They are, and they stand, and will stand as long as the sheer material medium on which they are created will endure. No . . . they will endure longer than that. The drive behind the Russian film at the moment is a religious drive. The ideas that have already been hammered in are as authentic and as great (if I may be forgiven an ap- parent exaggeration) as those carved in lightning on the rock of Sinai. For the Russian Film at the moment deals with hunger, with starvation, with murder, with oppression, with adultery, with incest, with infanticide, with childbirth, with the very throes of childbirth itself. Many of these films will be released in Germany. Certain others will be shown only to select audiences, specialists in political economy, psych- ology or psychiatry.
Well ... to be practical. Why should English people see these films, why should Americans? Let us be practical by all means. Why should the average every day hard work-
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ingy straightforward Englishmen or the vibrant go and get 'em Americans," read the Bible. They shouldn't. If your life is full, if your road is straight, if your destiny is straight- forward and you see the end, the goal of your life right in your own conscience, why you should be bothered with tales of murder and rape ( for that is what the Old Testament con- sists of mainly) or with idealistic theories of friendship and brotherhood and poetic imaginative stories about sparrows and farthings and candlesticks and lamps and lilies, as set forth in the so-called gospels. Why should you disturb yourself with the ancient internecine history of the Old Testa- ment, why should you unbalance yourself with the mystical doctrine of the New if your life is straight and your con- science is straight and your business is flourishing and your children are well and your cook is adequate. Why, why should people be tortured, be devitalized, be discouraged, be troubled? Why? I don't for one moment want to perturb anybody or force anything down throats that are not starv- ing. The New Testament and the Old Testament are for people who are hungry, literally, spiritually hungry. So in a sense these Russian films. Many people will not want to see them, and why should they? To many people the Bible, even though they may treat it reverently, is a boring old volume and one utterly out of the general trend of living. But on the other hand, to the specialist in warfare, in politics, in political economy, in literature, in poetry, the Bible is a never ending source of pure delight, of intellectual stimulus, of poetic charm. Those who must have the best in literature, in mystic doctrine must eventually turn to the teachings of the minor prophets and the Prophet. So those who in no
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way sever life from art and religion from bread and butter or, if you prefer it, bread and red wine or white wine, these Russian productions will offer a sustenance indeed like that shadow of a great rock '\ in the very weary land " of inter- national dissension and internal discord.
For the world of the him to-day (there is no getting awav from it) is no longer the world of the him, it is the world. It is only those who are indift'erent to the world itself and its fate, who can afford to be indifferent to the fate of the film industry and the fate of the film art. The industry and the art are still divorced in most of the countries of Europe and the States of America. But no, not entirelv divorced. There has never been, perhaps «rince the days of the Italian Renais- sance, so great a stirring in the mind and soul of the world consciousness. The " stirring " shows itself in little things, in the great-little people, in the very great and in the people. I was told the other day by one of the most intelli- gent of the English producers (in fact, by the most vibrantly intelligent mind that I have encountered anywhere in the film world) that the fate of the producers hangs for the large part not on the West End London theatre-goers, but on the pro- vinces, and that the small town provincial box offices are demanding more and more and MORE " thick-ear stuff'." Well, where is this leading us? Concessions have been made to the public and (I heard the same complaint from one of the great German directors') the film art, the film industry is now in a state of psychic fixation. For the " thick-ear has set the standard, the slight concession has become a great concession, and the demand of the box office is fast becoming a command.
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Give me what I can sell. Right. You are right. Say to the box office you are right. They are right. Goods is goods, and if the people demand laudanum in bottles and raw spirits instead of the red wine and white wine of intel- lectual sustenance, by all means give them laudanum in bottles and raw, raw spirits. But do the people demand this. This is what I say, do they, do they ? How do we know what the people want, have the people really a voice in all this matter? The people, I mean not just people. How do we know what the people want until the people have seen what they may or might want. The people do not know what film art is, so how can the people demand film art ? The people sickened by the scent of laudanum, feeling numbness threaten stability and integrity say in many cases, no films. To the people, films stand in many, many instances for poison, for dope in its most pernicious essence, for aphrodisiacs that stupify and drain the senses and cripple the desires. Be- cause certain inferior bottles have held aphrodisiacs and raw spirits, and even more pernicious dopes, are all the flasks, and jars and bottles in the world to be damned and smashed equally ? Is Egyptian porcelain that has held the heart of a Pharoah and the wine goblets of Felenia and the crystals of Venice and the gold chalices of the Grail and the flask of Chianti, straw-bound flasks of the Tuscan foot-hills to be damned and smashed before the contents are even so much as sampled ? The pity is that it is only the connoisseur and the specialists that have, at the moment, access to the thing we must now unreserverdly term film ART. It is as much a duty of the educated classes and the connoisseur, the privileged classes in all countries, to see that the great art
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productions of each country are made generally accessible, as it was at one time the fiery mission of certain in office to translate the Bible. There is a great work, a great mission entrusted to the enlightened and privileged. And we dare not shirk responsibility.
The art is there. The achievement is assured. The great problem, in fact the only problem is the problem of present- ing this art. I have had the privilege of talking with Rus- sians and Germans during the last month, with great minds of both these nations. The Germans (those, needless to say, of the great generous-beyond-pettiness variety) said we as a defeated nation feel more and more the power and greatness of England. England before the war was first in Europe. To-day England is first.'' We spoke, possibly not as the average Englishman, not as the average American when we sought to meet that humility-in-greatness half way. Our answer was final, prophetic and unassailable. Jt was : you are not sl defeated nation." Germany with its future before it grubs down, down to the root of things, says we failed hiere, we failed there.'' England says we have never failed, 'ook at Trafalgar, we will never fail." It is the worm in the wood that eats away the mast head, not the mighty tempest. England in its greatness preparing for the tempest, is in danger of neglecting (we must say it) the very root and fibre of its greatness.
For England whose great pride is rightly its sense of fair play in sport and politics and war is apt sometimes to play unfair to itself. Is not this fear of Russian films really a fear of itself? Why should the Labour parties rise and threaten the dignity and modesty of Buckingham Palace be-
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cause they see the down-trodden and age-long degraded iUiterate peasants of the great Russian steppes and sordid St. Petersburg slums rising and storming the over-ornate Byaantine porches of the ex-Czar's cruelly remote and indif- ferent Winter Palace? There is no reason for the English working classes to rise and break and tear and rend. Would it not be a stimulus to the very pride of these salt-of-the- earth English working classes to see that these Russians were a different stock and root and yet behaved heroically? Heroism is without nationality and should be without pre- judice. We should not think David was a Jew, Leonidas a Greek. These are epic characters, and as long as we are citizens or subjects of the world, the vibration set up by the heroism of a David or the beauty and restraint of a Leonidas belongs to us, to each one of us individually. We grow in pride, and self-respect and divinity when we see acts of heroism, of beauty, of unqualified valour. David's courage is my courage and Leonidas' death, my death. So in facing
mother " with her red flag, I am mother a mother to these peoule whose martyrdom is our martydom and whose crown is our crown.
We are no longer nations. We are or should be a nation. We all know everything about the so-called Great War, that A was base, that B was good, that C was heroic, that D lost some diplomatic papers, that E was really to blame, that it was all caused really by F shooting G. We know that. We have witnessed it, died for it. Well, then let us shuffle the cards, get down and back to values. Say I am my brother's keeper, and if A suffers, B suffers. If C has smallpox, no doubt D will catch it and hand it on to E, and maybe F even.
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In succouring C I am not being charitable (that is the joke of it), I am really being selfish. For if one suffers, eventually the other must, and if one nation to-day befouls its own inte- grity and strikes blindly at a lesser nation, the whole world, willy (as they say) nilly must be sooner or later dragged into the fray. Men must fight, it is true just as women must have children. But don't let's fight if we must fight, blindly, let us know what it is all about, nations must understand each other, then if C is fighting D, there is much more fun to be got out of it altogether. We must know, know, KNOW. One of the most distinguished women of the political non- militant suffragette period said to me (in 1914) I have studied the problem from every angle, but I can dare not question our cause for going to war. If I questioned it for one moment, I should go mad.'' I did not say to her then, " well, go mad." I would now. I would say, If you haven't the courage and decency to face the thing straight now and for all time you don't deserve your sanity, and I hope you lose it." None of us in the light of later events dare slurr over our mentality for the sake of any personal fear of intellectual or physical consequences. I do not for one moment doubt the justice of England's heroic move in '14. But I will say then as now there was even among the most enlightened a tendency to scrap blindly brain for sentiment.
Well . . . what is this anti-Russian feeling but a senti- ment? What do you know of the revolution? What do you know of the Russians ? Have you studied the Problem ? Do you know how the workers " suffered? I do not mean that I in any way question the political justice, the rigid watchfulness of certain of the authorities here in England.
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The Great Strike and its dramatic denouement is still a matter of wonder and admiration among all political thinkers on the Continent. But the greatness of the Moscow art productions that it was my unique privilege to see last month in Berlin, puts the question of the Russian film (I speak naturally only of these real art productions) on a plane transcending politics. These films do not say to the British or the American work- man, go and do likewise. They say look, we are your brothers, and this is how we suffered. The whole authorita- tive teaching of Potemkin, of Mother, of The End of Saint Petersburg, or Ten Days That Shook the World, are histori- cal and almost religiously autochthonous character. There is no outward influence ... no passing to and fro of foreign soldiers, in Russia for and about and through and with the Russians. It is putting Russia (real Russia) on the map, not handing out the saccharine opera bouffe stuff that Holly- wood offers us, for instance, in Greta Garbo's Karenina, or in the yet unreleased Feodora of Pola Negri.
I do not say that Karenina and Feodora have no place in the scheme of things. They are both barley water, pink lemonade through a straw to quench naif palates on a hot day at the fair. They are not wine red or white, they are not even poison or raw spirits, and that perhaps is one of their great dangers. They are pleasant, skilfully photo- graphed, both of the actresses in these two cases are women of talent and undoubted personality. But Madame Baranow- skaja standing before the onrushing feet of the great stallions of the Czarist*s imperial bodyguard is in another category altogether. She is a figure of tradition, historical, mythical. Biblical.
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The great horses rush forward. The crowds break before them. Mother " who has innocently given information concerning her own son (in this the unsuccessful pre-war abortive revolution) is left standing alone, clasping the dis- carded banner of her people . . . well that is all. The horses rush on across the iron bridge, and mother is left lying in the mud, clasping her riddled banner. Is this a red flag in the sense of murder and outrage and insane threats of an illiterate gutter mob? That is W'hat red " stands for to so many, many intelligent and educated people. The red flag of mother " as she lies, a peasant woman, trampled to un- sightly death at the frigid command of an aristocratic cavalry officer, is as red as any Flander's poppy. It is only one of the most crass illiteracy who could face the beauty of
mother " and remain untouched and unredeemed.
So with Ten Days, so again with The End of Saint Peters- burg, The teaching is a teaching of brotherhood, of equality in its most sane and stable form. We are hungry. You are not hungry. We are starving, and the baby in my arms is not yet quite dead. Well . . . w^e know all that. But do we know all that ? Do w^e really know until we have seen the Russian film as presented by the great Moscow art people, not the insane outpourings of an insane group-mind, nor the saccherine washed-out and sugared over productions of a commercially proficient colony, I do not mean, by that last diatribe, altogether against Hollyw^ood. I mean yes and yes and yes, and no and no and no. Hollywood with re- servations is all right (up to a point) for America, for up to a point it is America, slick, quick, superficial and stylish, and oh, so, so amusing. Yes, I love Laura la Plante with her
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slick little mannerisms, and no one could be a more enthus- iastic fan " of little Patsy Ruth Miller than I am. Patsy Ruth Miller is an exquisitely finished artist. As is Rod la Rocque (to name one among many), Rod la Rocque with his charm and Buddy this and Buddy that who all have a place in my affections. Certain of the productions of the foreign directions in Hollywood leave nothing to be desired but that is American, is Hollywood and England has other problems. The problem of England and the beauty of England (psychically) is never that of the Scandinavians, and tech- nically at least it should learn and study not from America, but in and through the Germanic and Russian mediums. Hollywood has put America on the film map, certainly Ger- many has its representatives of giant realism in the film world, and Russia has surpassed everybody. Now where is Eng- land?
Well, here is another problem, and to state my ideas and ideals for England is hardly writing about Russia. But then it is really writing about Russia, for your technical problems are much the same. The Russian has taught us, for instance, the fallacy of the star " as stars and the idiocy of the painted drop curtain, the elaborate and false studio inte- rior, the beauty of shadow and rain and general natural effect that achieves depth and reality and the heights of impression- istic artistry through naturalness. I heard an English producer say the other day but what we need is stars, our people get stiff before a camera." Russia has taught us that every man, every women and every child is a star We are all stars '\ There is not one of us who, under skilful directorship cannot create a character, provided it is a real
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character and an English character, and not a diluted and febrile imitation of Hollywood being English, or Russian or Fiji Island-ish. Hollywood is Hollywood, and it is slick and it is straight, and it is American. Give me your English people and I will give you an English film tradition that will make the Germans and the Russians and the Americans green with envy. Well . . . perhaps not a little hyperbole, I grant you. But give us a chance anyhow. Let the people and the directors get together. The camera men and the stars. The camera man is the star and the star is the director. Or should be.
But give us the English people and we will give you the English film. We want films of the people for the people, and this . . . and this . . . and this . . . BY the people. The
great new Russian idea is not to make star personalities, but to let personalities make stars. God has made us, and we have made ourselves and each one of us is a " star " in embryo. Life and the film must not be separated, people and things must pass across the screen naturallv like shadows of trees on grass or passing reflections in a crowded city window. The Russian has taught us that life and art are in no way to be severed and that people to be actors must first and last be people. The great German who I quote constantly said to me " the screen cannot lie.'' But the screen in England has lied constantly and consistently about the English people, and in time foreign nations will cease to judge England by a past and vanished Trafalgar, and will expect nothing of a people who with such great wealth and with such rare and unique possibilities present so comparatively little on the screen that is really of political, sociological or artistic value.
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I do not mean (how could I) that all British films are rotten. One speaks naturally in extremes . . . there is no time to dis- cuss and too subtly differentiate. But I will say for the Eng- lish films and against myself that one of the heads of the Moscow Art Film School said to me recently in Berlin, I want to tell you one thing, and I want you to realize how sincerely I am speaking. I was impressed greatly with your Dawn, Your actress is magnificent, and your film alto- gether to be compared with the best of our Russian produc- tions/' It will show you how weak I am in many matters, and how sometimes unreliable when I confess to you that I had to sav to him, I have not seen it." H. D.
PROGRESS
By Oswell Blakeston
Certain technical manuals hope to astound their readers with the statement that pioneers of the motion picture industry " (Heaven help us all !) experimented with paper film. It appears to the compilers of these w^orks to be a ludicrous fact, almost alarming. Just imagine it — PAPER FILM ! Ha ! ha ! how far we have travelled, eh?"
Progress. Celluloid with stress marks, static, and grain ! Would paper be subject to all these electrical disfigurements ?
Take the extreme cases, the severe but revealing tests. A film in the tropics ; celluloid under the ordeal of intense heat. Ask now^ if we have found the perfect base for silver emulsion, for what happens ? The cameraman may go through the day without mishap, unless he leaves the camera in the sun for too
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long and burns his fingers. The day's take may be tinned in the usual manner, dispatched for the laboratories in parcels covered with blue crosses and seals, but the developer finds that all the film has stuck together 1 Tropical heat makes the celluloid " sweat The negative should be left for a day exposed to the air in a sealed dark-room, with the additional safeguard of a large inverted tin, then it may arrive in good condition ; perhaps with more certainty than if the film had been exposed in the Arctic regions. An explorer setting up his camera amidst ice, polar bears and stray topical boys " would be rewarded with a negative interlaced with wavering lines and decorated with representations of forked lightning, if no experienced friend had warned him to put an electric bulb in the camera. An electric bulb, lit by portable batteries, keeps the inside of the camera at an even temperature. A light inside the camera ! What about fogging all the film? Not if the bulb is covered with black paper and painted black.
Heat and cold therefore disqualify celluloid. The nervous might like to add their wail about the safety of the general public, the deadlv combustibility of celluloid; the reverent would be sure to talk about the debilitating atmosphere of the film safe. Film when it is kept for any length of time becomes brittle and unfit for the projector ; so that the artistic repertoire cinema has more difficulties to contend with than the mere securing of suitable pictures. Every promising film that is made to-day is doomed from the hour that it is released, and the classics of the past will soon be lost to us for ever. Paper would hardly keep any better, it would not be as pliant as new celluloid and it would tear, but is there any need for our scientists to brag about progress ?
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The enthusiasts are, I think, conscious of these defects ; there are other faults not so widely known. For example, it is unsatisfactory to dye celluloid. Tinting has been abandoned by most studios for coloured base, which is more even. In the old days the film was run through the dye after it had been washed (the water was sucked off by a vacuum in order that the die should not be diluted). Far more important are the processes of matting and " duping ", resorted to because of flaws in the silver emulsion and celluloid system.
The failure of modern emulsion is really a full-time independent question, but when it is remarked that the number of copies taken from a negative are strictly limited much has been said. With careful handling about one hundred and eighty copies can be taken from a negative ; while theoretically the number should be without limit. Had we progressed we should be considerably nearer the ideal than we are to-day. After a certain number of copies have been taken from a negative the base becomes scratched, and
matting " has been introduced for a remedy. The base is rubbed matt so that any further printing is done, as it were, through ground glass. Matting " is a widely practised abuse, but how many cinema goers have ever heard about it, or dreamt that the copy projected in their local cinema has suffered in this respect?
The ideal condition of affairs necessitates that not only shall a negative yield as many copies as are desired, but that other negatives can be made from it without loss of photographic quality. Positive celluloid film is often duped " to make a negative. Duping the making of a negative from a positive, implies the loss of half tones, yet films are regularly
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" duped " for the foreign market. Again is the public told? The answer is, I suppose, would tlie public care?
To save " duping important productions are taken with two cameras ; one negative for home consumption, the other for abroad. Even here there is a hidden evil. In nearly every case one cameraman is greatly superior to the other, one being engaged specifically as first cameraman. Studio authorities, thinking to economise, often engage incompetents for the second camera, which has but to set up beside the first ; however, simple as are the duties of second cameraman, frequently they are badly bungled. Needless to say, the indifferent negative is sent abroad, the producer being jealous of his reputation in his own country. Beware of the alien producer !
Further complications become tangled in technicalities. One parting word about emulsions. The two chief obstacles to perfect photographic reproduction offered by modern emulsions are speed and time. The life of the emulsion once developed wanes as well as the deterioration of the celluloid base ; undeveloped emulsion also loses its speed more or less rapidly. Supposing you want to shoot a group of gypsies sitting round a bonfire (no effect arc lights) out in the open air. To make the bonfire sufficiently strong for the speed of the film combustible pow^ders must be mingled with the flame. Essential for stock which has some durability but little speed. Powders can be dispensed with if the modern super pan is loaded in the camera, but stock which has speed keeps only a few days after it has been hypersensitized. For such is progress.
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WRITERS AND PICTURES
How does one go about writing for the Hollywood movies? The prudent person — particularly the professional literary person — refrains from going about it at all. However, if he feels he must contribute to the screen, his first step is to write a book or a play, or at least a colorful magazine story. If it contains picture possibilities, or better still, if it becomes popular, some producer may buy the film rights to it, at any- where from five hundred dollars to a hundred thousand dollars, and may possibly go so far as to invite the author to come to Hollywood and try his hand at writing directly for the screen, under a three months' probational contract at five hundred a week.
Aside from this exceptional situation, one does not write for the movies. Hollywood is not in the market for scen- arios. Many of the studios will not even consider unsolicited scripts, but promptly return them unread to their deluded authors.
And yet there was a time when scenario writing was a wide- spread and promising avocation, with profit in it for many an ingenious plot builder. Indeed, it looked for a while as though it were destined to become an established profession,
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open to anyone with imagination and picture sense coupled with a bit of Hterary talent. Schools for the teaching of it sprang up throughout the country, and two or three of the leading Universities included scenario writing in their curricula. The studios welcomed contributions and en- couraged the efforts of promising writers.
But these conditions have come definitely to an end. Scenario writing as such is now confined to a few recognized specialists, men and women living in Hollywood and directly in touch with the studios. The majority of them are on salary, while the few free lances enjoy an entree to the studios and are kept informed of the current production needs. The outlander is virtually taboo. His chance of selling an original cinema story is on a par with his chance of becoming Presi- dent of the United States.
The present situation is a natural development. It is not the result of a sudden or arbitrary dictum on the part of the movie overlords. As photogramas developed in character, as well as in technic and cost of production, the ordinary outside writer lost step and fell by the wayside. In Hollywood par- lance, he could no longer deliver the goods. The more highly developed demands of the screen w^ere beyond his resources.
As for the capable wTiter, he too lost out in time, unless in the meanwhile he took up his abode in Hollywood and be- came associated with the studios. Otherwise, it was impos- sible for him to keep in touch with the developing technicali- ties and intricacies of picture making and its constantly fluctuating conditions and requirements.
In short, long-distance writing for the movies became vir-
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tually impossible. And tliis, by way of illustration, is but one of the several causes that have led to the present situation.
Another determining circumstance was the numerous and increasing cases of plagiarism on the part of unknown authors. This troublesome mischief alone did much to hasten the end of the volunteer cinema writer. Pictures cost too much money to risk the buying of a story, however excellent, from an unestablished or unrecognized author. In fact, an exceptionally good story from such a source to-day arouses suspicion rather than interest or welcome.
It is, therefore, no more than reasonable that producers should depend upon accredited writers for their picture mater- ial. Nor are they to be criticized for their reluctance to accept such material from the outside until it has passed through the larval form of novel or stage play. It is merely a further safe- guarding of their interests. A published book or a produced drama carries with it prima facie evidence of merit, as well as assurance of genuineness and legal proprietorship.
There is also, of course, an incidental commercial value at- taching to a popular work of fiction. Many a film rides to financial success on the popularity of its literary parent. Ben Hut, Peter Pan, Little Lord Fontleroy, Uncle Tom's Cabin are but a few random titles out of a score that might be cited in proof of this — titles which have drawn the crowds and the shekels, irrespective of the merits of their cinema translations.
But at the same time it is a mistake to agree with the cap- tious critics of Hollywood, that the producers in picturizing a successful present-day novel or play are prompted solely bv the advertising value of its success. Whatever their indivi-
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dual shortcomings, Hollywood producers are not the dull- heads their detractors would have us believe. A colossal in- stitution such as the cinema does not rest on all-round stupidity.
When paying thousands of dollars for a " best seller " and preparing to spend a fortune in putting it on the screen, no producer is so stupid as to believe that everybody is familiar with the book. He is quite well aware that there are millions of picture fans who have not read it and have not even heard of it. Compared with the horde of cinema attendants, the number of readers of a popular novel is a mere decimal. And no one better kno\vs this than the business-wise producer.
A best seller is of significance to him simply because it is a best seller — a proof that it contains something of special popu- lar appeal, and accordingly holds the promise of a successful picture. That more than the usual percentage of the read- ing public is acquainted with the book is merely an added factor in the picture's favor; and it serves also as a selling point with the exhibitor. But it is certainly not the prime consideration. If it were, even a child would know better than to change the original title or treatment of the story, as Hollywood has a habit of doing.
Give the devil his due. If the maligned producer labels his film with a different title from that of the novel or play which he has translated into celluloid, it is not necessarily because he lacks good sense. On the contrary, it may well be that he thereby proves himself a canny genius within his own domain. He may hurt our literary and esthetic sensibilities by so doing, but w^hat are our sensibilities on this score com- pared with the response of the multitude to whom he is cater-
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ing. The Admirable Crichton may be sacred to you and me, but its screen alias of Male and Female has a far bigger pull with John Smith and his uncles and his aunts and his cousins the world over.
The producer is not interested in literature as literature. His milieu is pictures, not words. Literary art is of value to him only in so far as it has something to offer that is adapt- able to his specialized medium. If he is ready to pay ten thousand dollars for a piece of literary work for the sake of a mere idea contained in it, and, based on that idea, turns out a film that bears little or no resemblance to the original, that is his privilege. We may gnash our teeth over it, but at the same time we must be careful not to misinterpret this re- action of ours as evidence that the producer is an ignoramus.
The failure of the great majority of novelists and play- rights who have gone to Hollywood, to write directly for the screen, has proven a mutual disappointment. And author and producer are equally to blame — the author for failing to perceive the distinctive difference between literary and pictor- ial expression, and the producer for assuming that ability to produce an excellent novel or drama implies the ability also to write an ordinary scenario.
And so it is that many of our contemporary literary lights, numbering among them Michael Arlen, Gilbert Parker, Basil King, Joseph Hergersheimer, Mary Rinehart, Gertrude Atherton, Fanny Hurst, Irving Cobb, Booth Tarkington, Rupert Hughes, have twinkled brilliantly for a time on the Hollywood studio lots, only to disappear more or less quickly and return gratefully to their native firmament.
Each to his own trade. The cobbler to his last. Novels
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are written ; pictures are fabricated. Literary creation is solo work ; cinema producing is collaborative, composite, multi- farious, and vastly intricate. Many writers are called to Hollywood, but few are chosen. And the elect are content to become and remain, but individual cogs in the giant mach- inery of picture making. CLIFFORD HOWARD.
SIX RUSSIAN FILMS
Two Days {Zwei Tage), The Peasant Women of Riazanj {Das Dorf der Siinde),
FIRST TWO OF A SERIES.
Two Days,
WuFKU film, directed by Stabavoj. Leading role, F. E. Samytschkowski as the caretaker. S. A. Minin as his son.
Glimpses of large, imposing interiors of a country resi- dence. People hurry down from upstairs, with bags and all the paraphernalia of travel. They make precipitate last minute arrangements, and hasten out to the waiting car. Lug- gage is being strapped into the car. The master is giving instructions to the old caretaker. A dog and its pup stand bv, w^aiting and wondering. There is much agitation and
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anxiety. A heavy suitcase falls. The pup has been killed. But there is no time to waste. The old caretaker watches the car vanish, then picks up the dead animal, and takes it to a coppice in the grounds and buries it. He returns to the house. The departure has been abrupt and many personal effects remain about the rooms. He goes from room to room closing and putting away cigar boxes, trinkets, locking doors and windows, pulling blinds. The family plate he has also carried to the coppice and buried it too. The house assumes more and more an air of desertion and gloom.
Night falls early, and the old caretaker is in his room. His own effects too must be safeguarded. Letters. Gay letters from his son. He looks at the small photograph in gaudy frame of a young man, smiling and handsome. His manner is sad and bewildered. He seems very alone in an atmo- sphere of heavy quiet and darkness and foreboding.
A figure rushes in the road, and stops, beating and shaking the great iron gates of the garden. The caretaker goes to the window. He sees a youth frantic and desperate, apparently pursued, and in imminent danger. He goes down through the dark house with his candle. The youth beats wildly and frenziedly. Presently he is admitted. It is the son of the house, one of the fleeing family of that same morning. He is distraught and half dead with terror. The Reds are at his heels. The old man locks the gates again, and hurries him into the house, and upstairs to his room. The boy is in a terrible state and almost unconscious. In the coppice outside the mother dog is howling without ceasing. Her mournful howls fill the night.
Almost immediately the Bolsheviks are at the gates, knock-
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ing for admission. The boy's fear continues with the same insane energy — a wonderful piece of acting. Again the old man descends. The boy is hidden up in his room. The Bolsheviks are impatient, but the old man goes toward them with his lantern outwardly composed. Go on, he says to them, what's the meaning of this. Get along with you. He is ordered to open, and stands face to face with his son. He angrily rebukes the good-natured greeting. His son listens smalingly to his angry words. Indoors, the tired and hungry men are making themselves comfortable. The old man goes up to his room, outraged and powerless ; his life foundations dashed from under him in a moment. The men downstairs seem quiet enough, tired out and sleeping. The boy, ex- hausted now after his frenzied energy, is put to bed in the old man's bed, and the old man takes pillow and rug and settles himself on the floor.
The howling dog has burrowed in the newly dug soil and exhumed the corpse of the pup. It now how^ls, crouched over the dead body. The gate sentry, nerves exhausted by the monotonous cries stamps to the coppice to destroy the dog. He finds the plate there, half uncovered in the burrowing ; brings companions, and it is borne away to the house.
At dawn the old man descends softly among the sleeping men, and sees his son asleep on a table. He takes food for the boy upstairs, and is detected. Suspicions are roused, and his son and two men mount. They are heard. The boy, his former wild energy returning, is thrust into a long sloping loft. His figure vanishes, falling behind heavy beams and heavy shadow like a startled lizard. The old man is found calmlv eating at his table. The search reveals nothing, and
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again the son tries to establish a friendly relationship which again his father rejects. There is something fine in the old man's adherence to his beliefs, in his loyalty to his departed masters. He loves his son, and both know it, and the son respects his father, even though he is opposing him in beliefs that are dear to him.
At morning the Bolsheviks depart, and their place is taken by pursuing military. For these people the old man brings out linen and table ware. The son of his masters emerges. Fear having left him he re-establishes himself with cocksure, precocious manner. The old man's son has been followed by him to the cottage where he lives with his wife. It is now easy for him to appear a hero. He has already torn up the son's letters, and the pitiful fragments have been spread by the old man on the bed, assembled but unjoined. Now the security of equals induces him to go further. He calls up the old man. This is his triumph, his statement of being. He strikes him forcefully on the head, calling him traitor. The dazed and astounded old man hears him calling for men to go with him and rout out the Bolshevik son. In course of time he appears bound, and hustled. Again father and son stand face to face. The old man blindly implores mercy from the boy whose triumph makes mercy an impossibility. At night- fall on the second day, the broken figure of the old man is grovelling in the coppice. He has taken the place of the dog, which has vanished. Two naked feet swing above his head. Beside him is the body of the pup.
Presently intolerable grief is replaced by a sudden wild triumph. Again men are asleep indoors, and with them the boy smiling in sleep as he had smiled gratitude the night
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before. Content in his belief in right. The old man watches him.
Soon small flames lick the backs of old dry books, of cur- tains. Smoke wakes the men. Doors and windows are barred. The second day and the second night pass in the blazing of a vast funeral pyre. The old man hurrying away has the majestic pride and gorgeousness of an avenging angel. Dawn of the third day is wet and grey over a winding road, and over flat, wet fields. Face downward in the road is the solitary dead figure of the old man.
This is the story of Two Days, tragic beyond endurance, yet by pity and truth not destructive, but rather an inspiration. Its intolerable strength is in its consistency, and the cumula- tive building of inevitable incident, leading through tragedy to super tragedy. The dawn, and day and night of each day, cheerless, threatening, irrevocable is made to be felt as actual weight of reality. The small personal conflicts, understand- ings, motives emerge starkly against the dark background. Everything goes to its limit. With a fractionary difference the suitcase falling on the pup might have been almost slap- stick. Here it was so inevitable that actual shock of horror came with it. The situation of Revolution and its devastation, of the needs and justification of both sides and the influence of Revolution falling suddenly upon a large country mansion gave an absorbing situation. For the situation was built on reality, and not in any dramatic convention, where revolu- tionaries, whether Russian, French or Balkan, are shown as sweeping down on everything and leaving only fire and havoc in their wake. How the personal element functioned through the working out of impersonal aims was marvellously shown,
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how human met human, not how man met fiend. The parts were flawlessly played. F. E. Samytschkowski as the old man is beyond praise. The son of the house, and his own son were equally, in their places, magnificent. The casting could not, in fact, have been better. It was hard to realise how it can have been so good. Technique was stimulating, simple and experienced. Two Days once seen can never be forgotten.
The Peasant Women of Riasanj (Das Dorf der Sunder).
SovKiNO film. Directed by Olga Preobrashenskaja. Wassily, the father, E. Fastrebitzki ; Ivan, his son, C. Babynin; Wassilissa, his daughter, E. Zessarskaja; Anna, Ivan's wife, R. Pushnaja; Wassily's mistress, O. Narbekowa.
The tremendous sociological importance of this film is in its insistence on the need to recognise the problems arising out of primitive conditions in the villages. Towns carry their own special problems, and the problems of towns are far more well known and recognised, and to a certain extent dealt with. But progress, this film insists, cannot be confined to towns to the exclusion of village life.
It is Spring in Riazanj. Women are washing in the lake, and great stretches of bleaching cloth lie on the grassy slopes. It is a gay and animated scene, and the picturesque peasant costumes, heavy and massive and embroidered, women with skirts fastened back and large bandaged feet, add brightness to a scene already bright. Over the river a cart drives, laden with grain in sacks. The ford is tricky and the cart goes in deep, to the mirth of the women and a
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volley of advice. Wassily and his son wade ashore, the cart unharmed. Anna, a young girl, light-hearted with Spring, comes from her cottage. She meets Ivan and the father, both of w^hom drive on their w^ay, their thoughts oc- cupied w^ith Anna's young beauty.
In an orchard Wassilissa, Wassily's daughter meets her lover, the young smith. They are hidden in dense blossom, but not so hidden that Wassily driving past does not per- ceive them. Thus, over the morose meal, the family, father, mother, mistress, child, and son await Wassilissa. Ivan's thoughts are dreamily with Anna, his soup spoon dipping in the community dish rests there, and a happy smile reveals his dreamy abstraction. Wassily, profoundly irritated, hits him sharply on the head with the back of his own spoon, and the surprised youth is even more surprised by a spoonful of hot soup dashed in his face. Wake up, blockhead, it's time you were getting married."
Wassilissa hurries in full of high spirits. The stony silence of her family show^s her that they know. Her father's insults and threats fall upon her and she leaves the table.
Anna and Ivan marry. The villagers are already whisper- ing that the old man has manoeuvred this in order that he can have Anna for himself. The wedding feast is full of gaiety and dancing, and the room grow hotter and hotter. The young bride and groom sits mopping exhausted faces. Wassilv goes and seats himself beside them, his light caress of the bride's hand has a triumph that does not escape the swift eye of his mistress.
Wassilissa and the smith go out to the quiet shelter of the barn. Wassilv finds them there and bursts into fury. You
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shall never have my consent to your marriage, he savs. His daughter returns his fierce stare. She and the smith go out. Wassily, unsure of himself before her sudden strength, watches them. At the door she says to her lover, If I come and live with you without marriage will you promise to honour me?" They go off together, leaving Wassily rag- ing, but defeated.
Their life is not so simple, however. Their door is con- stantly smeared with pitch by angry villagers. The young smith grows despondent, but Wassilissa, helping him at his work, laughs her defiance. Seeing the smeared door, she spits with angry contempt.
At home Wassily has made many advances to the reluct- ant Anna, who succeeds in evading him. His wife and mistress watch with scandalised eyes, in a conspiracy of rage and avidity, and the atmosphere grows tense, and hostile. Their attitude is one almost of eagerness that the thing they have made up their minds is going to happen should do so, thus flooding them with triumph and a virtuous reason for venom. Madame Preobrashenskaja has certainly succeeded in this film in presenting unquestionably the finest studies in feminine psychology that have ever been made, from the sweet, simple Anna, and the strong, loyal Wassilissa to the carniverous, yet inevitable mistress who left to herself is a harmless great animal, yet whose tenacious brutality and cowardice are the great weapons of her virtue. Indeed, no more scathing, though quite impartial, indictment of so- called virtue has yet been made. Madame Preobrashenskaja's genius is in that her types are never exaggerated, and each has its inevitable raison d'etre. She does not hate people for
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being what they are, but the system which makes them so. The mistress, for instance, though shown up in her true baseness, is no more base and no more shown up than thou- sands of her type are every day to the observant eye. Not one of her actions, expressions or gestures is strained or over coloMred. She has even pathos and a likeability. Chanc- ing to meet her you would find her a cheery, droll and com- fortable soul. It is Preobrashenskaja's devilish cunning that has lifted the edge and allowed us to peep beneath at the cauldron-like raging of jealousy and fear.
The War sweeps away the young men. Wassilissa is left standing alone in the half-reaped fields, and sees that now she will be quite alone and without friends. The corn, silver and swiftly undulating in fresh winds, has a beauty and peace where there is suddenly no longer beaut^' and peace. The corn is luminous and ecstatic, but majestic clouds make the sky darker than the earth. The life of the village goes on, and women take on the men's work.
One day Wassily goes to market. He has promised to bring back presents to the famil}'. Night comes w^ith tor- rential rain, and in the small room the women are weaving. The wife and mistress and women friends have a conspira- torial, uneasy manner. They weave steadily, the looms and treadles creak, and cover their whispering. Anna, sad, dreaming of Ivan, is yet aware of their hostility. Wassily arrives home drenched, and is much fussed over. But Anna slips away.
He has a shawl for his mistress. She puts it on, flirting, unwneldly and enticing, in front of him. But this second shawl . . . she realises is not for her. Her pleasure is short-
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lived. Wassily takes no notice of her angrv protest, but goes out bearing the shawl. This, indeed, is her defeat. She sits down. This is not a moment for the hard remorse- less fighting she has been engaged in. She simply sits down. And gradually her face puckers into a grotesque, miserable dog-like howl.
Presently, however, she is creeping around the house. Where is Ivan and where is Anna? She opens the door to the yard, listening and muttering silently. A curtain of steady rain drips off the thatch in front of her. She tries another door. Darkness and quiet, and the sound of rain. It only remains to confirm the truth. Anna's door . . .
She draws back hurriedly in shadow. Wassily comes out, turns, closing the door and sees her. They stare at each other. The house becomes taut with the destruction wrought. He goes without speaking.
Revolution has ended the War. It is new Russia, and time has elapsed. Wassilissa has joyously greeted the re- turn of the smith. Women come to her. We need help with the child's home," they tell her. She prepares to go with them. The smith protests. What will I do if you waste all your time up at that place? His manner is new, war-acquired. In just this simple scene Preobrashenskaja has given a vivid cameo of the hardening effect of war. In some subtle way his charm has gone. When he tries to forciblv detain her, she says quite simply, " That sort of thing is finished with. This is the New Russia," and walks out. The home " is the dilapidated mansion of the late landowner. Hundreds of women and children are clearing and cleaning it up.
A letter has come. The mistress' child comes running,
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crying a letter has come. They run indoors, wife, mistress, Anna, the child. Wassily has the letter. News of Ivan. Terror becomes joy, he is returning. They bow down and cross themselves. They turn on Anna: Now, you with your brat, what will he say now he will find out ? We are covered in shame.'' They moan. The mother screams, alas that my son should return to this." Anna is driven forth, broken by their violence. She takes the child with her. Wassilissa sees her from the steps of the Home, crying and wretched. They sit together on the steps. Do not worrv, Wassilissa comforts her, directly the home is finished there will be a place for your child.
The vSpring Festival. Swings, roundabouts, dancing, merrymaking. Anna, the mistress, the wife, are all getting ready in their festival clothes. They sweep out, each tossing her head at the suffering girl. Anna plaiting her hair, goes to the window and sees Ivan returning. Panic overtakes her, she runs away and hides herself in her room. The family come running to Ivan. Where is Anna? The frozen silence is broken by the mother. She has brought shame upon the house. Their hatred is triumphant, and tears of self pity stream down their cheeks. Poor Ivan, poor, poor Ivan. The shocked youth finds Anna in her room, half-dressed, terrified and joyous and tragic. There indeed is the child. Here, too, his posturing is new. In his rejec- tion of Anna he gives himself to his family, becomes one with their baseness. War-acquired. War has not enobled, it hsiS debased the men.
The festival is at its height. Maidens throw wreaths into the water — omens for their future. Unseen by the merry-
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The Old ^lan himself, played remarkablv bv Xikolas Xademsky, a young actor of twenty-four. Comments on Zvenigora are elsewhere in
this issue.
Xikolas Xademsky in his remarkable make-up.
Nikolas Xademskv as himself.
From The Son, newly arrived in Germany and to be exploited by Derussa. Anna Sten fright) plays the leading part. Direction : E. Tscherwjakov, for Sovkino.
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makers, Anna comes wild-eyed along the bank. A hounded, pitiful figure. Soon her 'kerchief is floating with the wreaths, and everybody is running and falling along the steep bank, Wassily, Ivan, the women.
Her drowned corpse is brought home. The family sit around stupid and stupified. Into their midst comes Wassilissa w^ith supreme and noble scorn of them in her bearing: gathers up the child. Ivan,'' she snaps at her brother, ''your father is the guilty one." She goes out, carry- ing the child. Leave these people to their crimes and their sins, the child shall not be their victim. And so, the New Woman, free, brave and strong, and the child in her care, and scientific social conditions are shown to be what matters most, and it is upon this note of hope and construction that the tragic story ends. In the new world there will be no victimised Annas, no room for cheap scoundrels or men dulled with outworn prejudice in social and marital matters. Equal chances, vocational training, sex knowledge and understanding, efficient education, hygiene, and common- sense, not only in towns but in every tiny hamlet. Men, honest and decent and straight, and women freed from harm- ful superstition of w^eakness and dependability. Comrade- ship, not ownership. These are the basic principles of Olga Preobrashenskaja's great and first film. A work of genius, of unquestionable beauty, reverent, serious and vital. Her appreciation of picture values alone would entitle her to pro- found admiration. Her cutting is a miracle, her characterisa- tion can only be wondered at. Every serious man, and certainly every w^oman will owe a real debt of gratitude to this great director for her contribution to the social problems
D
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of to-day in relation to women, and picture lovers will wel- come this film for its swift, dramatic action, its fine sureness and poetic beauty.
Next Month :
Pits (Die Fallgruben des Levens)^ a new film by A. Room.
M echanics of the Brain,
Bv W. PuDOWKiN & Prof. Pavlov.
MAKING LITTLE FILMS
As Close Up has pointed out in several recent issues, a great deal of nonsense is talked about the practical side of amateur film making. For instance, one does NOT need to be a millionaire to make experimental pictures, and one does NOT need to spend anything from £'300 up on a camera.
A camera, by the way, is one of the first things which an amateur group will have to get hold of, and it can be bought quite cheaply if only one is prepared to make a tour of the secondhand dealers' shops, where quite serviceable instru- ments can be picked up for £10, £8 or occasionally as cheaply as £5. It is advisable to insist on having any secondhand
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stuff on a week's approval before deciding to purchase — this is quite a usual stipulation and one which no reputable second- hand dealer will gib at. A secondhand camera of the kind I have in mind will NOT, of course, be fitted with any and every sort of studio dissolving device — it will probably not even boast a footage indicator. However, one must learn to walk before one tries to run, and a simple camera, without a thousand and one etceteras, is more likely to give good results in the hands of a beginner, than a first-class studio instrument.
And apparatus of this sort CAN and WILL give good results. A single sprocket topical camera with leaky boxes and a slow lens (say f 5.6) and no footage indicator or one turn one picture spindle, represents, I suppose, the very worst that any one is likely to pick up " on the cheap ". Yet an instrument of this kind is quite capable of photographing a •film which will set a standard— PROVIDED IT IS HANDLED WITH SKILL AND COMMON SENSE.
The lack of a footage indicator is neither here nor there, as you can alw^ays get a fairly good idea of the footage exposed on any scene by counting the turns and dividing the result by two. Leaky boxes can be wrapped up in the black paper which is used for packing negative and the camera can be loaded in the dark room. A dark room, incidentally, can be improvised almost anywhere by covering the windows and the cracks round the door of a room with overcoats and fitting a red globe over the electric light. Suitable red globes can be obtained from any photographic shop for a few shillings. At a pinch the camera can be loaded in a changing bag (half-plate size, obtainable at most photographic shops), though this method of loading needs a bit of practice.
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An f 5.6, slow though it is as cine lenses go, is really not so much of a handicap as one would think. The point is that when working with cheap apparatus one must cut one's coat according to the cloth at one's disposal, and not expect a slow lens to be of much use after 6 o'clock on a sunny July evening in England, unless fast film is being used. It is possible, to a small extent, to compensate for a slow lens by cranking the camera slower than the usual twice a second, and so give a longer exposure. The artistes must in this case act slowly to synchronise with the slow rate of turning, which is a sight more difficult to do than it sounds.
The camera will need a tripod, w^hich will cost anything from 50s. to £50. Here again a tour of the secondhand dealers is suggested, where a suitable stand should not cost more than £5 complete with tilting and swivelling head.
This one sprocket camera of ours is quite capable of doing all the usual studio stunts, such as double exposure cartoon work and so on, BUT ONLY AT THE PRICE OF CON- SIDERABLE TliVIE AND TROUBLE. What one has saved in money by getting the instrument for next to nothing, one has to make up in time and ingenuity.
Double exposures and possibly mixes can be managed by marking the film before you start and, after the scene, winding the film back to the mark in the dark room. This process is described in full detail in nearly every elementary textbook on the subject, so I don't propose to repeat it all here.
Fades can be faked by shutting or opening the lens diaphragm while you are still cranking, but this will not give a complete fade and is obviously objectionable when one is already using a small stop. A circle-out can be used as a
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substitute for a fade, though admittedly rather a miserable one. It is worked by using a thing called a Cat Eye which is really a glorified lens diaphragm, used about two inches in front of the lens. They can be picked up at varying prices secondhand; I should think about £2 10s. would cover this item.
A mask box is not a very difficult or expensive thing to make and is awfullv useful. All vou need is an old camera bellows and a few odds and ends. A strip of wood is run out along the top of the camera so that it sticks out a few inches beyond the lens. The camera bellows are arranged so that the small end fits over the lens barrel while the large end is supported by the piece of wood. The masks themselves are cut out of cardboard with a razor and blackened with Indian ink; they can be fixed onto the mask box " v/ith drawing pins. I am afraid that this all sounds rather fearsome on paper, but it is really easy to make, especially if you do the job with your camera in front of you so that you can see just how everything is fitting. The masks should be at least two inches in front of the usual lens fitted (2^^), and it will be necessary to open the camera and peer through the gate to get them properly in position.
The next question is FILM, which is always the most expensive item in an amateur production. Negative stock costs 2|d. per foot, developing Jd. and printing IJd. to 3d. This works out to 4^d. per foot for the finished film, or slightly over £17 for 1,000 feet, or £8 10s. for 500 feet. The 500 foot film, by the way, should not be despised. From many points of view it has much to recommend it to the beginner.
In laboratory work, as in camera work, it is possible to effect
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considerable economies by " doing for yourself " and taking a little trouble. Though the cost of negative cannot be reduced, it is possible to save quite a little money by doing one's own developing and possibly printing also.
Another of the numerous unexploded fallacies of the amateur film world is that no one working on a small scale can do his owm laboratory work profitably. I used to think this myself, especially after some rather futile efforts at developing film in two buckets, working it from one to the other to ensure even development (and scratches !). However, that is by the way, the point is that there is at least one, and I think several, small developing outfits on the market which work on the apron principle like the ordinary Kodak daylight tanks for roll film. These outfits (the one I use is the BOL) handle about 75 feet of film in just over half a gallon of solution.
If one uses one's developer sufficiently dilute it is possible to develop and fix one's film, in batches of 75 feet, at a cost of 0.078 pence per foot as opposed to the trade rate of ^d. per foot — a saving quite worth making.
I use a proprietary developer (Johson's Azol) diluted, 1 ounce Azol to 80 ounces of water, which will develop one batch of film, after which it is worked out and must be thrown away. I use 12 ounces of Acid Hypo to 80 ounces of water for fixing, and this will fix three batches of film (each 75 feet). All the development I do is done Time and temperature and I find that a normally exposed film, taken on Agfa's ordinary negative, is developed in 60 minutes with the developer at 55°F.
Developing on the time and temperature system really calls for no skill or judgment on the part of the operator. Once the
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correct time for a given brand of film, developed at a given temperature, is ascertained, all you have to do is to put the film in the solution and pull it out when time is up.
Printing is quite a different proposition. Positive stock costs Id. per foot, and developing, etc., about the same as for negative, so that the saving is again 0.422 pence per foot if you do the job yourself. Some cameras, notably the Bol Cinegraph, are so made that they can be converted into printers, though I doubt very much whether the strain im- posed on the mechanism by using them in this way does the camera any good. Continuous printers cost about £14 new, though occasionally they can be obtained from our old friend the secondhand dealer.
To print one's own positives calls for a good deal more skill than developing a negative. Apart from this, it is necessary to watch the image come up in the development, which is difficult to do in an apron tank, while unless you do use an apron developing outfit you cannot use your chemicals really economically. On the whole, my own experience is that printing is rather beyond the scope of the average amateur.
Another way of saving money, especially if only one copy of the film will be wanted, is to get your positive by a reversal process like those used by the majority of the sub-standard people. You take on positive stock if the light is good enough, which is, in itself, a considerable saving, since posi- tive costs Id. against the 2^d. for negative. A very full exposure is necessary, say f 5.6, or at least f 8 on a sunny day in England.
The film is developed in the ordinary way, only develop- ment must be very full — until the film is nearly black on both
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sides. After development the film is reversed by a solution of potassium permanganate or potassium bichromate and sulphuric acid diluted with water. After this a few moments in a weak hypo bath clears the highlights and the film is ready for redevelopment and a final washing. After drying, we have a print ready for projection at an all in cost of about IJd. per foot or slightly more than the cost of working with a Cine Kodak.
As I am at present still experimenting with reversal for standard size film, I hesitate to give detailed formulae which, at best, would only be indications, but any reader of Close Up can have full details of the solutions I am using for the asking. I think a glycin developer is probably best, but I hesitate to recommend it at this stage.
Another way of producing cheaply is to use paper negative. Its principal advantages are its low price (less than Id. per foot) and the fact that, compared with reversal, it gives more latitude in exposure. On the other hand it is, in my experi- ence, liable to jamb and tear in the camera since it is not as tough as celluloid, and the printing process, which is carried out by the makers, is on the dear side — about 2d. per foot. It is not as cheap as reversal, but in inexperienced hands will probably give better results.
The difficulties of taking interior scenes is another aspect of amateur picture making which has been the cause of numerous wild and silly statements. Outdoor sets are not particularly difficult to make, though they are at the mercy of the rain and wind and, in the writer's opinion, are unsatisfactory from other points of view. They have, however, been used with great success by Leon Isaacs, of the Amateur Cinemato-
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graphers' Association, and Mr. Ronald Gow, of the Altrincham County High School.
Real interiors can be taken, under favourable conditions, without the use either of artificial light, which is expensive, or super speed lenses, w^hich are both expensive and difficult to use. In the Manchester Film Society's present film the interiors are real ones and were taken on Agfa Extra Rapid stock, using a Viogtlander f 4.5 lens. The room had white walls, a door facing south and a window^ facing west. The door (which was on the ground and opened onto the garden) was open and a reflector was placed outside (the reflector was a piece of beaver board 4 ft. by 4 ft. painted with aluminium paint). No other lighting w^as used for most of the scenes, which were very slightly underexposed.
The night scenes in the same film were taken with a IMeteor Arc light, which is rather a remarkable piece of apparatus. It consists of two parallel arcs in series, a resistance and a parabolic reflector. It only uses 5 amps and w^ill work off the domestic circuits. The parallel arcs need no attention in the way of feeding, and each pair of carbons wall burn for about half an hour without attention.
The Meteor people (English agents, O. Sichel) have several other lights, some with three arcs and some with two. The Jupiter Model 8 is a similar sort of light, but it is more powerful and needs more current. The Bell and Howell Co. handle the Halldorsen Cinema arc for amateurs, but its cur- rent consumption is rather high — 20 amps, I think. The Amalgamated Photographic Manufacturers, of Soho Square, make a series of photographic arcs, some of which are suitable for amateur cinematography.
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1 don't suggest for a second that any of these lights will light a whole set, but they are useful for night scenes and shadow effects w^hich could not otherwise be obtained, and also as auxiliaries to daylight on bad days. Most of them will w^ork off the domestic circuits, though it is perhaps advisable to see the supply company before wiring one up — especially as one may be able to get power rates by so doing. The prices vary from £2 10s. up. The cheaper models are not fitted with stands, but these are easily manufactured out of old music stands or anything else handy.
Magnesium flares are useful on occasion. They give a flickery light, but this does not matter for such things as candlelight or fireside effects, which are flickery anyway. Magnesium flares produce volumes of smoke and are therefore not suitable for scenes of a prolonged kind, and the actual flare must be shielded away from the lens to avoid halation. Magnesium ribbon and holders can be obtained from photo- graphic shops, as it is used by still photographers for making gaslight prints.
I am afraid that in these random notes I have not been able to do more than merely indicate the unlimited possibilities of makeshift apparatus — after all, it is the CAMERAMAN and the DIRECTOR, and NOT the camera and the studio, w^ho make the picture.
Peter Le Neve Foster.
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DOPE OR STIMULUS
How many people of the thousands who compose audiences derive direct enjoyment from the spectacles they watch ? It has seemed to me returning- from Germany that many Eng- Hsh take theatres, games, papers, cinemas even as dope; that their attitude is that of the drug-taker achieving a state of intoxication that has nothing to do with what they watch, be it cricket, play or movie, but is built up by association of long ago events. They hypotize themselves into an expectation that a given star or theatre or idea will produce a given re- sult. They surrender to this, all logical faculties in abey- ance, and achieve complete gratification whatever the material set in front of them provided it is presented in an expected and familiar manner. To particularize, a thought- ful book happens to be written about a social problem widely discussed across the Continent. It is attacked by a cheap Press in a vulgar and stupid manner. Nobody protests. Yet the people who buy these papers go to theatres where the same subject and questions of sex in general are dealt with in songs and dialogues in the most suggestive and nauseating manner. The public have surrended logical processes, to them the performance is not pleasure, but dope ; they do not
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reason; on every side is heard, Oh, how charming '\ how pretty damned good of a song say that in its actual meaning implies a view of life almost too raw for prostitutes. It is exactly the same with games. You will hear times without number that football and cricket develop community feelings and promote unselfishness, in spite of every proof to the contrary. (If they promote such com- munity feeling why is it that the most unfair propaganda against Russian films comes from the people in England who play these games most, and, therefore, are supposed to ac- quire a spirit of fairness, the Public Schools?) What has actually happened is that like the monkey in Prof. Pavlov's experiment who reached always for food at the sight of a blue plate, they are not reacting directly to amusement or to art, but are reacting instead to a sequence of familiar ideas, that are not unfortunately true to the ideas or progress of to-day. And beyond this, as they are not deriving direct stimulus from their pleasure, like a drug taker or a drunkard they have continually to increase the dose, the one particular dose, cricket or theatre, or set of ideas that first gave them gratifica- tion, till a period of staleness sets in w^hen they are incapable of reacting to anything and when they also get nothing from their watching to add to their working life. For art or out- side interest is as necessary to the worker as sleep or food. Without it, without utter relaxation from work he is not going indefinitely to be capable of interest in his job, he is going to become stale, a mechanical figure without the stability that a robot would have.
How different the audiences are in Germany. I went to two different cinemas in Berlin, in one a famous Hollywood
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picture was shown, in the other a new German super film with a very popular star. The audience waited quietly in each case till the film finished. Then burst an inspiring riot of shrill derisive whistles. They knew that both the films were bad and were alive enough, critical enough to retaliate with their opinions.
They had gone to a cinema not to forget but to live. Not to live in a past age but to get new ideas, fresh stimulus for their own work of to-morrow. Of course a great many bad films are shown in Germany, but the point is the audiences are critical, there are a number of people who, even if they like bad films, know why they like them and why they want them. And there is none of that self-conscious amateurish attitude. I don't know what I am doing, but applaud me because Tm doing my best.'*
To watch may be a vital way to life. But to watch hypnoti- cally something which has become a habit and which is not recorded as it happens by the brain, differs little from the drug taker's point of view, and is destructive because it is used as a cover to prevent real consideration of problems, artistic, or sociological, and the creation of intelligent English films.
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COMMENT AND REVIEW
SIX STOKERS ]VHd OWX THE BLOOMIX' EARTH, at the Gate Theatre, London.
Like the poor, the critics are always with us. Years ago producers, actors and managers woke up, on the morning after a first night, and wondered what the star critics would say (at least, I hope they did); but to-day they merely wonder if the star critics can say it all over again. Our dramatic critics especially are as true to their material as the established favourites of our music-halls. Quite naturally, then, the erudite columns of The Observer described the cinemato- graphic commentary to Six Stokers Who Oivn the Bloomin' Earth as hiccups of a tipsy cinematograph '\
Splendid hiccups I The little experimental Gate Theatre, in Villiers Street, dared to combine stage and screen for the first time in London. Piscator had done it in Germany, Russia had done it, but this is London. Mr. Peter Godfrey and Mr. Dennis Freeman simplv picked up a Kadascope, hardly more than a toy, and shot their film while others were talking. They took it in the Gate Theatre itself, using the theatre lights, and their friends played the parts.
" We attempted," ]\Ir. Freeman told me, a definite rhythm. It is not supposed to be completely wild. The man
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playing the banjo is the spirit of jazz ; if we had possessed a real camera we would have superimposed the banjo player over the other scenes. A little obvious perhaps, but . .
What does it matter if most of the scenes are underlit? What does it matter if distortion effects are obtained by the simple expedient of turning the camera upside down ? What does matter is that the experiment has succeeded.
Think of the play without the film, and you will realise how important the film is. A rather tedious allegory, it is rendered vastly amusing the ingenuities of production. There are jazz angels who appear on rafters above the heads of the audience, lantern slides, constructivist scenery, and above all the film. Naturally, the confession that the play is meant to be a joke gives the producers considerable licence, and in the circum- stances the somewhat jejune atmosphere is admirably in keeping with the spirit of the production. For example, there is a model of a skyscraper which catches fire. You can see the dreadful moment when the anxious technicians had to blow on the flames to rekindle them. Also, there is an endearing bit of mock abstract
Necessity again has dictated a verv eft'ective method of freak projection. The problem of " throw " is overcome by placing the screen at an angle to the projection machine hidden in the wings, and at the same time quite a novel frame is achieved.
Is this," I asked Mr. Freeman, just a delightful joke or a promise ?"
He explained to me that Elmer L. Greensf elder, who wTote Six Stokers Who Own the Bloomin' Earth, conceived a realistic setting; real cliff's, sea, and sky. Now Toller in a
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new drama, with which the Gate Theatre hope to open their new season, has actually written in the part that the cinemato- graph has to play, and the producers will attempt seriously to translate Toller's wishes. It will be time to criticise then, at present it would be as foolish as ungracious.
As a last word — because the producer used a Kodascope the film could not have cost them very much, which is always heartening news for amateurs. Unfortunately, the enlarge- ments from the film do not make printable reproductions, but next time it is intended to be very professional and take separate still-pictures.
OSWELL BlAKESTON.
HOLLYWOOD NOTES
The phonofilm as a subject of interest and discussion overshadows for the present every other topic in Hollywood. While all of the studios are hurrying forward preparations for the use of this new invention, its eft'ect upon the industry is exciting widespread speculation.
Certain legal questions are also becoming involved in it. Already the owners of stage plays and musical comedies who sold their picture rights sometime ago are protesting against the reproduction of the dialog and the music on the screen ; contending that this was not contemplated in the sale of
picture rights And another legal point that threatens trouble is the question whether a screen actor's contract permits the producer to employ the actor in a speaking film without additional compensation.
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Also, it is not unlikely that difficulties will arise over patent rights in the use of the many varieties of synchronized sound device now on the market — Vitaphone, Movietone, Cine- phone, Photophone, Cortellaphone, Hanaphone, Firnaphone, etc.
As yet no generic term has been adopted to describe audible films. Colloquially they are spoken of as Talkies but this term is too limited in its connotation. It fails to suggest the use of music and other sounds besides those of human speech. Phonofilm " appears to be best thus far put for- ward, but it will probably prove too formal and lengthy for general adoption by the brevity-loving American public.
A number of feature pictures produced before the advent of the present phonofilm vogue have recently been equipped with sound effects, in order to meet the now popular demand for this new departure. The King of Kings, Sunrise, The Godless Girl, Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Man Who Laughs, and The Four Sons, are among the several big pictures to which sound accompaniments have been added.
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Norma Talmadge's latest picture, The Woman Disputed, produced by United Artists, is booked for release in Septem- ber. It was directed by Henry King, with Robert Florey as his assistant. The photodram.a is from Denison Clift's stage success of the same title. King regards it as the most powerfully dramatic story he has yet directed.
Clift, the author of the story, is himself a picture director as well as a playwright. During the present year he has forsaken Hollywood for Elstree, where he has been directing
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for the British International Pictures. Two of his recently completed stage plays, The Leak and Scotland Yard, are scheduled for early production both in London and New York, and later will undoubtedly be transferred to the screen.
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Commercial Hollywood is not wholly unappreciative of art films and the genius that can produce them, provided they furnish evidence of public endorsement. Charles Klein's recent little masterpiece of psychologic artistry, The Tell- Tale Heart, which had its first private showing at a dinner given by the Hollywood Association of Foreign Correspon- dents in honor of Lily Damita, was later accorded popular approval when shown at the Filmarte Theatre and thereby won for its maker a contract with the Fox Company, where he is now completing The Fog, with Mary Astor and George O'Brien,
Paul Fejos, the author and director of The Last Moment, is another whose idealistic work has secured recognition from a big producer. He is now associated with Universal as a director, and is busy on a series of special pictures for that company.
Eric von Stroheim is directing Gloria Swanson's next picture. The Swamp, which is being made at the FBO studios. This particular combination of director and star should ensure a production of unusual interest and merit.
The story, which was written by von Stroheim himself, is laid in Berlin and in German East Africa. Miss Swanson, since the pronounced success of her Sadie Thompson, follow- ing a number of unfortunate picture failures, has regained for
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the time her former prestige in the cinema world ; and the present von Stroheim opus offers exceptional opportunities for her particular type of dramatic talent and should aid materially in furthering her renewed popularity. The picture will probably be completed sometime this fall.
The Hollywood Bowl has just completed another successful season of concerts. This is one of California's unique institutions of fine art, and is liberally patronised by the picture colony. The " Bowl is a natural amphitheatre in the rugged hills that form the background of Hollywood, and here for six weeks during the summer season is presented a series of open-air symphony concerts.
These symphonies under the stars " are largely attended, averaging probably fifteen thousand a night, and attract not only music lovers from far and near, but also many notable American and European conductors, who share during the season in directing the concerts.
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The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Company have undertaken two very unique filmings — Trader Horn and The Bridge of San Luis Rey. They recently acquired the picture rights to both of these unusual books, and in the belief that they can be successfully translated to the screen and will prove as popular there as they have to the reading public, the company is devoting much time and money to the undertaking.
Trader Horn will be directed by W. S. Van Dyke, whose current picture. White Shadows in the South Seas, from
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O'Brien's book of the same title, has demonstrated his ability in this type of exotic work. At this writing he and his com- pany are preparing to leave for Africa, where the picture will be made against the very backgrounds of Horn's remarkable tales. They will carry with them, in addition to their travel- ling and camping outfit, a complete studio equipment, including not only generators and lights, but also sound- recording devices for securing the wild animal voices of the jungles.
^ ^ ♦
Cecil de Mille, in recognition of his services to Christendom " by reason of his picture. The King of Kings, has been honored with official rank in the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. The Jerusalem patriarchal head of this ancient and exclusive order, founded by Constantine the Great, has conferred upon De Mille the degree of Officer of the Holy Sepulchre. The decorations of the office, which include a putative splinter from the Cross, were recently transmitted to De Mille by the Knight Grand Cross, Lieutenant-General Frits Holm, Duke of Koladhine, of Chaville.
C. H.
TWELVE COMPLAINTS AGAINST THE CINEMA By Ernest Betts
1. That too many kisses spoil the screen.
2. That we are all utterly tired of the old film stories and that new ones can be found.
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3. That it is higli time new film music as well as new story value was given to us.
4. That a lady has never been shown on the pictures.
5. That the admission of variety into picture houses is a confession that the pictures alone are not good enough.
6. That this argument applies with equal force to the " talkies and that it is not the business of the movies to imitate the stage.
7. That Peckham, Kilburn, Holborn Circus, Richmond, Ealing, Bloomsbury, with all their delights and terrors, are never showm on the pictures.
8. That British pictures have not yet had the courage to break away from feeble imitations of America.
9. That w^e shall only know our owm films are first-rate when other countries begin imitating tis — and that it is a pity this hasn't happened already.
10. That too many people speak ill of the pictures without taking the trouble to go and see them. (This is a complaint against the film public.)
11. That so many brilliant pictures are only given a week's run on general release and that after that there is very little chance of seeing them.
12. That during the summer there are no open-air cinemas.
Ernest Betts.
THE BALLET WITH FILM
M. Diagilev's ballet, on its annual visit of mercy to London, performed in Ode^ one of the loveliest of its recent creations, a ballet with film for a background. That is to say, during
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two of the scenes three projectors threw abstract designs onto parts of the wings and backcloth. Since it was the ballet doing it, the abstract designs were rather better than the use of that adjective would lead one to expect. But Ode was not what we have been waiting to see, a cinema ballet.
The projections were only part of the main theme, which was a Pirandellian concern with ultimate reality, and were not used to interpret that theme. Lifar, asking Nature to show him her secrets, was rewarded by a display that included a lot of noisy clicking on and off of electric torches, to represent her constellations, a quite beautiful dance of creatures under a fishing net, who were a river, and finally, a still more beautiful dance, against a background of the corps de ballet in sequined grey satin who diminished into similarly dressed Venetian dolls, of Massine and Nikitina behind two veils that hung down from a pole they held before them. Ode was, as the catchphrase goes, a Getting Down to Essentials, which was very evident in the first dance of Lifar when a white rope filled out geometrically the movements of his legs. Here, was said at once, is no business with characters, but with the patterns they make, the space they fill as they move, and so the dancers wore skin-tights that made them resemble the wooden figures in artists' shops and the corps de ballet, interesting for their shape, diminished into dolls of the same shape. Thus also the cinema was called in to represent flowers. One had a slight feeling that it was called in to prevent the designer having to evolve some other way of avoiding dressing his dancers as flowers, which would, of course, have been too vieux jeu for words. But cinema as a social cocktail is itself equally vieux jeu, and one had hoped
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that more real use might have been made of it. Except for the defunct Pastorale, this is the first ballet in which M. Diagilev has shown that he realises the potentialities of combining the two forms ; one had imagined that he was waiting till someone had made a vital and necessary use of it. But the cinema in Ode is used, as the constructivist scenery in The Cat was used, as things in the ballet have got into the habit of being used, for decorative purposes rather than for expression. Cinema is so amusing ", and it solves a lot of difficulties. Yet it was not so " amusingly " used as in last year's Berlin pro- duction of Hopp-la Wir Leben, and there is a great deal, which does not seem to have been practically considered, in which a combination of dancing figures before and within a moving film, could give true and considerable delight. One cannot help thinking that if M. Diagilev's troupe is to go on being the spice in London's rather stodgy pudding, a little less Monte Carlo and a little more Moscow would give it a great kick.
R. H.
We have received from Mr. Rogerson an interesting cata- logue of educational films from British Instructional Films Ltd., 46, Brewer Street, W.l. Among others are films dealing with agriculture, poultry, rearing, the mechanism of a motor car, various geographic pictures dealing with different parts of the Empire, health, animals, and many other subjects.
It is stated that the cost of hiring the films is ten shillings per reel and carriage one way, or a special contract may be made to cover a number of reels delivered over a period. Films
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may be kept one day only, and mostly are one reel long. It is impossible to comment on films from a catalogue, but it is hoped that a member of Close Up staff may be able to view certain of them during the autumn, when a fuller review can be given. One does not need to wait, however, to decide that the idea of these films is basically excellent, and that here is the best and perhaps the only means to build up a systematic circulation of films valuable in interest and education. The haphazard and half-hearted efforts in educational films so far achieved have succeeded only in creating prejudices against them, whereas the really instructive film could and should have the highest value both in interest and entertainment. For if we are really interested there is the highest form of entertainment. A good simple film dealing with the mechan- ism of a motor car (to take one example) must be invaluable to all learners, for it cannot be denied that far too few people even among car owners are the least aware of how their motor runs, or of what to do when it wont. For films of this de- scription there is an ever widening field.
Abwege (Crisis).
Erda film. Direction G. W. Pabst. Featuring Brigitte
Helm, Jack Trevor, Herthe van Walter.
Pabst's extraordinary directorial gifts are here lent to the story of a marital misunderstanding. There has grown, not unjustifiably, the opinion that anything by Pabst must be right. But we must begin our review with several criticisms before passing on to praise.
Firstly, the scenario. Just as much as that of Joyless
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Street was noble, this was trivial. A young wife neglected by a husband w^ho loves her but is too busy to say so, becomes at length so overstrung that she rushes to an artist friend who suggests they go to Vienna together. She responds with de- light (surely a far too sudden delight ; too complete a break of mood from the burning, unhappy resentment of a moment earlier?) and leaves to prepare. The husband who has fol- lowed in a taxi, sees the artist and points out that he is rich and the artist poor, and he would do well to leave his wife where she will have the things she needs. So it is he who meets her at the station and brings her home, where a curt note from the artist completes her humiliation. The hus- band has that night another meeting. This is, the young wife feels, just too much. She rushes from the room. After going to, and loathing the kind of night carbaret her friends frequent, she returns, fearing suddenly that her husband may have shot himself. But he has only awaited her in their bed- room and he wakes to her embrace. A carnival doll, how- ever, turns reconciliation to deeper misunderstanding, and the young wife, making a last gesture, begins a flirtation wuth a boxer whom she had met at the carbaret. Her woman friend one day informs the husband that she has gone to the artist's rooms with the boxer. The artist has returned to find her there on the point of being forcibly raped by the young man, and torn his sketches of her from his easel. The boxer leaves, and the husband arrives. She tears off her dress and appears before him thus, unquestionably compromised. Divorce. But this very event clears the air, and the mis- understanding. They come together again, and decide to remarry.
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Hollywood has done it, so has France, and the theatres had it twenty years ago. That is the disappointment. This film is old-fashioned in its tendency, in its thought and its con- ventions, whereas all Pabst's previous films have been com- pletely modern. It has nothing to say against system where such arrogant conduct is necessary, no new suggestion, no comment. It was in many w^ays an excellent film, and the situation marvellously worked out. But Pabst is a philo- sopher, and we have, grown to expect some valuable contri- bution to thought from him. Jeanne Ney had it. Joyless Street was nothing else. But in Abwege the obvious prob- lems arising from just this situation are ignored. It is an artistic trifle. If the husband is the kind of man who turns frivolous but otherwise quite nice people out of his house, when his wife has seen fit to accept them, we need nowadays to be shown that this line of arbitrary conduct is not going to be tolerated, and that no wife of to-day is going to be treated like an irresponsible moron, and that her friends would put such a man quickly in the place that belongs to him. Wo do not wish his silly actions to be allowed to pass as right or virtuous. They are wrong and reactionary, and this is the time to keep on showing it.
And a wife who cannot express her independance except in meretricious and vulgar liaisons is also a product of the past. It would have been so much more stimulating and real if she had walked out and taken a job.
This may seem unduly harsh, but it is true at bottom, and we cannot in honour to ourselves pass as first rate a film which is so obviously second.
The technique . . . but one does not have to speak of Pabst's
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technique. His facility for choosing always an angle for his camera which is dynamic and poignant remains a lasting wonder. The photography is beautiful, and some of the moments of a fierce intensity and great beauty. Brigitte Helm gives the greatest performance of her career. She is nothing short of marvellous. Her strange power and her strange beauty have been utterly understood and brought across. The intensity of her moods, the underlying hysteria and repression and bitter resentment are quite one of the most vibrant things that the screen has given. And Herthe van Walter as her friend has contrived to give herself a hardness she most certainly does not actually possess. Anyway, in spite of this superb characterisation, she remained a most likeable person. Her smile was always joyous, never vicious. Indeed, one's sympathy was so much more with her and her friends than with the dull, ill-mannered husband.
The cabaret was to cabarets what the Paris in Jeanne Ney was to Paris. That is to say, a cabaret suddenly became something more than superimposed legs, corks, negros, saxa- phones and carnival streamers. The vicious undertones of this place were deft with the deftness of the brothel in Joyless Street, and the little, thin, forlorn and quite worn out woman purveying dope was on the superb level of Valeska Gert as the entrepreneuse in Joyless Street. These were the best scenes of the film. Let it be stated that it had to be rushed through in seventeen days. It is a great film and a petty film in one. And should certainly be seen.
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Looping the Loop.
Ufa. Directed by Paul Robison. Featuring Werner Krauss, Jenny Jugo, and Warwick Ward.
Can it be possible that people are so impressed with circus films? Here is another, and the theme is one we know inside out, backwards, forwards, and upside down. The clown with the aching heart, the worthless female who causes all the trouble, the philandering villian, and the Big Turn that goes wrong. It is surprising that the public can go with interest to a film, the complete events of which it can foresee from the first moment, but apparently it does, though even those who like repetition without end will have to feel that the edge is a bit worn off this most favourite of all box office themes. Nevertheless, Robison has managed to give us a film which — story apart — is able to hold our attention, and now and then our admiration. Werner Krauss, for once act- ting straight and not in character, has never been better. His role as clown is hardly important, and does not matter. It is the Krauss behind the clown, the — so to speak, ache behind the smile, that matters. He has insuperable suavity, a charming worldliness. And power. There is not one false gesture, not one over emphasis, not even one moment where the triviality of what he has to do seems trivial, for he has succeeded in giving a profound character study, which in it- self and unrelated to other incident could not be bettered. Indeed, characterisation is the strong factor in this otherwise weak film. Jenny Jugo has great quality, and is convincing and consistent in the part of a sullen, stupid girl. Her su!- lenness is very adroitly conveyed through her various flirta-
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tions, and the entirely meretricious character is drawn with exactitude and good balance. Warwick Ward has an unfor- tunate part. He is very good in it, which may seem rather two edged praise, but the truth is he has a technique worthy of better material. We know people like this do exist, cheap and quite unpleasant philanderers, but they are so painfully uninteresting, though you would not think it to go to the movies. The photography, the lighting are good, and the technique brisk and convincing. But here is the proof that good treatment of a theme is not enough. Robison is cap- able of first class work. But even his ingenuity cannot hold our interest in a theme which was pounded to death quite five years ago. However, see Looping the Loop if it comes your way for its technique and its characterisation.
Mr. Anthony Asquith is making a new German-English film for Terra, entitled The Road to Happiness (Die Fahrt ins Gluck). Fritz Wendhausen who made Out of the Mist is assisting. Mady Christians will take the leading part.
Emelka has started a new Carl Grune film, Waterloo. The Reiber Brothers (Ludwig and Willy) are in charge of the tech- nical details and the sets, and Fritz Arno Wagner will photo- graph.
THE CHINESE SYSTEM OF PHYSICAL CULTURE,
At the Jungfernsee, one of the many lakes near Berlin, Dr. Nikolau Kaufmann is producing an educational film on
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Chinese physical culture. His technical adviser is H. C. Tsiang, a Chinese athlete and member of the German Academy of Physical Culture. The film is for UFA.
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Again pressure of space forbids a list of recommended films. As, however, this list has been a popular item with our readers, we are arranging to print it in revised and enlarged form next month without fail, even if it means holding over some of the other material.
* * *
We are honoured to welcome Herr Andor Krazsna-Krausz, eminent editor of Germany's most interesting film journal. Film Technik, as our Berlin correspondent. Herr Krazsna- Krausz rightfully enjoys the reputation of being one of the few really good critics of modern cinema, and his forthcom- ing monthly articles will be of great value and interest, we are sure, to our readers throughout the world.
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The Avenue Pavilion
101 Shaftesbury Avenue^ W-1
A GAUMONT-BRITISH THEATRE The Home of International Film Art. Managing Director - REGINALD C. Bromhead. Manager - Leslie Ogilvie. Director of Music - Arthur Dulay.
The following attractions will be presented exclusive to this theatre :
MARRIAGE OF THE BEAR
A remarkable Russian production, suggested by the story Lokis, by Prosper Merimee. Directed by Konstantin Eggert. Featuring Konstantin Eggert & W. S. Malinow.
STUDENT OF PRAGUE
A legend of Bohemia. The story of a man who sold his soul. Directed by Henrik Galeen. Featuring Conrad Veidt, Werner Krauss, Agnes Esterhazy &
Elizza La Porte.
ATONEMENT OF GOSTA BERLING
From the story by Dr. Selma Lagerlof, for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize. She is an Honorary Doctor of the University (Sweden). Directed by Mauritz Stiller. Sweden's Foremost Director. Featuring Lars Hansen, Greta Garbo, Jenny Hasselquist, Gerda Lunequist Dahistrom & Ellen Cederstrom,
Premier Presentation —
HE WHO COVETS
A story of Russia, the Bolshevic risings, and Revolution. Directed by Robert Dinesen. Featuring Olga Tschechowa, Paul Hartman & Robert Dinesen
LOVES OF THE MIGHTY
A story of the French Revolution. A Ufa Production. Featuring Emil Jannings as Danton. Werner Krauss as Robespierre.
MANON LESCAUT
Adapted from the famous and tragical romance by the Abbe Prevost, and the Opera by Massenet. Directed by Dr. Arthur Robertson. Costumes by Paul Leni. Featuring Lya de Putti &
Vladimir Gaidarow.
Premier Presentation —
TARTUFF
From the story by Von Moliere. " He who sins in secret does not sin at all." Directed by F. W. Mumau. Photographed by Carl Freund. Featuring Emil Jannings, Werner Krauss and Lil Dagover.
THE LAST LAUGH
The story of an hotel porter whose tragedy lies in the loss of his uniform. Directed by F. W. Mumau. Featuring Emil Jannings, George John, Emille Kurz & Maby
Delschaft.
Buses to the Door : — Nos. la, ic, 14, 14a, 19c, igd, 22, 24, 29, 29a, 29b, 29c, 38, 39, 48, 129, 138.
In view of the fact that Dates of forthcoming attractions are often unavoidably subject to alteration, the Management respectfully request Patrons to be guided finally by the advertisements in the following newspapers : — Daily Telegraph, Morning Post, Daily Express, Daily Chronicle, Evening
NetvSy Star, and Standard. Continuous Performances DAILY, commencing at 2 p.m. till n p.m. SUNDAYS 6 — 11 Each session lasts three hours, thereby making 3 sessions per day, viz : —
2 till S S till 8 8 till 1 1
MATINEES recommended for comfortable choice of seats.
AV^kat s Happening m A merica
along the line of visual instruction in schools, and in the general field of public education, is presented in
Tke EDUCATIONAL SCREEN
The only magazine in the United States specifi- cally devoted to the serious side of pictures
New thought on the subject
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THEORY AND ANALYSIS NO GOSSIP
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Vol. Ill No. \ OCTOBER 1928
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OCTOBER 1928
I Shilling 5 Francs I Mark 35 Cents T Franc Swiss
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Copyright 1928 by Pool
Editor : K. Macpherson Assistant Editor : Bryher
Published by POOL Riant Chateau • Territet * Switzerland
Contents :
As Is Kenneth Macppierson
A Statement . . Eisenstein, Pudowkin, Alexandroff
The Film Congress . . . AndorKrazsna-Krausz
Six Russian Films {contd.) . K.M.
Film Imagery : Pudowkin . . Robert Herring
Music and the Cinema . . Oswell Blakeston
Experiments .... Adrien Brunel
King Vidor on European Films .
Book Reviews . . . Jean Lenauer
Le Film a Geneve . . . Freddy Chevalley
Comment and Review
Paris Correspondent : London Correspondent : Hollywood Correspondent New York Editor :
Marc Allegret Robert Herring Clifford Howard Symon Gould A. Krazsna-Krausz F. Chevalley
Berlin Correspondent : Geneva Correspondent :
Subscription Rates :
ENGLAND FRANCE . GERMANY AMERICA
14 shillings per year 70 francs per year 14 marks per year 3 dollars and 50 cents per year
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Vol. Ill No. 4 October 1928
AS IS
BY THE EDITOR
A little white-faced man sat in a chair waving his arms at me, and rapping home his point with great intensity. " People,'* he said, " don't want to think. They won't think."
Hundreds of people have said just that in just that way to me for years and years. People, apparently, won't think. People keep on exasperatedly discovering it. People won't think.
It is a fact which no-one can dispute; indeed, one which no-one has disputed. People won't think because they very often can't. Their capacity in that direction, such as it is, is exhausted by the competition and striving of their daily lives. And to think in the sense that thinking is meant by those who say people won't think, is to have ideas, theories ; to be, or to have the making of, a philosopher.
Now the argument that is made when you suggest that the cinema should be used to make people think is that people don't want to be taught but entertained; that they go to the
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cinema not for additional problems in their already over- stocked-with-problems lives, but for relaxation.
In other words, entertainment and relaxation are a state of suspended animation. They must be, if thought, which is the most living thing in life, is debarred from them. If enter- tainment is thoughtless, then it is mindless, and a mindless thing we are apt to imprison. Thus by every law of logic, to be entertained is to reduce oneself to a state of fitness for an infirmary.
There is the reduction of the argument they use. And it is no more true actually than saying that the present commercial cinema is intellectual stimulus.
Another conclusion is that entertainment constitutes the inefficient aphrodisiac of cabaret scenes, strong men scenes and weak women scenes. But this hardly holds water, since you see what real entertainment is when something becomes a real problem recognisable to all, or a real incident, or a real state of mind or of being. People become alert. Thev come to life. They may have been sitting back three parts inatten- tive, completely listless. Something vital flashes before them, something thev recognise, and voti can sense the switch- over to receptivity : just as if a light had been, so to speak, turned on.
I don't think people are entertained any more by the fol- lowing screen conventions, even though they are inseparable from most of the best films yet made.
People are not entertained by the blond heroine, who tastes Strong Drink for the first time, and says Ugh I I She always does. Nowadays a girl either likes or doesn't like strong drink, but she certainly knows all about it. And, in this
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connection, people are not entertained by the undesirable man who always offers it for purposes of his own.
People are not entertained by the stahvart hero who teaches the flighty heroine a lesson, nor by the astute female digger who gets her man.
People are not entertained by the people who go abroad and order two gigolos and mashed in the Moulin Rouge.
People are not entertained by the heroine's camiknickers. Their appearance always means that an irate husband is about to find her out.
People are not entertained by the hero who says Let me explain." They know only too well that screen heroines never permit such things.
People are not entertained by the hero w^ho mistakes the heroine's baby sister for her illegitimate offspring.
People are not entertained by the heroine who had to sin but didn't want to, and has such a tough time hushing it up from the gent who finds out in reel four, and relents in reel six.
People are not entertained by the Poor Little Old Fashioned Pal o' Mine. Not even in talkie (or single) version.
People are not entertained by the heroine who has to run up the lamp-lit street in the rain because someone has tried to get fresh with her.
People are not entertained by the struggles that go on between ladies in evening dress, and gents in deserted houses, nor particularly by the nick-of-time struggles. These latter are between good young men, and bad middle-aged ones. They always knock over everything, and the good man always wins, and bears off the fainting form of his still un- tainted loved-one.
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People are not entertained by the little home that is going to be sold up, or by the One Condition the rich man makes before promising not to hand over the erring brother to the police. Nor by the untimely hour of night at which the spotless heroine pays her call to plead for him. .... If I'm not careful Til be giving people ideas for yet more entertainment along the smoothly running railway lines of good scenarios.
People, I say, are not entertained by these and their twin stock-in-trade screen, situations. They accept them, tolerate them, comment on them. Isn't she sweet, isn't he a brute, hasn't she a sad face. What actually does happen is this. Four-fifths of the cinema public goes to the cinema as escape, or rest, or refuge from rain, boredom, dullness, strain, sorrow, hate. The cinema, in other words, is a palliative to them. Somewhere where they can sink, so to speak, to their intel- lectual lowest, where they can brood, dream, drift, pick up and discard fragments of thoughts and plans, get out of them- selves into the strangely potent drug of dark and light and music. All these naturally need no more than what they get. They think that people like myself are an untimely nuisance, and that the movies are perfect as they are. I myself have staggered from the rarified beauty of Soviet films, feeling that the only thing I can bear, the only thing I can look at will be one of those utterly bad, facile, brilliant Hollywood comedies, charming antidote to greatness. There is the thing in a nut- shell. People stagger to the movies in this way, to get away from themselves, from problems they have gnawed to bits, and worries worn shapeless. Obliteration of identity is the cinema's great gift.
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And it is these people, going in by chance to some such film, say, as The Peasant Women of Riazani, who emerge the greatest converts to the necessity of Film Art. They have been entertained. Their minds, bodies, souls, spirits, have responded, have been lifted on wings, re-fired, inspired. Nothing has ever done that thing to them before, and having experienced it once, they must have it again. Respite, in- stead of being lethargy, becomes renewal of faith. They go, not back to drudgery, back to problems gnawn to bits and worries worn shapeless, but with inspiration, strength and gratitude. They have literally received life. Their minds have been lifted beyond what now they will be apt to call petty care. The ordinary cinema sends them home with no message and no construction. Life goes on from where it left off. They have been dulled, but no effect lingers. They go from the great films with triumph and vision. They have been entertained. Entertainment becomes life. People may not want to think, people won't think, but they will be enter- tained. And the way to do it is to go the same way about it as you would if you were determined to make them think. They won't think, but they cannot help themselves. Thought and entertainment are one.
Kenneth ]\Iacpherson.
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THE SOUND FILM
A Statement from U.S.S.R.
The cherished dream of a talking film is realised. The Americans have invented the technique of the talking film, and have brought it to the first stage of practical utilisation. Germany, too, is working strenuously in the same direction. All over the world people are talking of the dumb thing that has learnt to speak. We who are working in the U.S.S.R. are fully conscious that our technical resources are not such as to enable us in the near future to achieve a practical success in this direction. For the rest, we judge it not inopportune to enumerate a number of preliminary considerations of a theoretical nature, the more so that, judging from the informa- tion that has reached us, attempts are being made to put this new perfection of the cinematographic art to a mistaken use.
A misconception of the possibilities of this new technical discovery may not only hamper the work of developing and perfecting cinematography as an art, but also threatens to ruin its present actual achievements.
Contemporary cinematography, operating as it does by means of visual images, produces a powerful impression on the spectator, and has earned for itself a place in the front rank of the arts.
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As we know, the fundamental (and only) means, by which cinematography has been able to attain such a high degree of effectiveness, is the mounting (or cutting).
The improvement of the mounting, as the principal means for producing an effect, \vas the undisputed axiom on which was based the development of cinematography all over the world.
The world-wide success of Soviet films was largely due to a number of mounting-devices, which they were the first to discover and develop.
1. Therefore, for the further development of cinemato- graphy, the only important factors are those calculated to reinforce and develop these mounting-contrivances for producing an effect on the spectator.
Flxamining each new discovery from this point of view% it is easy to demonstrate the trivial significance of coloured and stereoscopic cinematography, as compared with the huge significance of sound,
2. The sound film is a two-edged invention, and it is most probable that it will be utilised along the line of least resis- tance, that is to say, the line of satisfying simple curiosity.
In the first place, there will be the commercial exploitation of the most saleable goods, i.e., of speaking films — of those in which the record of the sound will coincide in the most exact and realistic manner with the movement on the screen, and will convey the illusion of people speaking, of the sound of objects and so on.
This first period of sensations will not prejudice the development of the new art, but there will be a terrible second period, w^hich will come with the fading of the first realisation
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of new practical possibilities, and in its place established an epoch of automatic utilisation for high cultural dramas and other photographic performances of a theatrical nature.
Utilised in this way, sound will destroy the art of mounting.
For every addition of sound to portions of the mounting will intensify the portions as such and exaggerate their in- dependent significance, and this will unquestionably be to the detriment of the mounting, which produces its effect not by pieces, but, above all, by the conjunction of pieces.
3. Only utilisation of sound in counterpoint relation to the piece of visual mounting affords new possibilities of develop- ing and perfecting the mounting.
The first experiments with sound must be directed towards its pronounced non-coincidence with the visual images.
This method of attack only will produce the requisite sensation, which will lead in course of time to the creation of a new orchestral counterpoint of sight-images and sound- images.
4. The new technical discovery is not a chance factor in the history of the film, but a natural outlet for the advance guard of cinematographic culture, by which they may escape from a number of seemingly hopeless blind alleys.
The first blind alley is the film text, and the countless attempts to include it in the scenic composition as a piece of mounting (breaking up of the text into parts, increasing or decreasing of the size of the type, etc.).
The second blind alley is the explanatory items, which overload the scenic composition and retard the tempo.
Every day the problems connected with theme and subject are becoming more and more complicated. Attempts to solve
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them by visual scenic devices alone have the result either that the problems remain unsolved, or that the manager is seduced into employing over-fantastic scenic effects, which lead one to fear a reactionary decadence.
Sound, treated as a new element of the mounting (as an item independent of the visual image), will inevitably intro- duce a new and enormously effective means for expressing and solving the complex problems with which we have been troubled, owing to the impossibility of solving them by the aid of cinematography operating with visual images alone.
5. T/i^ contrapuntal method of constructing the talking film not only will not detract from the international character of cinematography, but will enhance its significance and its cultural power to a degree unexperienced hitherto.
Applying this method of construction, the film will not be confined within any national market, as is the case with the theatre dramas, and will be the case with the filmed theatre dramas, but there will be an even greater possibility than before of circulating throughout the world those ideas capable of expression through the film, and the universal hiring of films will still be practicable.
S. M. ElSENSTEIN. W. I. PUDOWKIN.
G. V. Alexandroff.
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THE EUROPEAN KINO-CONGRESS
Berlin. Mid-Sept.
Since this is my first letter to Close Up, merely to sign it with my name seems insufficient without some kind of pre- liminary introduction. I do not mean passport personalia. Such things are unimportant. What matters in this instance is my creed : what I believe in regard to the Film. First of all, I believe that its present situation is by no means per- manent. It would be tragic if it were. For we are in a blind alley, a dark and airless labyrinth. The commercial production of films, unless its methods are changed, is on its last legs. It is now demonstrably clear that the Film is an art-form whose every connection with industry requires restriction. It is also obvious that the growth of the amateur movement indicates fresh departures. Yet much remains hypothetical. Dreams may be beautiful — and useless. If we would be on firm ground we must bring our dreams to the test of reality. The Film is primarily a trade product. With this condition it is possible to make terms only if we can transform a trade product into a work of art. But trade is an unaspiring chafferer.
Why is this so ? The public, the masses, are, it is said, to blame. That social relationships are primitive, administra- tion corrupt and the form of government out-worn, is
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ultimately the fault of the public. For the public at large is not an enduring, homogeneous structure possessing a single will and the power of imposing it. The public is a conglomerate of unorganised feelings, thoughts and expressions. One here and there scoffs quietly at unjust taxation, or at conspicuously inferior films. In time the public either grows used to such impositions or, if things become unendurable, makes a sudden loud outcry. Perhaps even a revolution. Palaces are destroyed. Picture-palaces are as empty as their tills, unless there is a timely concession from above. Yet both monarchs and exploiters seem to learn but little from popular outcries. The loyalty of those called upon to negotiate is too timid and accomodating to look beneath surfaces and demand from those in power that they shall bestir themselves. Taxes come in, what do we want with reforms asks officialdom, rubbing its hands. Cinemas are full, why ask for different films, says the theatre-owner. A was a success. We can repeat it again and again. What has stood the test is a certainty. Experiment spells uncertainty. A century ago the railway was an experiment. Twenty years ago, the air-plane. To-day the exploiter regards a new idea, a new appliance, a new actor, as an experiment; and refuses to try it.
I believe that the aimlessness and pettiness of the trade houses is the primary restriction of cinematography. This I wish to make clear in order that you may know my attitude in reporting upon the doings of the International Congress recently held in Berlin.
The Congress was well attended. Seventeen nations sent delegates. The British section comprised over a hundred representatives. In the Berlin Chamber of Commerce and the
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Prussian Parliament noteworthy sittings were held. In the decorated apartments of the Zoo and the KroU Opera-house — Berlin's leading centres for large social gatherings — repre- sentative gala evenings were held. There were motor and steam-boat excursions to all the principal places of interest in and near the capital. Half a day was spent in the Ufa studios at Neu-Babelsburg. Proceedings terminated with a festival in Luna Park.
In the midst of such festivities, so much organisation, so many applauded speeches, it was not easy to remain unmoved. Enthusiasm is infectious. When between whiles one heard a few reasonable words, one was apt to imagine that reasonable activities were actually afoot. But from the summoning of a Congress to its results is a long step. Between its decisions and their operation lies a wide highway that is sometimes also an endless one.
You have perhaps heard what has become of the resolutions passed by the Paris Congress in 1926 ? Amongst these were some quite useful suggestions, requiring only to be carried into effect. By the national unions, perhaps, or by individual governments, in any case by the then existing associations. In 1926 nothing was done. In 1928, we are assured, it is to be otherwise. And in order that an executive body should be available the International Federation of Cinema-owners was brought into being. So we have yet another association.
Its founding was contrived without undue complications. With the help of the previously prepared French scheme, provisional statutes were formulated. The presidency and bureau-work were given over to the Imperial Union of German
16
From Haas-Push [Beggays] an Armenkmo production. This is an historical fihn, and depicts the suppression of the Armenian people The director is A. Beck-Xasaroff.
Between shots. At work on The General Line. 1, S. M. Eisenstein • 2, E Tisse (cameraman) ; 3, G. Alexandroff. The film reveals the great efforts that are being made to develop a united industry
Anna Sten in The Son {Das Kind des Andevn), a Sovkino film for Derussa, directed by E. Tscherwjakov.
Gennadi] Mitschurin in The Son.
The child in The Peasant Women of Riazanj. Perhaps the most striking of all the examples of child direction in which the Russians contrive such marvellous effects.
Two Days {Zwei Tage). S. A. Mmm as the Bolshevik son of the old caretaker. A Wufku film directed by George Stabavoj.
'. E. Samytschkowskij as the caretaker in Two Days. One of the classic triumphs of screen characterisation.
S. A. Minin as the son, with his wife in their home, from which he win shortly be seized by the mihtary.
The young master in Two Days is a remarkable study of cowardice and stupidity. A photograph of the director is elsewhere in this issue.
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Cinema-owners. We must not be immediately pessimistic. We are aware of the difficulties of this kind of enterprise, and the possibility of its furtherance need not be disputed. If to-morrow% or in three months, or in two years the Federation is ready, its first concern should be the consideration of the fifteen proposals already put forward by the French Cinema- owners. The first of these is directed against the entertain- ment tax; the second deprecates instigatory films ; the third demands the naming of the country of origin ; the fourth would penalise author's rights ; the fifth declares the over-long film to be a failure ; the sixth protests against blind booking ; the seventh and eighth recommend a loaning organisation as between cinema and cinema ; the ninth questions the demands of the film-makers ; the tenth is against communal under- takings; the eleventh calls for the standardisation of technical apparatus; the twelfth aims at abolishing scandals from the incidental circumstances of the film industry; the thirteenth expresses the opinion that the film in its character of specialised art-form needs special legislation ; the fourteenth pleads for social adjustments ; the fifteenth contains the germ of an international organisation such as is now in process of construction.
A rich choice of debateable propositions, for the consider- ation of which there will be ample time before they can be translated into actuality. Meantime they are worthy of interest if only on account of the spirit inspiring them, the language in which they are couched, the ideals to which they appeal. What emerges most clearly is a recognition of the Film as material for Culture. Its educational, scientific and artistic value is insisted upon. The splendid principles
B
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actuating producers, agents and exhibitors are proudly enumerated. In such terms might any match-seller interpret his relationship to the world. He, also, is a social worker, conscious of his role ; never for a moment forgetting that he toils for the future of humanity. I prefer, for their superior honesty, the methods of the Americans, who do at least frankly confess that they are out to make money.
Our phrases, lavishly spread with a pomade of idealism, are for high days and holidays. On other occasions a more careless diction is usual. From Monday to Saturday, in the director's room, the studio, copying-rooms and box-offices, we are well aware that the film is an article of commerce taking toll of the ambitions of each individual concerned. The intricacies of single intelligences won't pay. Ration- alised manufacture, team work, leading-strings, a good line, these are what we want : detective stories of the day before yesterday, yesterday's historical pageant, to-day's tear-soaked war-romance, possibly to-morrow's new racial embroilings. The days of a Congress are all Sundays. Congressional speech all pulpit eloquence. By this we can be moved as by good organ music. But on week-days cars are hooting, factory whistles shrieking, steam-hammers droning.
The assembled delegates of the first International Con- gress of Cinema-owners, representing the owners' organisa- tions of Belgium, Germany, England, Finland, France, India, Yugo-Slavia, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Rumania, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Tcheko-Slovakia, Turkey and Hungary, hereby resolve that no more films shall be exhibited that defame any nation or may be considered as calculated to wound national susceptibilities. The delegates
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are aware of the immense possibilities of influencing the masses by means of the film and of the responsibilities hereby resting upon themselves, and have passed this resolution in the interest of the furtherance of international good under- standing/' Here, also, we have a beautiful sermon.
Upon years of grim deeds there inevitably follows a reaction in the form of fine words. At every turn one meets well- meaning speech ; at diplomatic gatherings, in open tribunals, at Congresses. During this meeting of Cinema-owners urbanity played many parts : the words internationalism, Europe, peace, Locarno, friendship, brotherhood, humanity, echoed harmoniously about and called forth enthusiastic applause. The gusto and spontaneity of these demonstra- tions inevitably recalls similar activities of hand and throat in times of national conflagration — but the national are the more accountable. Nationalism rests upon the status quo and can therefore rely with certainty upon appeals to the feelings. Internationalism picks its way amidst forecasts of ideas upon relationships still to be established, and calls, therefore, for the more delicate adjustments of thought. But even if one could conceive as possible a carrying over of these earnest proclamations into kindred activities, one would be committed to sceptical reservations by the mentality of these film- internationalists, a mentality whose primitive arbitrariness and accommodating commercially is self-evident. The official resolution of the French section demands : (a) That any scenario calculated to engender or to support international hostility, or to promote militarism, shall be rejected; (h) such character parts as tend to degrade or to ridicule any nation, or any foreign personality, to be avoided ; (c) the beauties of
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other countries, the special distinctions of their peoples and the merits of their great men to be given prominence ; (d) the historical accuracy of material selected from life to be safe- guarded and, in the interest of avoiding any wounding of national feelings, such material so to be treated as not to evince a deliberate ' tendency ' . . Yes, yes, yes,"
one stammers, good, beautiful, admirable, but — how is it to be done?" Fine representations, no wounding of national susceptibilities, no ' tendency ' ? In other words, we will pledge ourselves to undeviating objectivity, to the suppression of all feeling, all personal will. We will behave like angels rather than like men ! Yet, unless I am mistaken, art is a human and not an angelic affair : the expression of human characteristics, human passions, human aspirations.
The Biblical love thy neighbour " cannot be interpreted to mean that we shall perceive nothing but his virtues. Account must be taken also of those he fancies he possesses. We must recognise the virtues of others, but also their defects. Occasionally these are variants of our own. Not for a moment does he who reaps nothing but praise credit the sincerity of the panegyric. Such things are useless alike to individuals, nations and races. We must be free to say what we believe we know about others, to express what and how we see. Light is revealed only by shadow. We want to see films that are more than polite formalities, films that speak without crippling restrictions.
Polite formalities are apt to be not merely false, but tedious. There is something to be said for a temperamental lie. For a tedious lie, nothing. I am obliged to compare the unimagin-
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ative quality of the commerce-constricted internationalism of the film industry with large-scale hotel catering. It will be understood that I like between whiles to sample the products of France, America, China. But indifferent menus I cannot tolerate. Who carefully offends no palate will also arouse none. The film that falls foul of nothing, has no rough edges, no sharp corners, will leave no impression. A com- munal production, with an Austrian operetta libretto, worked over by a Hungarian dramatist, built by a French architect, photographed by an Italian camera-man, cut by a German director, acted by players from Russia, Sweden and Honolulu, and traded by an American agency, might w^ell result in a most ingenious and only too easily digested salad. But one would not be aware of having eaten anything. Personally, I would prefer a dish that shocks the stomach and gives it some- thing to do. The peculiar flavour of such a dish is remem- bered for a considerable time. Thus I am still aware that The Covered Waggon, by James Cruse, was an American film; La Roue, by Abel Gance, a French film; Erotikon, by Maurice Stiller, a Sw^edish ; Potemkin, by S. M. Eisenstein, a Russian ; and Die Geheimnisse Einer Seele, by G. W. Pabst, a German. And if to-morrow a film appears that is as English, or Japanese, or Indian, as these were American, French, Swedish, Russian and German, it will find me ready to acclaim it. I shall cherish, and may love it; even though my racial, national and personal susceptibilities be, in either or in each, severely sacrificed. But poems in Esperanto I refuse to read. And I doubt that either Baudelaire, Byron or Schiller could have been persuaded to write in any language so circumscribed.
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I have not nearly reached the end of my thoughts upon the theme suggested by the First International Congress of Cinema-owners. But this merely outwardly interesting occasion seems to me otherwise too trivial to merit a thorough- going discussion of the questions raised. I have preferred, therefore, to restrict myself to pleasant gossip. Just as, in agreeable, cultivated society, one delivers oneself, upon matters that are perhaps actually very important, sincerely, but not without prudent circumspection ; until the parties are known to one another. At a second meeting one will perhaps find it possible to be more communicative.
AxDOR Krazsna Kransz.
SIX RUSSIAN FILMS
(Continued) Pits {Die FaUgriihen des Lehens). Mechanics of the Brain.
Pits.
SovKixo Film, directed by Alexander Room.
A more ambitious and less successful film than Bed and Sofa, Pits is nevertheless remarkable for its frequent heights and depths of beauty and truth. The theme is the dis-
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integrating influence of haphazard childbearing and hap- hazard method of upbringing, set in contrast to organised arrangement and organised education. One feels that the director was so carried away with the greatness of his theme that it got beyond his control. He does, however, make his points with great power and sincerity, and Pits is a film with the deepest significance, weakened mainly by a certain theatricality in some of its later passages, and very often by guttering arc light.
Apart from anything else, the extraordinary beauty of the scenes taken in the glass foundries is more than enough to win our deepest admiration.
The story opens with two young people, both workers in the foundry, in love with each other, and planning to be married. A bright vibration of energy and happiness keeps the first scenes sustained at a high l\Tic pitch, so that when the happy young wife, engaging in the after-hours sports, has to refuse a high jump, and know^s there is to be a child, the swift chill of the husband's stricken disappointment has a superb technical dramatic power. The young wife, shaken by first knowledge, stands by the rope swaying. Another young girl, symbolic of so many things, freedom, strength, independence, takes the jump she has had to refuse and goes past with a glance of triumph — and vindictiveness at the wife. The young couple walk by the water where they first made love, both somewhat aghast and both bitterly unhappy. " It will end our freedom '\ the husband cries. Room makes no bones about the problem. It is an unfortunate thing for them both, and her first conventional reaction of joy soon turns to the natural reaction of fear and unhappiness.
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How well it is shown here that just one moment can shatter lives. The young pair sit brooding and silent in their room. Plere, virtually, is the end of their happiness. Nothing much has shown it to be so, yet Room's great gift for psychology does allow him to succeed in showing us that something has snapped here ; some root that was growing from freedom and carefree youth has been unearthed and will wither. These, the most subtle and distinguished of his points, are all superbly shown, and not overstressed. But his more obvious points are pummelled and rammed at you until you have to reject them. They acquire theatricality, they become strident and unreal. I refer here primarily to the incident at the end, where the young wife, taking a part in the Workers' Theatre, forgets her part, and turns round to scream a long, withering- tirade at her neglectful husband. Even this might have been alright if she had been great in herself, as, say, Baranowskaja is great, but unfortunately she was not a great or even a good actress, and this over-dramatic moment, which consummate artistry could have turned into something plausible, and even oveiwhelming, was pure bathos.
The child arrives, and during the time which has elapsed, the husband has begun to fall into bad habits. He drinks heavily, and begins to earn for himself a bad reputation at the Foundry. Here business is not prospering, and some of the hands are discharged. The first to go are the married women, so his wife is among them. The blow^ is heavy, and again its undermining effect is shown by the subtlety of noth- ing much happening, but a faint emphasis for those w^ho not only see but watch, on the disintegration of the little home. You might at least change your apron the husband
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says. He is right. The room is dirty, untidy, littered — a slum. You can see his viewpoint, as you can see hers. Un- happiness has blighted her sapped life. Apathy and sadness have, as it were, crippled the girl. A little spirit or courage would have been her salvation — the salvation of everything. The crumbling of their love, due to small, sordid disillusion- ments, as a piece of insight and compassion, is extremely beautiful.
The League of Youth takes up her case. The husband has left her and gone to live with another woman — the same girl that took the high jump at the beginning of the trouble. Baranowskaja, as the matron of a children's nursery school, calls upon her in her dark and dirty little room. And now we are given some excellent and convincing contrasts of children raised under organised scientific control. The young wife is rescued from the depths of despair, is given work, her child is taken by the home, under the kindly minis- tration of the matron, where she can see it every day after work, and she is greeted again by the League of Youth and persuaded to go on with her former work with them in the Workers' Theatre. In the meantime the husband has found his relationship with the other girl even more sordid, and left her. The story w^orks its way to the evening of the perform- ance in the theatre, w^here, of course, the husband is among the audience. His wife sees him, and stricken in the middle of her part, abandons it and denounces him. He leaves and is distraught.
His work has become so bad at the factory that he is likely to be dismissed. He has heard that his wife has a post in the new factory, and asks for a transfer. Baranowskaja is in-
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strumental in securing this for him, and on the boat he takes his seat in the wind beside his wife. A new Hfe is before them.
Pits is a great and a completely uneven film. The first scenes were admirable, the conception was admirable, some- times the execution was admirable. One could expect no less from the maker of Bed and Sofa. My ow^n personal impres- sion was that the maker of Bed and Sofa had listened to those who had said he was utterly devoid of technique, and had tried to prove that he wasn't. Some of the results were so awful (technically) that those people will be able to say I told you so Whereas Bed and Sofa, by its very staccato cutting, its swift, impressionistic piling of image on image was an individual thing, and vibrant with its individualism, Pits is apt to lose this very quality here and there, and become the imitation of the imitation of a method. It is not so utterly and explicitly Room, as was Bed and Sofa, and as was The Death Ship. It has lost some fire, and one is not made to feel that it is Room's fire that is lost, for it is there. But the flame gutters in draughts from Germany, from America and France. It is an unsettled, hurried, and palpitant thing. Utterly alive, and deft as a bird, but like a frightened or bewildered bird, beating upon itself. The story is involved and full of nuances. Such a story needs slow, cold, critical balancing. Pits is not balanced. There is too much of some scenes and too little of others. It jerks, halts and stumbles, but it gets there just the same
K. M.
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Mechanics of the Brain.
This film has been made by Pudowkin in collaboration with Professor Pavlov, upon Pavlov's experiments on the conditioned reflexes.
It is Pudowkin's second film, and (Close Up was informed) no copy exists outside Russia except for one in Berlin w^ith Russian sub-titles only.
Professor Pavlov's researches into the physiology of the brain have been familiar to doctors and students throughout Europe for over a quarter of a century. A translation of his book Conditional Reflexes was published in 1927 by the Oxford University Press, price 28s. For those who find it hard to reconcile his achievements with an apparent disregard of modern discoveries in psychology, the excellent review of Conditional Reflexes by Dr. Ernest Jones, in the July issue of the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis is to be commended.*
The film itself has been shown throughout Russia in large towns and out-of-the-way villages, at prices varying from one penny to sixpence a head, as part of an educational pro- gramme to make modern scientific research a part of everyone^s knowledge.
It begins with scenes of animals in a zoo. These are followed by views of boys bathing and by some experiments upon a frog.
* The clearest, most concise account has been given by Dr. Gantt in the British Medical Journal for July llth^ 1927.
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The next reel shows the well-known experiments upon dogs. Food in a dog's mouth is naturally productive of saliva ; an unconditioned reflex. But from long continued association, the mere sight of the food will produce of itself saliva and therefore a conditioned reflex.
It is easy to watch this in the film. An artificial opening is made " in the salivary duct from the paratid gland and a glass balloon is fixed to the opening connected by tubes with a recording instrument in another room. The dog is shown eating and the glass balloon fills with saliva. Further shots show it filling when the dog is merely shown food and before it reaches the mouth. Then another experiment was pre- sented in which a metronome was started at a hundred beats and just after the hundred the dog was fed. After this had been repeated a number of limes the dog began to secrete saliva at the start of the metronome. But if a metronome of fifty beats a minute is started and no food is given and this is repeated a number of times, the dog produces less and less saliva at each repetition and a negative conditioned stimulus has arisen.
Further experiments were shown with monkeys. A bell rings or at a certain metronome beat a blue plate is pushed within the monkey's reach with food. As soon as the monkey hears the accustomed sound, its ears prick and it climbs hur- riedly down towards the expected morsel. But if another sequence of beats be used or a red plate the monkey remains on his perch, totally uninterested.
Pavlov claims that these experiments are doing much to discover the nature of sleep, and even of neurasthenia, and that he is able to produce both in his dogs by giving them too
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difficult problems to solve. He has stated also that there will be no absolute freedom of the will, in his opinion, until the physiology of the brain be understood. Krasnogorsky, a pupil, has (according to Dr. Guest's report) suggested that the experiments upon children should be used as a basis for child education.
The next reel showed an experiment for forming a con- ditioned reflex in a child. The child lay happily and easily on a table unable to see the operator concealed in another room. A funnel was suspended above his mouth. There was a band round his arm. The experimentor pressed a bulb which caused a slight friction against the skin on the arm and at the same moment a sweet dropped into the child's mouth. This was repeated several times, to the child's obvious satisfaction. Finally the experimentor pressed the bulb that caused the friction, but no sweet dropped, though the child's eyes were fixed on the funnel. After a few attempts the child did not attempt to respond to the signal but stared round the room, for even at so early an age it uses its mind and an automatic reflex is far less easily accomplished. It is said that children develop reflexes more easily than animals, retain them longer without practice, but they are also liable to be destroyed more quickly.
The next pictures showed idiots, a person in an advanced state of syphilis, etc. It is said that the idiot's brain was no more developed than that of the fish. It was certainly most remarkable to notice the resemblance in the snatching of food between these types and those of the less intelligent animals.
But the greatest part of the film is the final section. This began with the close up of a woman's face during childbirth.
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It was fear complete in a single face ; more full of pain and terror and helplessness than anything ever written or imagined. It is not generally realised that (perhaps because of sexual taboos and inhibitions) progress in painless child- birth has been neglected and research in these matters has not kept pace with modern medical development. Perhaps Russia, with these pictures and with these great efforts to educate along constructive lines, will produce some scientists able to investigate the subject.
After the short flashes of the woman's face, a baby is shown and the normal development to be expected of infants at dif- ferent ages from three months up to six years. Particularly the shots of the children washing themselves seemed most constructive. The average adult has seldom any idea of what is the norm of performance to be expected from a child aged one or two or three. And in villages remote from educational centres these pictures ought to be most valuable — in England as well as in Russia.
The picture ended with a group of children desiring a to\' on a high shelf. One fetched a chair, another stood on it and finally reached it down ; the beginning of the reasoning power of the brain.
It is very difficult to give in words the effect of this film. Things that seemed so clear in the pictures seem diffuse, almost confused put into sentences. Its value for students is immense, and yet it is so simple that anyone (having the sub- titles in their own language) could follow it. Seeing the importance of the brain, it is strange that there has been as yet no proposal to show the film in England. Surely this could be admitted as a scientific film free of duty, for in the
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world of research and medicine barriers.
at least there ought to be no Bryher.
Next Month : The Son Zvenigora
FILM IMAGERY: PUDOWKIN
Duty, and a certain unrest whenever I have not been to a movie, have sent me recently to a number of ordinary films, the current London releases — Four Sons, The Trail of '98 ( !), Street Angel — you know. And what I feel most in them, the only thing I feel, is what isn't there. The one-sidedness, the something missing. Yes — BUT." No one has breathed on the bones, they've just painted them. These are just stories acted, concoctions, confections. NOT conceptions.
There is always interest in seeing how the screen, the square sheet, is filled, in the jeu des blancs et noirs (though one should not write French). One can never quite get over the thrill of the dark seats, with other people sitting there, and then one's self, and then light bringing all these other others
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moving, not actual at all, but because of their patterns and speeds, so oddly real, so much odder than the lady breathing through her nose on our left, so much realer than the hat underneath, which is ours, and the feet denting it, ours also. But all the time, in these ordinary cinemas, as I sit quietly there, I am deafened by myself insisting that there should be, there must be, indeed there IS, for I have seen it, something more. And I have seen it in the work of Pudowkin.
You see, it is all verv well takino- a storv and filming" it, neatly photographing just the scenes that are called for, getting the actors to go through their parts. But neither life nor anything else is a matter of one neat story, with scenes that have meaning in that and in no other story, and we, in all the stories that we cause or are drawn into, are aware at the same time of all the other stories we have, so to speak, using the cant phrase, lived. There are, in fact, echoes, undertones, ripples and layers. There are associations, which become symbols. There are images. Things mean this, things mean that, when do they mean which, and why? There is, again in fact, very strict fact, a world outside and a world inside. I get neither of these from the ordinary films. Naturally ; they are Entertainment. But then, I HA\^E — from Pudowkin. And, to forestall any argument, Eisen- stein is greater " from the others.
You cannot take a storv and close it off from the world, either world. Even if vou make it an Epitome of All Human Experience, when it just becomes one big, vague symbol itself, of not sure what. And you cannot make an ordinary, limited little story symbolical of The World Outside, the Bigger Things, by giving it pretentious sub-titles. " The
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Hounds of War Were Unleashed A Song of Two
Humans " — all that.
But you can take Mother, and consider it. Consider it, because I went down to ^Munich to see it, and I saw it twice, after I had seen all the other ones that have been written about in Close Up, so it means more to me. Pudowkin, " with the Russian feeling for landscape " (as I have written till I long to review myself scathingly), has put in there several shots of the countryside which are not directly connected with the plot, using " directly " in its good old English sense of " super- ficially Good film isn't. Good film does not concern a few people acting out their story in a script as confined as a railway carriage, while the scenery rolls by, painted on rollers, outside. The scenery isn't scenery. It is as integral as they. You can't, even in a bad film, take the landscape and say " be good, be a background ", and in a good film, actors and background merge, are symbols meeting to form expression of what they are both manifestations of. Life.
To be severely practical, these shots at the beginning of Mother give one the life these people lead. Naturally. But they give it mentally as well as in the more obvious sense, and how often do we get THAT? The trees and the pool, seen lovingly from many angles, and the mist rising from it, have their effect. This is one of the things we think we must carry, one of the perceptions, locked up, blocking the way, till we die. Pudowkin gives it us. Lets us in. Later, just before the strikers meet in the dell, there are some more of these scenes. To be strict, there are more of them than are needed. Just that one, when Bataleft' comes on the skyline, after one has waited (as his friends have waited — mark that),
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would be enough. For the story. Not for what Pudowkin is after, and is getting.
How those shots give the feel of the morning ! Expectancy, and the slight discomfort of being up, dawn going on as usual — but for these men and this girl, not the same day going on as usual. And then, these shots take their place as the last openness, the last of the old peace that, after all, the old tyranny they are fighting can't destroy. The curling mist, for a few shots, then spitting Cossack smoke. The plot goes on, the strike begins, chase, search and arrest. Bataleff is in prison. Life goes on, too, and here Pudowkin chooses to put some more scenes. The trees again, the same trees, having spring. Life opening up, something happening. Bataleff is tip-toe at his window. The ice on the river is breaking. What a comment ! Heaving, crushing, smashing against itself, in the effort not to be broken, and underneath, the river, thinking it is releasing itself, but really being released by something outside itself. Then, is not this so superb ? just as we are beginning to take the repeated ice-shots as decoration, as imagery pure and simple, Pudowkin draws this theme in and uses it. Bataleff, escaped from prison, pursued, thinks — what WOL^LD come up then ? The river ! The river (he thinks) would be breaking. He knows this because it is his life. We, who have not shared that life till the film began, know it because of Pudowkin's imagery. We are in Bataleff's mind with him. If he could get on the ice, he could push off, float, there would be black water between him and the soldiers. The river swims up into his consciousness. That is what I mean. There is another film in which a hero leaps across the ice, a thing called Love's Crucifixion, but the ice and the leap
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mean nothing. They are properties. But with Bataleff it is not just a matter of chase and escape. He IS being chased and he DOES escape, but he THINKS of the river, and the fact that it is spring, because there are things he knows, the world within serves the world without as it presses on him. And we get both.
So all this imagery has not been just decoration, so many epithets. It has been a theme, a decorative theme, dehberately blended to serve its use. That is where its beauty comes in. Ice and trees and pretty scenes, so boring when flung into a lilm as in Love's Crucifixion^ have use, are beautiful. We are not cheated, and asked to admire something static. And, incidentally, in passing, to air a bee of my own, anything static, persistently so, as a string of decoration must be, is not film. Film is not garlands, however well made, but branches, buds growing to leaf, blossom, fruit. Going on, not swing- ing lifelessly in externally applied winds. This kind of imagery abounds in Russian films. It makes them up. Each is linked to something, not taken out, uprooted and held for exhibition. There is a puppy in Two Days, there are the river- wreaths in Dorf der SUnde, Kerenskv mounting the stairs in Ten Days. Potemkin, that film that ahvays seems to have been talked to death until one sees it again, opens with some shots of the sea that have the same relation to the film as the landscape ones in Mother, but such imagery is more native to Pudowkin than to Eisenstein, of whom, as I hope to write on him later, I will only say now that he works on the epic, not the lyric, scale, and the other scenes that are symbolical in Potemkin — the flapping of the tent, the twirling of the parasols, the gathering crowds, the putting out of the sailing
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ships — are symbolical because of the circumstances in which they find themselves. They are drama heightened to imagery, not imagery that heightens to drama. And these are to be found in Pudowkin, too. There is that girl (herself a symbol) taking the men's coats, there is the very angle from which the factory gate is shot, there are Baranowskaja's potatoes in St. Petersburg. All these are dramatic rather than psycho- logical, and it is psychological imagery that is chiefly Pudowkin's. There is a great difference between the wreck- ing of the statue in Ten Days and the sinister shots of the guns decked with cruel, feminine flowers that is Pudowkin's comment on others' comment on war, in St. Petersburg. In that same film, when the two come looking for work, in the town, they come to (I believe the Palace of Justice, but it does not matter) a big aweing pillared building. This sequence is amazing. It shows how even old tricks can be given their right use at last. It shows that last, among other things, many other things. This is what happens. They reach it. Rows of pillars. Which dissolve into one. One vast pillar, then its vaster base. They, we, the brain of all of us, travel up to the figure at the top. Then, quickly cutting, we are watching them from the top, seeing them as what the figure personifies sees them, small creatures crawling about among tall buildings, hopelessly unimportant, but, by their failure to fit in, disturbing. Think what this means. Instead of insisting on quantity of pillars, as others would do, Pudowkin stresses the quality of PILLAR. Then, by a swift transition, having got in our minds what is in theirs, he shows how their minds affect that of justice. By camera angle and cutting. It is needless at this date to say that half the magic of his
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imagery is in successive images and depends on cutting. This is the film that one of the American publicity-fan magazines dismisses as St. Petersburg destroyed by trick camera angles
But it is the ice in Mother that I would insist on, for it is an instance most easily understandable to those who have not seen the film, and it shows what I w^ould emphasise, the bring- ing of the mind's workings as definite factors to be reckoned with into pla}^, the curious tangible fluid workings are recognised as something that can be interpreted in themselves, not through the actions they cause.
Life — I mean realised, analysed, lived life — consists of the actual world with our own superimposed, actual living with our own reactions to that superimposed. And though the actual world is the foundation, and the real world finds fulfil- ment in terms of it, those terms are transformed in the process. Things mean this, things mean that. There is something more. You do not give the real world by using simply the sketchy symbols of the actual. Shells are shells to one race; so they are to another, but because of that they are also money to it. Layer on layer, often transparent but not always interchange- able, and you don't reach the crystal ones on top simply by reproducing the bottom one. What is missing from ordinary films, what isn't in Four Sons and is in Mother, what isn't, by a long shot, in The Last Command and is in The End of St, Petersburg, is this world we make of the world we know, the world that means among all the world that is. And Pudowkin's use of imagery, implicit in all good Russian films, but explicit in his, gives us a world compounded in just proportion of the two.
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The imagery by which he attains this is different from superimposing the actual causes of a state of mind, as with the sheep and the clock and the chair in White Gold. It is different from what Pick did with waves in New Year's Eve and from what has been done by Lubitsch, whom also I want to consider. These are the world without and to be gratefully received. They show us the knocking at the mind's door. Pudowkin lets us in. The force of apparently decorative scenes and flashes in one of his films comes from within. The creaking chair is a rational symbol of GoudaFs irritation. Pudowkin would give us the psychological symbol, and the two are not the same.
Think what this means. If all the extraordinary tunnels down which the mind travels, like a monkey, with an exper- ience, leaping from branch to branch, if all the leaves can be lifted up, disclosing the vista beyond, as well as the casual fruit beneath ; if all the events we bring to an event and barter for it and weigh against it, shall we or not respond, and if we do, enrich it with ; if all this can be given — and Pudowkin is only at the beginning — what can we expect ? vShall we be starved any more? Irritated, dissatisfied, twisted, putting up with old perfunctory symbols any more ? Putting up with stories that don't fit life as w^e know it, and because we never see that life almost think we are the only ones that do know it, trying therefore to fit it in with those old symbols of I love you, you love me, so both are happy, like a foot into a too- small shoe because, after all, it must have SOME protection?
Surely this, to be rational, gives us a world that is not one-sided (and every kind of world is round), a world we know, not a world we are surprised others seem to think they
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are getting adequate expression of when they pay five-and- nine to stand at The Gaiicho or eight-and-six to see ^Ir. and Mrs. Johnson being shot far more often than the simbas in their long news-gazette.
Robert Herring.
DISCONNECTED THOUGHTS ON MUSIC AND THE CINEMA
By Oswell Blakeston
How they give themselves away I You or I reallv ou^-ht to walk into their studios and demand the right to produce a film: for they hold their positions on the understanding that they have a sense of the screen — and in film after film thev feature a jazz band I What could be less filmable? Take a blind man to the Leicester Galleries, a deaf one to the Wig- more Hall, no less inane than proudly shown close-ups of fashionable syncopators. Jazz is filmable, but not jazz bands. Neither is tearful superimposition of several instruments the only way of conveying the dynamic force of negro vitalitv.
A film without its jazz band, its cabaret (and the heroine breaking her heart amidst the paper streamers^ would surely be accused by the trade papers of indift'erent direction. Producers would answer me, I am sure, were I to question
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the box office pull of the super-jazz band, that the effects are suppHed by the real orchestra in the actual theatre. Sirs, I want to see the film. A good film is a good film if it is seen
cold it must never sink to being an animated magic- lantern slide for musical selections.
It is remarkable how much some pictures gain by being- shown cold The public are rarely given an opportunity of seeing pictures without the bleat of monster organs or the palpitations of muted strings ; they are not given the chance to say if they prefer to see their films without these elaborate appurtenances. The Film Society allowed Rasholnikov to be projected in silence, and Greed escaped with only slight musical accompaniment. Apart from these two performances at the Film Society I know of no public exhibition of a film in London without some kind of more or less musical accom- paniment, and I suggest cold projection to the Avenue Pavilion as an interesting experiment. Eric Elliot in his Anatomy of Motion Picture Art points out that a great deal of the mystery and charm of the film lies in its silence, that a person crossing a room without awakening the slightest sound is performing an act which is immediately arresting. Banishing the saxaphones and drum taps is only one step further to capturing the hypnotic quality of the screen.
Some films call more for music than others, but the gentlemen who waste hundreds of pounds on engaging- expensive jazz experts do nothing to strengthen their case. No precautions are taken that the music in the theatre shall match in exclusiveness that represented on the screen ; a piano, badly in need of tuning, may supply the effects for the costly band blaring impotently on the silver sheet. Few
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attempts have been made to commission composers of artistic standing- to write special scores. Darius ]^Iilhaud did for L'hihiimaine, and Edmund Meisel did for Berlin, PotemUin and Ten Days, while Wolfang Zeller went further and in- spired the delightful Adventures of Prince Achmed. Some years ago, when Morosko was shown at the Polytechnic, it was dignified with special music, and there were the addi- tional numbers that Strauss wrote for the Rosenkavalier film. But when do we hear the incidental music which Honegger composed for the cinema, and what has happened to the cinema music of Eric Satie?
Let our producer speak again for himself. Petulantly I can hear him say that filming a jazz band does not make him a musician. vSir, I can tell that from the ridiculous positions in which your actresses hold the violin Just a song at twilight ") or the amazing wav in which hands thump piano keys in close-ups.
The apodosis was reached in The Constant Nymph ; when Basil Dean eiecred to take an important sequence in the Queen's Hall. The strangest concert in the home of the
Promenade Supposing somebody said to one of the old brigade of concert-goers and Bach enthusiasts : " Do come to the Queen's Hall to-morrow. Evening dress. Be there at eleven in the morning and don't forget to bring your make-up with you." Probably if he accepted he would hear a few bars of music ; most of the time when the orchestra was on the platform he would be told to get his lunch. He would see a matinee idol take the baton to lead the orchestra, that sombre pattern of black and white, now with powdered cheeks; the tuba player with painted lips. He would be
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instructed to clap perhaps before any music had been plaved, for the poor silent screen can only record the music through the reactions of the audience to the music. Here is a weak point of their system. In order to allow our picture-goers to grasp the significance of the music, as the director wants them to understand it, the audience must roughly be divided into groups who will react in the same way. In the concert- hall no two people would react in quite the same manner to the same composition, but the average picture-goer cannot be expected to exert himself. Popular conceptions of different people must react in the popularly conceived manner.
Mr. Basil Dean saw to it that his groups acted in unison. His lynx eye detected what the third-man-from-the-left-in- the-last-row was doing, and why was the woman in the silver turban leaning too much to her right? The " supers were marshalled and drilled with the precision worthy of a crack regiment. They were initiated into the laws of etiquette, psychology and other law. Mr. Dean had a flow of witticisms to decorate his instructions. He knew what he wanted, and he knew what the picture-goer w^anted.
Now," he instructed through the megaphone, some people get up and wave their programmes. Not the people in the dress-circle; they have paid more money and are more self-conscious."
You elderly people may show a little approval this time. It is very melodious, so like DEAR Gilbert and Sullivan ; but, of course, you must be verv ' refeened ' in your applause — you know what I mean."
Stop laughing there. When I sav ' one ' you all lean a little to the left, when I say ' two ' . . ."
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All this trouble and expense to film an unbearable sym- phony; to film the unfilmable. Music is cinematographic, but not a symphony concert.
How they give themselves away !
OSV^ELL BlAKESTON.
EXPERIMENTS IN ULTRA-CHEAP CINEMATOGRAPHY
By Adrian Brunel
My experiments in ultra-cheap cinematography date from 1923 when, having just made The Man Without Desire, I was warned that I might never get another job as a director. It was said to confirm the suspicion which my A. A. Milne comedies had raised amongst the film trade that my brow was no lower than it ought to be. In my innocence I believed that these comedies had been accepted by the public as amus- ing— that is, funny without being vulgar. Of course, if they had let me be really vulgar, I might have been really funny, but then I would have been highbrow really.
It was a bad beginning. They had chalked me up high- brow and it has taken me all the tears of Blighty to wash it out. But I sensed my number was up for a bit, so I set to w^ork by giving myself a job in my own films. From being a penniless and discredited director, I became a penniless
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producer and employed myself as director and leading actor without pay.
Our first production was Crossing the Great Sagrada, a burlesque travel film. It cost eighty pounds, and w^as 900 feet long, one-third being titles, one-third cut-outs from old travel pictures and one-third pictures of myself attitudinising in various Clarksonian disguises.
Sagrada — excuse the loving abbreviation — had a pre- release showing at the London Tivoli and was run at hundreds of theatres throughout the United Kingdom (none of my burlesques have been shown abroad). Yes — and the Kinemato graph Weekly hailed me as The Leacock of the Screen Also, one of the biggest American firms sent for me with a view to work in Hollywood. wSo you see what might happen to anyone with a cine-camera and a roving commission.
Encouraged, but as yet unpaid by my renters, I plunged further into the Masurian swamp of production finance. Bitten by the cry for bigger and better pictures, I launched on a ninety-pound production, which I called The Pathetic Gazette, I attitudinised more in my early Clarksons, some- times in bathing costume (no Narcissism this — just the purest economy), and induced my cameraman, Henry Harris, to do the same while I took charge of the camera. The same glit- tering result — Tivoli, Leacock, bookings and What about it ? from Hollywood. And no money from the renters. In fact, they went broke and I met my Tannenburg.
Again I retired from production until Michael Balcon, the Lasky of British Films, introduced me to C. M. Woolf and for them I embarked on five more burlesques — Battling
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Bruisers (a parody of a boxing film), The Blunderland of Big Game (a wild animal film without any wild animals), So This Is Jollywood (a peep behind the scenes). Cut It Out (fun with the Censor) and A Typical Budget (a sequel to The Pathetic Gazette).
The interiors for these burlesques were made in a real studio, hired for one day for each subject. My expenses for the day averaged about £80 and included sets, furniture, cos- tumes, props, negative, artists, cameraman, etc., though this cost was always more than doubled before completion. Battling Bruisers had no exteriors and we did the 67 scenes in one day ! This was achieved by having one camera fixed for ill long shots, while a second camera was mobile for changes of angles and closer shots.
(The real studio " referred to was 45 ft. long and 30 ft. wide, the one which Sir Herbert von Herkomer built at Bushey.)
Two of the films were all exterior, which was just as costly as working in the studio, for we lived on location for eight days, my cast and staff including Edwin Greenwood, John Orton, Lionel Rich and Mrs. Miles Mander.
Apart from these, I made one other short film for C. M. Woolf, entitled Money for Nothing, This cost £65 and was made for the first anniversary of the Shepherds Bush Pavilion, when Harold Lloyd's Hot Water was first shown in England. The film was all about the cut-throat methods of the film trade and the new Harold Lloyd film — about Hot Wardour Street, in fact. Michael Balcon, C. M. Woolf and many prominent exhibitors appeared in the picture. The film was not intended for public exhibition, but has been worn
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out in the private theatres of the W. & F. Company, at secret conclaves of sportsmen who enjoy a bit of leg-pulling.
A couple of years ago I made with Ivor Montagu another ulira-cheap production which cost approximately £20.
This was done during a house party at the late Lord Swaythiing's place outside Southampton, and was entitled Love, Life and Laughter at Sieaythliug Court. I was the cameraman and Mr. Montagu was a featured player, under the nom-de-guerre of Monte Glue. A feature of the film's one and only showing at a private party in London was that we included excerpts from the Press notices we might have received.
My only advice to anv group of enthusiasts who embark upon cheap little films is to fight their battle on paper before shooting a single scene. Prepare vour shots in elaborate script form first, working out every detail of cost, cast, camera angles and action ; if vou don't vou will surely fall into trouble and find }T)urselves without enough money to complete.
KING VIDOR OX EUROPEAN FILMS
European producers, instead of competing with American films on a straio:hr production basis, are fighting for supre- macy with freak and futuristic screen experiments.
This was the finding of King \'idor, noted director, who studied the foreign production field during his extensive trip abroad.
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The foreign producers are more courageous and are making more headway than in the past," Vidor observed.
This progress, however, has not been from a soHd founda- tion of sound production methods as was the development of the film industry in America.
" There are any number of ' little theatre ' movements to be encountered, and it is in these houses that the unique pro- ductions being made abroad are to be found. I saw one in which the entire story was told in close-ups, a daring experi- ment that is admirable, in effort, but scarcely to be considered anything more than a very well done novelty. Others were done along similar lines, the producer attempt- ing to strike upon some unusual camera work or treatment as an outstanding feature.
" All of these pioneering steps are laudable and hold much promise. They are interesting and worthy of the attempt. But as earnest competition to American films they are woe- fully lacking.
It is apparent that the foreign producers are not trying to match their products with those of American producers. They have not built up their organizations and concentrated for their actual benefit upon straight productions. They are more intent, it seems, upon a cinematic fishing expedition that might net them something worth while, but in all prob- abilitv will be quite unproductive.
" In my opinion the chief fault with the foreign producing market is that they appear reluctant to invest sufficient capital in their films to make really good productions. They cannot seem to see what enormous returns they can obtain from such investments by making good pictures. These
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' arty ' efforts are splendid, and often show strokes of genius. But they will not and cannot make money. And unless pictures make enough money to justify the tremendous financial outlay the producers cannot weld together a strong organization.
Another thing I noticed abroad is that while films are very popular, yet there are a great number of people who sel- dom find time to go to the picture theatres. With this great potential audience yet to be educated to screen entertainment it would seem that the foreign production market would have a very happy opportunity to expand and enlarge upon their production methods.
There is plenty of room in the film field for the foreign producer. There is no cause of any jealousy on this point. Better pictures raise the standards of the entire industry re- gardless as to who makes them.*'
Vidor, who directed The Big Parade and The Crowd, as well as Show People, soon to be released with Marion Davies and William Haines co-starring, expressed a desire to make a film abroad.
There are many ideal location possibilities, he said, that can only be found in Southern Europe, where many towns remain to-day as they were hundreds of years ago. Such an atmosphere, he declared, defies reproduction and cannot be found anvwhere else in the world.
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" Just a memory." Who remembers Xazimova in Salome, the 8 year old pure art production ? Recently this film was revived at the Holh^Avood Filmarte Theatre and was acclaimed as a creation of classic beauty.
What is Salome doing here ? The attitude suggests luging, but is probablv an incantation. Only one set was used for this six reel adaptation from Oscar Wilde's version of the Gospel story of Herodias' daughter and the Baptist.
John (Xigel de Brulier) a prisoner in the Palace of Herod Antipas undergoes an endurance test. Who'll win ?
From the Emelka Spanish Film Aimless Hearts.
George Stabavoj, the director of Two Days, one of the very best Russian films (Wufku). StiUs appear elsewhere.
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BOOK REVIEWS
DER GEZEICHNETE FILM (CARTOON FILMS). Dr. Konrad Wolter. Rm. 12.
KINOMATOGRAPHISCHE PROJEKTION (KINE- MATOGRAPHIC PROJECTION). Herr Joachim (Wilhelm Knapp ; Halle-an-der-Saale, Germany).
The strength of the film Hes in its youth, its lawlessness. Thence proceeds the compelling power that draws us all within its enchantment. Thence also its defects. Shadowy elements, failing lamentably in other spheres, have been allowed to break in upon this free territory and operate at large, regardless and irresponsible, unencumbered by know- ledge. Hence the evil reputation of the film to date. And we should therefore be grateful to those who have made it their serious aim to treat all questions that can be systematised, thereby serving as pathfinders in the thicket where so many amateurs are astray. Der Gezeichnete Film is, as its author tells us in a preface, a translation, amplified by the addition of his personal knowledge, of the American Animated Cartoons of E. G. Lutz. It is a book that makes one aware of the drawn film as a sadly neglected branch of film-art. I say film-art deliberately, for the productions of many American draughtsmen are most certainly to be described as works of art in the fullest sense of the term. And these cartoons represent only the beginnings of a most promising
D
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form of film-art. Much that in the normal film cannot be represented at all, since the actors, being human, are in bondage to physical laws, can be fully expressed in the drawn film, for here the imagination of the artist has full play. Moreover, what is by no means an insignificant incidental advantage, the comparative cheapness of this form of film offers to all draughtsmen able to create films an excellent field. With the simplest installation of light, a camera, a little paper and much talent, fine work can most certainly be achieved.
After an introductory general consideration of the Film and some useful chronological matter, the author enters his chosen field. In a singularly practical and simple manner he teaches us the art of the drawn film. The necessary appliances can, we are told, easily be made by any capable amateur craftsman. We learn all about the joining of the various movements and of so many other important details, that I have no doubt whatever that a sufficiently imaginative amateur with only small means at his disposal could make, with the help of this book, a good cartoon film. Nothing is omitted. All the ingenious devices that can serve the purposes of this most tedious and care-demanding art are brought to our notice. The possibilities of the drawn film grow clear as we read. Dream ideas, dream wishes, may be fulfilled. We are in the land of fantasy, a land, unfortunately, too rarely visited.
Dr. Wolter very justly remarks that the essential for the drawn film, as for all other artistic work, is a leading idea. Also that it is useless to begin until one has completely grasped the character of the medium. Having given some practical advice as to the development, drying and copying of film, the author turns to the educational possibilities of the
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drawn film. A well-balanced book on behalf of an art that amongst much else has given us Lotte Reiniger's Prince Achmed,
Kinomatogr aphis che Projektion deals with questions that are of importance to all film exhibitors. Just as even the most beautiful musical composition suffers through the defective interpretation of a mediocre orchestra, so does a film at the hands of a projector incapable of doing full justice to its symphony in black and white. The author states the significance of cinematography in the form of statistics now inevitably out-of-date. The different film formats, the standard format (35mm), Pathe, Baby and Kodak are severally introduced, and the demonstration of the process of preparing a projection apparatus is sufficient for our full in- struction. The author brings all kinds of apparatus to our notice without favouring any one in particular. His work is primarily addressed to technicians, but group-leaders (and Close Up, I believe, counts such amongst its readers) will certainly find much useful material in this exact and intelli- gently handled exposition. To small projectors, travelling projectors, and the so-called Koffer-kinos (portable cines), Herr Joachim gives much attention. These handy and finished products make possible the improvisation of shows in premises not in any way fitted up for such, and are especially useful for schools, clubs and private exhibitions. Both these books will, by reason of their quiet practicality, most certainly assist in inspiring confidence in those who hitherto have been inclined to look askance at the Film. And for this alone
gratitude is due to their authors. ^
Tean Lenauer.
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9
LE FILM A GENEVE
Les initiatives diverses qui ont pris naissance a Geneve, dans le domaine international ont confere a cette ville un caractere d'importance diplomatique dont ses habitants se sentent particulierement honores. La Societe des Nations et le Bureau Industriel du Travail sont venus elargir encore ce rare privilege et desormais on ne saurait que souhaiter de plus.
Cette importance, toutefois, n'est pas applicable a la ville elle-meme qui demeure modestement peuplee de quelque 130,000 habitants et ne compte guere qu'une quinzaine de salles de cinemas. Trois ou quatre de ces salles sont spacie- usement amenagees et se differencient de quelques autres qui restent dans une moyenne raisonnable bien que quelques unes sont en realite tres modestes, comme de vastes chambres, et se repartissent dans les divers quartiers de la ville ou elles constituent le rendez-vous d'un certain nombre d'habitues qui en apprecient avant tout la proximite.
Les programmes ne sont en general ni bons ni mauvais, c'est a dire que Geneve pent voir, comme toute autre ville, la production courante, quelquefois meme avant Paris ou Berlin selon que le film est allemand ou francais. Les films sortent presque en totalite des studios d'Hollywood, encore qu'un certain nombre nous soit venu, I'an dernier, de I'Ufa et de
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Compagnies francaises. Tres rarement, un film anglais, ou italien, et encore plus rarement un film russe. Des bandes viennoises, genre operette, se suivent, et se ressemblent, attirant leurs amateurs.
Curieuse, eveillee, la population genevoise se rend assez facilement au cinema, et, comme partout, il en est qui ne voient dans cette forme de distraction pas autre chose qu'un agreable passe-temps, tandis que d'autres, et ils sont nom- breux, ont souci de gout artistique. Les premiers adoptent generalement une salle, quel que soit le programme annonce, tandis que les seconds choisissent, guides en cela par les critiques publiees dans tous les journaux. Panegyriques ? Non, heureusement, et Ton n'a pas encore perdu, ici, la qualite qui nous valut de Stendhal ce compliment : Les Genevois ont une nettete admirable dans I'esprit ". Les films, comme les livres, sont scrupuleusement examines et le jugement rendu est presque toujours impartial, ou du moins exprime-t-il bien uniquement le sentiment des critiques, lesquels sont presque tous hommes de lettres. Leur com- petence est admise du public et cela cree une atmosphere de confiance qui facilite grandement le succes legitime d'un bon film.
De publications relatives a Tart muet, il n'en est qu'une a vrai dire, c'est " CIXE " revue ornee de riches illustrations et renfermant toujours un certain nombre d'articles tres interessants : exposes, etudes, critiques, etc., dont quelques- uns s'attaquent avec ironie aux aberrations du cinema et du public. " Cinemaboulie volume publie par la redaction de Cine, est une fine satire du monde de I'ecran et de ses admira- teurs exageres.
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Tourne-t-on des films a Geneve? Eh, oui ! Ton en tourne par ci par la. M. Porchet, dii Laboratoire des films scolaires, est tres occupe a confectionner das bandes a portee educative. Disposant d'une installation tres complete, il est a meme de mettre a profit toute Texperience acquise, jadis, alors qu-aux Etats-Unis il travaillait aux premieres realisa- tions du cinema. A part cela, une Cooperative de production cinematographique a ete cree Tan dernier, mais jusqu'ici aucun film n'a ete presente au public. Un amateur, M. Roessgen, vient de terminer un essai intitule : L'Obsession qui, par sa conception originale et ses prises de vue varices, offre deja un interet certain. En collaboration avec M. Aymar, de la Revue Suisse du Cinema, M. Roessgen a ega- lement realise un film : Le monde des automates " qui est une patiente photographic des petits bonshommes animes dont nos aieux se sont fort egayes. Quelques films ont ete tournes, ces dernieres annees, dans les Alpes; seuls sont a retenir ceux qui ne comportaient aucun scenario et ne reposaient que sur la valeur spectaculaire des paysages enregistres, car les " romans " essayes furent tous d'une lamentable pauvrete d'idee et d'execution.
Mais la cause du film compte a Geneve de fervents partisans, et c'est la, en somme, que nous trouvons matiere a nous rejouir. Une association de cinephiles s'est fondee Tan dernier, qui a pris nom " Cine-Club et a deja fait projeter cet hiver un certain nombre de bandes nouvelles de Cavalcanti et Germaine Dulac, agrementees d'un expose personnel de leurs auteurs. Malheureusement, le nombre encore restreint des membres de Cine-Club impose une contribution financiere trop forte pour permettre au public de moyenne condition de
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profiter de son initiative. II serait bien regrettable que cet etat de choses ne se modifiat pas tout naturellement par une sensible augmentation de Teffectif .
Tout recemment, quelques cinephiles recurent une carte d'invitation les priant d'assister a la projection du film La Mere " de Pudowkin. Cette carte mentionnait la creation d'un second club intitule : Club du nouveau film au sujet duquel aucune communication n'avait ete faite dans la presse. Quelle aubaine ! voir enfin Tun des chefs-d'oeuvre russes ! Fideles au rendez-vous nous nous sommes rendus vers un petit cinema local ou, a I'heure indiquee, nous trouvons un attroupement insolite. Un ukase tardif des autorites venait de defendre la projection " en prive " du film. Le pretexte, purement politique, evidemment, d'autant plus que les organisateurs de la seance n'etaient autres que certains militants socialistes. Mais une assemblee reunie sur le champ adressa une protestation aux autorites et decida de constituer le nouveau club en luttant avec la derniere energie pour la liberte du film a Geneve, centre international comme dit (i-dessus. II nous est indifferent, a vrai dire, que ce soit celui-ci ou celui-la, blanc, noir ou rouge, qui apporte a Geneve les chefs-d'oeuvre sovietiques, pourvu seulement que ceux-ci soient projetes.
Mais la politique, ici comme ailleurs, joue son role nefaste et regente le domaine du film.
F. ChEV ALLEY.
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COMMENT AND REVIEW
The Black Bear, a film made by the Manchester Film Society, has been taken by Messrs. Gibbs Ltd., 15, Great Ducie Street, Manchester, for showing. Any enquiries con- nected with the hiring of the film should be sent to this firm direct. It is certainly a step forward in the right direction and all amateur film societies will be interested in the news. It is said that an amazing development of the theatre in America was the result of a few years' work there by the little theatre movement. In a like manner the level of English cinematography may depend upon the efforts of those making films because they are interested in them as an art, rather than because they hope for quick profit on turning out films made to the pattern of last year's success. As The Kinemato graphic Weekly pointed out in a recent article, appealing to the popular idea tends always to fall below what the crowd really wants and makes for careless use of technical materials available.
*
When Prince Achmed was recently revived at the Kamera in Berlin Lotte Reiniger, the maker, interrupted to protest against the cutting which had been made. We understand that the public warmly applauded her protest. Which is all to the good. Public support for sorely abused directors' rights is universally needed.
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Ernest Schoedsack ana Merian Cooper, makers of the classic films Grass and Chang, are now preparing to give the world another of their wonder pictures — this time with the wilds of Africa as a background. After a year spent in the heart of the Sudan, they have returned to Hollywood with many reels of film recording their adventures in this terra incognita. The picture will not be ready for release until after the first of the year, and while it is being cut and titled the Pararnount-Lasky Company, who control it, are withholding all information regarding its contents.
Secrecy in connection with their enterprises is characteristic of these two camera explorers, Schoedsack and Cooper. When they disappear on one of their explorations they leave no trace of their objective and remain completely out of the touch with the world. They confess to entertaining a superstitious belief that they would otherwise meet with ill fortune.
* * *
The long search at last is ended. Lulu has been found. By the time this is in print it will be news no longer. Having literally searched the whole of Europe for a suitable type for Lulu in The Box of Pandora (adapted from the book by Wedekind), having interviewed literally hundreds and tested scores, in Germany, France, Sw^eden, Austria, Hungary, G. W. Pabst has at last found, in America, the type for which he had been seeking in vain. Lulu will be no other than Louise Brooks, the well-known Paramount Junior star.
The search for Lulu has been almost the principal topic of interest in Germanv for a couple of months. Everywhere one went one heard " What about Lulu?" Is Lulu found
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yet?" . . . Lulu is found. And now, after long delay, Pandora will be filmed by Nero Film.
Fritz Rasp, the immortal Villain-Of-The-Piece of Jeanne
Ney, and many other films, is making three films for Derussa.
* ^
Soviet operators have filmed the rescue of the Xobile expedition by Krassin, and this highlv interesting film is being shown in Russia.
* * *
The Film Guild of London is a new enterprise worthy of support and encouragement, to which we draw our readers' attention. This is an amateur society, the objects of which include the production of standard size films, at first with professional aid, for public exhibition; co-ordination of amateur societies; regular private exhibition of films not available to the general public ; advice and instruction in the writing of film plavs ; and the furtherance of the artistic and technical development of the Cinema. A membership of one thousand is hoped for, and applications for membership are particularly desired from scenario writers, electricians, and other technicians, as well as from artistes. The annual sub- scription is two guineas per year, which includes one year's subscription to the official organ, the Cinema World. The Board may admit, however, at their discretion, at the special rate of one guinea per annum, boys and girls still at school. After the first 250 members there will be an entrance fee of one guinea. Full particulars of the Guild may be obtained from the Hon. Secretary, ]\Ir. H. P. J. jMarshall, of 115,.Ilford Lane, Ilford.
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HOLLYWOOD NOTES.
The Love Song will be D. W. Griffith's next picture for L^'nited Artists. The story was written by Karl Volmiiller, author of The Miracle, Dr. Volmiiller spent several months in Hollywood on the occasion of the presentation of The Miracle in Los Angeles, and made an intensive study of cinema production, including particularly the technique of scenario writing.
The leading players in The Love Song are William Boyd, Lupe Velez, Jetta Goudal, and George Fawcett. The story is laid in France during the days of Louis Napoleon. An especially striking feature of the sound effects that accom- pany the film is the singing of the Marsellaise by a chorus of a thousand soldiers on a battlefield. Lupe Velez is also heard in a solo rendition of The Love Song, a romantic ballad composed especially for the picture by Irving Berlin.
The Eastman Company's recently perfected color process for the use of amateurs has stimulated renewed interest in color photography, and has given an added impetus to the plans of cinema producers to include color as well as sound in their forthcoming films. Paramount, Universal, Fox, First National, and United Artists are already completing pictures thus treated.
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Wider range of hues, softer blending, and clearer defini- tion of objects are some of the noteworthy results achieved during the past year.
* * * .
Paramount has recently installed a radio broadcasting studio on its lot. Transmitting over a five-thousand-watt station (KNX), it is keeping a large section of the globe en- tertainingly informed of the picture studio's activities, as well as retailing interesting bits of personal information concern- ing the popular actors and directors.
This is the second Hollywood motion picture studio to be equipped with radio as a means of advertising. Warner Brothers have been " on the air " through their own station, KFWB, for the past two or three years, and during this time, in addition to studio news, have given the public many en- joyable entertainments, in which noted picture players them- selves have occasionally taken part.
« «
The title of The Candle in the Wind, a Warner Brothers forthcoming production, has been changed to Conquest. In this picture H. B. Warner and Monte Blue have their first cinema talking parts. Their roles are those of aviators, en- gaged in South Polar flights.
Aerial pictures continue to be the vogue. Ramon Novarro's M-G-M current film. Gold Braid, is a romance of naval avia- tion ; while Paramount's Dirigible, fes-tuving Fay Wray, is a picture of spectacular thrills aboard an air liner.
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Lya de Putti, who had her introduction to American audi- ences in Jannings' Variety, plays the stellar role in a recent Columbia film, The Scarlet Lady. Appearing with her in the picture is Theodore Lodi, the adopted professional name of Theodore Lodijensky, a former general in the Czar's Cossack army. Following the revolution he escaped to America, and recently conducted an exclusive Hollywood cafe, The Russian Eagle, a picturesque gathering place for the elite of the picture colony. A short while ago the place was destroyed by fire and explosion, and the popular Lodi- jensky was thereupon induced to enter the ranks of filmdom.
* * *
John Barrymore will appear in a phonofilm directed by Ernest Lubitsch for United Artists. The photodrama, adapted by Hans Kraly from the popular European novel,
Der Konig der Bernina," by Jacob Christoph Heer, is laid in Switzerland during the early part of the last century.
* * *
The midwinter scenes in The River, Frank Borzage's latest picture for Fox, were taken in midsummer in Southern California. A twenty-five acre location containing a con- struction camp, with a background of forest and mountain, was converted into a realistic winter setting by the use of in- geniously manufactured snow and ice.
* * *
Sins of the Fathers is Emil Jannings' latest Paramount picture, a phonofilm, directed by Ludwig Berger.
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FILMS TO SEE
First Choice (A). Second Choice (B). Third Choice (C). Russian.
Bed and Sofa {Trots dans un Sous-Sol), Sud fihn release. Ludmila Semenova, W. Fogel and Nicolei Bataloff . Directed by Alexander Room. Masterpiece of tragic psychology. (A)
End of St, Petersbnrg, The. Meschrabpom-Russ produc- tion. Derussa release. Direction : W. Pudowkin. Mss. : Natan Zarchi. Photography: Anatolij Golownia. Sets : Koslowski. Played by Baranowskaja, W. Oblensky as Lebedeff. J. Tschuwileff and Tschistiakoff . (A)
Mechanics of the Brain. Scientific film made by W. Pudowkin and Professor Pavlof. Particulars elsewhere in this issue. (A)
Moscow that Laughs and Weeps. Meschrabpom-Russ, released by Derussa. Direction : Barnett. Anna Sten, J. Kow^al-Samborski, W. Fogel. Delightful new aspects of comedy possibility. (B)
Mother, The. Meschrabpom-Russ. From the story by Maxim Gorki. Direction : W. Pudowkin. The mother : W. Baranowskaja. The father : Leinstjakoff . The son : Nicolei Bataloff. (A)
Peasant Women of Riazanj {Das Dorf der Siinde). Sovkino film, Derussa release. Directed by Olga Preobrashenskaja. R. Pushnaja as Anna, E. Zessarskaja as Wassilissa, O. Narbekowa as the mistress, E. Fastrebitski as Wassily. (A)
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Pits {Die Fallgriiben des Lebens), a new film by A. Room, Particulars elsewhere in this issue. (B)
Son, The. Sovkino film. Derussa release. Direction :
E. Tscherwjakov. Anna Sten, Gennadi] ^Nlitschurin. (B)
Ten Days that Shook the World (Oktober). Sovkino film, released by Prometheus Film A. G. Direction : S. Eisen- stein. One of the strongest films ever made. Cameraman ; Tisse. Assistant : G. Alexandroft'. (A)
Two Days. Wufku Film. Directed by George Stabavoj.
F. E. Samytschkowski in a marvellous role. S. A. [Nlinin as his son. (A)
Yellow Pass, The. Meschrabpom-Russ. Released by Derussa. Direction : F. Ozep. Anna Sten, J. Kowal- Samborski, W. Fogel. (B)
Zvenigora. Wufku. Direction : Dobschenko. Nikolas Xademskv in remarkable character role. (B)
German.
Crisis (Abwege). Erda Film, released by Deutsche- Universal. Direction : G. W. Pabst. Brigitte Helm, Jack Trevor, Herta v. Walter, Gustav Diesel, Fritz Odemar. (B)
City Symphony (Berlin). By Walter Ruttman. A day in Berlin with neither actors nor sets. Photography by Carl Freund. (B)
Edge of the World {Am Rande der Welt). Ufa. Direction : Carl Grune. Sets by Xeppach. Brigitte Helm, Jean Bradin, Wilhelm Dieterle, Albert Steinriick. (C)
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Looping the Loop, Arthur Robison production for Ufa. Mss. : Arthur Robison and Robert Liebmann. Photo- graphy : Carl Hoffmann. Sets by Robert Herlth and Walter Rohrig. In the cast : Werner Krauss, Jenny Jugo and Warwick Ward. (C)
Loves of Jeanne Ney. Ufa. Direction : G. W. Pabst. Mss. : Leonhardt. Photography : F. A. Wagner. Edith Jehanne, Brigitte Helm, Uno Henning, Fritz Rasp, A. E. Licho, Vladimir Sokoloff. (A)
Master of Number g. Phoebus Film. Direction : Ludwig Berger. Maria Solveg. Gustav Frohlich. (C)
Out of the Mist. Defu Production. Direction : Fritz Wendhausen. Mady Christians, Werner Fuetterer, Vladimir Sokoloff. (C)
The Spy, Ufa. Fritz Lang Production. Mss. : Thea von Harbou. Photography : F. A. Wagner. Willy Fritz, Lupu Pick, Gerda Maurus, Lien Deyers, R. Klein-Rogge.
(C)
Tragedy of the Street. Pantomim Film. Direction : Bruno Rahn. Photography : Guido Seeber. Asta Nielsen in wonderful role. Oscar Homolka, Hilda Jennings, W. Pittschaw. (B)
Ten Mark Note, Adventures of. Fox-Europa Production. Direction : Viertel. Werner Fuetterer, Anna Meiller, Imogen Robertson, Walter Frank. (C)
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French.
Chapeau de Faille Italic (Italian Straw Hat). Albatross film. Directed bv Rene Clair. Featuring Olga Tschekowa. (B)
En Rade. Neofilm. Direction : Alberto Cavalcanti. (B) Rien que les Heures. Neofilm. Direction : Alberto
Cavalcanti. (B)
Therese Raquin. First National. Direction : Jacques
Feyder. (C)
Voyage an Congo. Neofilm. Record by Marc Allegret of his journey with Andre Gide to the Congo.
American.
Chicago, Pathe-de Mille. With Phyllis Haver and Victor Varconi. (C)
King of Kings. Producers Distributing. Directed by C. B. de Mille. (B)
Man Who Laughs ^ The. Universal. Direction : Paul Leni. Conrad Veidt, Mary Philbin, Baclanova. (C)
First Kiss, The. Fay Wray and Gary Cooper. (C)
Speedy. Paramount. A really good new Harold Lloyd comedy. (C)
Stella Polaris. Fox. Fine film of northern hunting. (B) Sunrise. Fox. Direction : F. W. Murnau. George O^Brien, Janet Gay nor and Margaret Livingston. (C)
NEXT MONTH An article by Dr. Hans Sachs, the eminent Viennese psycho-analyst on psychology and the film, will appear, to which we beg to call the attention of our readers.
E
65
The Avenue Pavilion
101 Shaftesbury Avenue^ W.l
A GAUMONT-BRITISH THEATRE The Home of International Film Art. Managing Director - Reginald C. Bromhead. Manager - Leslie Ogilvie. Director of Music - Arthur Dulay.
The following attractions will be presented exclusive to this theatre :
ATONEMENT OF GOSTA BERLING
From the story by Dr. Selma Lagerlof, for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize. She is an Honorary- Doctor of the University (Sweden). Directed by Mauritz Stiller. Sweden's Foremost Director. Featuring Lars Hansen, Greta Garbo, Jenny Hasselquist, Gerda Lunequist Dahlstrom & Ellen Cederstrom.
Premier Presentation —
HE WHO COVETS
A story of Russia, the Bolshevic risings, and Revolution. Directed by Robert Dinesen. Featuring Olga Tschechowa, Paul Hartman & Robert Dinesen.
KEAN
From the play by Alexandre Dumas, and the authentic documents of the period. Directed by M. A. Volkoff. Featuring Ivan Mosjoukine
TWO BROTHERS
The story of an idealist and a materialist. Directed by Karle Grune. Featuring Conrad Veidt, Lil Dagover & Liane Haid
THE OYSTER PRINCESS
Pure farce, constructed in the spacious Lubitsch manner — an extravaganza on the subject of the burden of riches. Directed bv Ernst Lubitsch. Featuring Victor Jansen &Ossi Oswalda.
A WOMAN OF PARIS
A story of everyday life, as lived every day by ever>'day people. Written and directed by Charles Chaplin. Featuring Edna Purviance & Adolphe Menjou.
MANON LESCAUT
Adapted from the famous and tragical romance by the Abbe Prevost, and the Opera by Massenet. Directed by Dr. Arthur Robison. Costumes by Paul Leni. Featuring Lya de Putti &
Vladimir Gaidarow.
Premier Presentation —
TARTUFFE
From the story by Moliere. " He who sins in secret does not sin at all." Directed by F. W. Murnau. Photographed by Carl Freund. Featuring Emil Jannings, Werner Krauss and Lil Dagover.
THE LAST LAUGH
The story of an hotel porter whose tragedy lies in the loss of his uniform. Directed by F. W. Murnau. Featuring Emil Jannings, George John, Emille Kurz & Mady
Delschaft.
Buses to the Door : — Nos. la, ic, 14, 14a, 19c, igd, 22, 24, 29, 29a, 29b, 29c, 38, 39, 48, 129, 138. In view of the fact that Dates of forthcoming attractions are often unavoidably subject to alteration, the Management respectfully request Patrons to be guided finally by the advertisements in the following newspapers : — Times, Daily Telegraph, Morning Post, Daily Express, Daily Neus, Evening
News, Star, and Standard. Continuous Performances DAILY, commencing at 2 p.m. till 11 p.m. SUNDAYS 6 — 11 Each session lasts three hours, thereby making 3 sessions per day, viz : —
2 till S 5 till 8 8 till II
MATINEES recommended for comfortable choice of seats.
W^nat s KLappening m A merica
along the line of visual instruction in schools, and in the general field of public education, is presented in
Ue EDUCATIONAL SCREEN
The only magazine in the United States specifi- cally devoted to the serious side of pictures
New thought on the subject
New productions in educational films
Current opinion on the Hollywood product
The Educational Screen is known around the world.
Foreign subscription price :
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THE EDUCATIONAL SCREEN, 5 S. WABASH AVENUE, CHICAGO, U.S.A.
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Don't waste time and money seeing the inferior, uninteresting, stupid picture when there are really good pictures to be seen.
Disinterested Advice from A Discriminating Source
The Film Bureau offers its subscribers A year's subscription (six issues) to the Film Bulletin (a monthly guide to the best pictures), November to April inclusive. Complimentary and specially priced tickets for some of the best pictures. Privately screened pictures. Service in arranging enter- tainments in connection with motion pictures. A fifty per cent discount in renting The Bureau's Portable Motion Picture Machines (for private screenings). An office information ser- vice and special advantages when it opens its own Little Picture House. The subscription is ten dollars a year.
Join now. Application cards and other data (including a complimentary copy of the film bulletin) mailed on request
Film Bureau, 4 West 40th Street, New York, N.Y.
" The best voice in a wilderness of films "
That is what a New York motion picture man has said about The Film Spectator, edited by Welford Beaton and pubUshed in Hollywood.
Two years ago Welford Beaton conceived the idea of a new magazine devoted to the production and criticism of motion pictures. It was to be a publication that was different from others — one that did not fear facts — one that might not always be right, but one that would be courageous and honest.
Now The Spectator is acclaimed by public and press and Mr. Beaton is referred to as " America's most discerning motion picture critic ". He tells the truth about pictures and the people who make them with rare ability. Hundreds of heartening letters of commendation have been received.
" Read The Spectator ? Of course ! Where else could I find the same spirit of courage, conviction, and joyous contempt for consequences ?" — Samuel Hopkins Adams.
" I read the Film Spectator with increasing interest. There is vigorous and excellent writing in it." — H. L. MENCKEN.
The Film Spectator reveals its editor as a WTiter of practically perfect English, and as a man with an analytical mind, a sense of humour and a profound knowledge of the screen." — Arthur D. Howden Smith.
" I naturally receive many magazines — all deadhead, bye the way, except The Film Spectator ! — but the latter is the only one of the lot I read, or have read, from cover to cover. And that is not because I pay for it, either." — Stewart Edward White.
" The numbers sent me confirs Mr. Ralph Flint's suggestions to me that 3-our magazine is truly the best voice in the wilderness of films. Not only do I find your judgments honest, but they are penetratingly just." — Symon Gould. Executive Director, Film Arts Guild, New York.
" I find more sound sense in what you write about the present situation than in anything that has ever been said or written about it." — John W. Rumsey. (President American Play Co. Inc., New York.
** Welford Beaton is America's most discerning motion picture critic." — London (England) Express.
'* Welford Beaton ... a literate writer of motion picture criticism . . . his opinion has been uniformly sound." — Nevj York World.
Subscription for one year $5.00, foreign $6.00. Single copies free on request.**
are some
comments :
" THE FILM SPECTATOR," 7213 Sunset Blvd. Hollywood, Calif. Please find enclosed % for yearly subscription to " The Film Spectator.
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THE DIAL
A MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF ART AND LITERATURE
FOUNDED 1880
EDITOR : MARIANNE MOORE
BY FRANCIS F. BROWNE
ADVISER : SCOFIELD THAYER
4^
(t^mong recent contributors are
W. C. BLUM KENNETH BURKE E. E. CUMMINGS H. D.
FRANK DOBSON
RALPH CHEEVER DUNNING
ROGER FRY
ALYSE GREGORY
GASTON LACHAISE
MARIE LAURENCIN
D. H. LARWENCE THOMAS MANN PAUL MORAND RAYMOND MORTIMER PABLO PICASSO PAUL ROSENFELD GERTRUDE STEIN PAUL VALERY
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
. . . often full of very inter esting things, and is so well printed, and makes for good all rounds The Mask, July 1925
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A Young Society
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RIEN QUE EES HEURES EN RADE
ANDRE GIDE and MARC ALLEGRETS Travel Picture
is a Neofilm Production
YVETTE
au Congo
l^a plus import ante revue francaise
de Qinema
La Cinematograpkie rrancaise
o
CHAQUE SEMAIXE TOUTES LES XOUVELLES DL' CINEMA
Films en Preparation Analyses des Noiiveaux Films Clironiqiie Je L Exploitation
Clironic^ue Fmanciere
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SENSATIONAL BOOKS
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Anatomy of jMotioii Picture Art
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" A sound piece of reasoning fully informed, coolly measured, and based upon a knowledge of aesthetics that extends considerably farther than that of the ordinary critic of the screen." — Ma?ichester Guardiati.
" One would willingly pay a guinea for Anatomy of Motion Picture Art. Air. Elliott avoids any of the emotional rhetoric which mediocrity seems to bring to a consideration of the movies. . . . Nearly every- thing he says makes one pause to think." — The London Mercury.
Anatomy of Motion Picture Art should be read by all cinema- goers. It is a true contribution toward the artistic progress of the film.
By Bryher. Price 7 shillings and 6 pence.
Being an indictment of war and the people who make it, the preface gives food for thought : The characters and incidents in this book are ?iot fictitious." " She is earnest to record, not to create ... it switches swiftly and informingly from one incident or episode to another." — MancJiester Guardian.
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Close Up, Vol. 2 will be invaluable in a few years time, containing a fund of information, and details which would otherwise be for- gotten, as well as beautiful and exclusive photographs from the best current films. In twenty years' time these will be as unique and rare as are stills from films produced twenty years ago. Buy Close Up now for the future !
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The CINfi MINIATURE is just like a complete ever-improving education in amateur motion pictures — the twelve big issues that you get for $2*50 would cost many times as much if they were in book form. Movie makers everywhere are demanding The CINE- MINIATURE because they know there is no other publication like it. Be a movie expert yourself — have the latest thing in movies at the least expense.
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Write for information — including a copy of MOVIE MAKERS
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We invite you to subscribe to
The American Film Meteor
a monthly critical review of motion pictures in general
Edited hy WALTER KRON
It is published in Hollywood, yet it views motion pictures, not with the provincial mind, but in the cosmopolitan manner.
Its contents are frank and learned. Our sympathies are with the artistic craftsmen of motion pictures, entirely.
For intellectual, stimulating reading, The American Film Meteor is unique in the field of motion picture publications.
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Tel.: Central 5316-7 Tel.: Ilford 2018-9 Tel. : Chelmsford 516
ENGLAND
1928
VOLKS-
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All filmgoers who are tired of the reactionary tendencies, artistically, socially and politically of the bad German films belong with us. Against the mass of capital invested in reactionary films we must set the strength and enthusiasm of our energetic organisation.
(Volksvcrband ftir Filmkunst) V*
For only 50 Pfennig all may join the membership of the Volks-Film-Verband People' Film Association). Entrance Fee : 50 pf. Monthly subscription 50 pfg.
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Join the Volks-Film-Verband
All information and prospectuses from the offices of the Association, Berlin SW. 48, Friedrichstrasse 235, or from any of the branch offices.
What the Volks-Film-Verband has to offer :
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2. Reports and estimates to promote understanding of the problems of the film.
3. The illustrated monthly film Magazine, Film und Volk at the reduced price of 20 Pfg. (instead of 40 Pfg.).
NOTICE OF MEMBERSHIP
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yoin the film bureau
Locate and see only the better motion pictures
Don't waste time and money seeing the inferior, uninteresting, stupid picture when there are really good pictures to be seen.
Disinterested Advice from A Discriminating Source
The Film Bureau offers its subscribers A year's subscription (six issues) to the Film Bulletin (a monthly guide to the best pictures), November to April inclusive. Complimentary and specially priced tickets for some of the best pictures. Privately screened pictures. Service in arranging enter- tainments in connection with motion pictures. A fifty per cent discount in renting The Bureau*s Portable Motion Picture Machines (for private screenings). An office information ser- vice and special advantages when it opens its own Little Picture House. The subscription is ten dollars a year.
Join now. Application cards and other data (including a complimentary copy of the film bulletin) mailed on request
Film Bureau, 4 West 40th Street, New York, N.Y.
" The best voice in a wilderness
of films''
That is what a New York motion picture man has said about The Film Spectator, edited by Welford Beaton and published in Hollywood.
Two years ago Welford Beaton conceived the idea of a new magazine devoted to the production and criticism of motion pictures. It was to be a publication that was different from others — one that did not fear facts — one that might not always be right, but one that would be courageous and honest.
Now The Spectator is acclaimed by public and press and Mr. Beaton is referred to as ** America's most discerning motion picture critic ". He tells the truth about pictures and the people who make them with rare ability. Hundreds of heartening fetters of commendation have been received.
Here are some of the comments :
** Read The Spectator ? Of course ! Where else could I find the same spirit of courage, conviction, and joyous contempt for consequences ?" — SAMUEL HOPKINS Adams.
** I read the Film Spectator with increasing interest. There is vigorous and excellent writing in it." — H. L. Mencken.
** The Film Spectator reveals its editor as a writer of practically perfect English, and as a man with an analytical mind, a sense of humour and a profound knowledge of the screen." — Arthur D. Howden Smith,
" I naturally receive many magazines — all deadhead, bye the way, except The Film Spectator ! — but the latter is the only one of the lot I read, or have read, from cover to cover. And that is not because I pay for it, either." — STEWART Edward White.
" The numbers sent me confirs Mr. Ralph Flint's suggestions to me that your magazine is truly the best voice in the wilderness of films. Not only do I find your judgments honest, but they are penetratingly just." — Symon Gould. Executive Director, Film Arts Guild, New York.
** I find more sound sense in what you write about the present situation than in anything that has ever been said or written about it." — ^JOHN W. RuMSEY. (President American Play Co. Inc., New York.
*' Welford Beaton is America's most discerning motion picture critic." — London (England) Express.
" Welford Beaton ... a literate writer of motion picture criticism ... his opinion has been uniformly sound." — New York World.
Subscription for one year $5.00, foreign $6.00. Single copies free on request.^*
THE FILM SPECTATOR," 7213 Sunset Blvd. Hollywood, Calif.
Please find enclosed $ for yearly subscription to ** The Film Spectator.
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ARTISTIQUE? TECHNIQUE? COMMERCIAL ? FINANCIER ?
Nous vous mettrons en relation avec les meilleurs sp'ecialistes du monde cinematographique
15 avenue Matignon 15
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Telephone : Elysee 86-84 \
THE DIAL
A MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF ART AND LITERATURE
FOUNDED 1880
EDITOR : MARIANNE MOORE
BY FRANCIS F. BROWNE
ADVISER : SCOFIELD THAYER
<^mong recent contributors are
W. C. BLUM KENNETH BURKE E. E. CUMMINGS H. D.
FRANK DOBSON
RALPH CHEEVER DUNNING
ROGER FRY
ALYSE GREGORY
GASTON LACHAISE
MARIE LAURENCIN
D. H. LARWENCE THOMAS MANN PAUL MORAND RAYMOND MORTIMER PABLO PICASSO PAUL ROSENFELD GERTRUDE STEIN PAUL VALERY
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
. . . often full of very interesting things, and is so well printed, and makes for good all round!' The Mask, July 1925
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION FIVE DOLLARS
(Foreign postage 60 cents additional)
■sAddress
152 WEST 13th STREET NEW YORK
A Young Society
NEOFILM
groups young producers under the artistic and technical direction of Alberto Cavalcanti who directed the 3 first Neofilm productions
RIEN QUE LES HEURES EN RADE
ANDRE GIDE and MARC ALLEGRETS Travel Picture
is a Neofilm Production
YVETTE
La plus import ante revue francaise
de Qinema
La Cinematograpkie Francaise
o
CHAQUE SEMAINE TOUTES LES NOUVELLES DU CINEMA
Films en Preparation Analyses des Nouveaiix Films Clironique de L Exploitation
a ronique rinanciere
LE5 PROGRES DE LA TECHNIQUE LES NOUVELLES INVENTIONS
j^wvelles £ Angleterre^ Jmerique, Allemagne^ Espagne^ Italic
DIRECTEUR REDACTEUR EN CHEF : P.-A. HARLfi 5 RUE SAULNIER PARIS (9^)
Telephone : Provence 02. 13
SENSATIONAL BOOKS
42>
Anatomy of jMlotion Picture Art
By Eric Elliott, Price 6 shillings.
" A sound piece of reasoning fully informed, coolly measured, and based upon a knowledge of aesthetics that extends considerably farther than that of the ordinary critic of the screen." — Manchester Guardian.
One would willingly pay a guinea for Anatomy of Motion Picture Art. Mr. Elliott avoids any of the emotional rhetoric which mediocrity seems to bring to a consideration of the movies. . . . Nearly every- thing he says makes one pause to think." — The London Mercury.
Anatomy of Motion Picture Art should be read by all cinema- goers. It is a true contribution toward the artistic progress of the film.
By Bryher. Price 7 shillings and 6 pence.
Being an indictment of war and the people who make it, the preface gives food for thought : " The characters and incidents in this book are not fictitious." " She is earnest to record, not to create ... it switches swiftly and informingly from one incident or episode to another." — Manchester Guardian.
Gaunt Island
By Kenneth Macphersox. Price 7 shillings and 6 pence. Only a few copies of this book remain.
Order Form. Please supply the following book (s) :
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is enclosed.
BOUND VOLUMES
of Close Up
Reference books for the future
y f
Volume two (Jan. -June), bound in vellum or boards, is still obtainable. This is a convenient form in which to have Close Upy as it will be a reference book for the future, and single copies are apt to be mislaid, lost or torn.
Close Up, bound in white vellum, is the ideal book for a gift or for collectors. It is priced at 12 shillings and 6 pence.
Orange cloth-back board volumes are priced at 10 shillings.
Close Up, Vol. 2 will be invaluable in a few years time, containing a fund of information, and details which would otherwise be for- gotten, as well as beautiful and exclusive photographs from the best current films. In twenty years' time these will be as unique and rare as are stills from films produced twenty years ago. Buy Close Up now for the future !
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A Li5t of Books akout Cinematograpky
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The Art of the Moving Picture by Vachell Lindsay 10/-
Kinematograph Studio Techique by L. C. Macbean 2/6
Practical Hints on Acting for the Cinema by Agnes Piatt 3/6
The Kinema Operators^ Handbook by W. S. Ibbetson 4/6
Popular Cinematography : the book of the Camera, by Thomas
F. Langlands 3/-
Kinematograph Year -Book 1928 10/-
Moving Pictures, how they are made and worked, by Frederick
A. Talbot 10/6
The Modern Photo-play and its construction by Golden Lore 6/-
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SPEND LESS
Have 'better JMovies
How much money have you spent on motion pictures since you started the hobby ? Ever figure it up ? You could have saved many dollars of that extra expense if you had had expert advice about motion pictures. The CINE-MINIATURE is the great all-movie publication that helps you know your camera, projector and accessories thoroughly — that shows you how to get better movies at less expense.
The CINfi MINIATURE is just like a complete ever-improving education in amateur motion pictures — the twelve big issues that you get for §2*50 would cost many times as much if they were in book form. Movie makers ever}'where are demanding The CINE- MINIATURE because they know there is no other publication like it. Be a movie expert yourself — have the latest thing in movies at the least expense.
See your dealer for single copies at 25c. (1/3) ; or send $2*50 (12/-) to the publishers for a year's subscription.
CINEMATOGRAPHIC PUBLISHERS
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CAMERA CRAFT
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Covers the Whole Field of Photography
The study of essentials is necessary to enjoy photography to the full. Camera Craft gathers beauty, facts, fundamentals and all sorts of interesting details from all over the world to keep its readers fully informed of what is going on.
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As a gift it brings joy into the recipient's heart and is a reminder, twelve times a year, of your thoughtfulness.
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FROM
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COUNTRIES
OF
THE
WORLD
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MEMBERS
TO
THE
The AMATEUR CINEMA LEAGUE, the pioneer international organization of cine-amateurs, in- vites your membership at Five Dollars a year (same price all over the world) , which includes MO VIE MA KERS monthly. MO VIE MAKERS, the leading journal on amateui movie photography, is pubhshed in Enghsh and is read ever3rwhere. It supplements the technical services of the League to amateur cinematographers .
Write for information — including a copy of MOVIE MAKERS
free— to
Amateur Cinema League Inc.
105 WEST FORTIETH STREET NEW YORK CITY U.S.A.
AMATEUR CINEMA
LEAGUE
AND
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Two further POOL books on the cinema are now in preparation and will shortly appear.
FILM PROBLEMS ofSOFIE T R USSIA
by BRYHER, a,uthoT of Civilians, West, Delvelopment, Two Selves, etc., etc.
A wealth of information, of keen insight, criticism and comparison. The book is a profound and earnest study which goes far beneath superficial analysis. Its value to the student of Russian films, as well as of Russia itself, will be supreme. The illustrations alone will make it invaluable. You must not miss it. Price 6 shillings.
THROUGH A YELLOIF GLASS
by OSWELL BLAKESTON.
An exhaustive survey of the whole field of cinematography, especially in relation to the studio. The only complete mine of information for the amateur, the student, and the professional. Lighting, photography, loading, scenario writing, editing, make up, locating, these are but a few of the subjects dealt with. Of the greatest theoretical and practical value, the book is written with a humorous appreciation both of the studio and of the reader's viewpoint. The Yellow Glass, through which you judge the actinic value of your set, has been held up by Mr. Blakeston to all possible lights and side-lights ; sometimes with disastrous (so to speak) actinic result, and sometimes with happy discovery. You will have to buy it and see for yourself. Price Is. Qd.
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. Ill No. 5 NOVEMBER 1928
NOVEMBER 1928
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"VARIETES"
Revue mensuelle illustree de Tesprit contemporain
Directeur : P. G. van Hecke
Chaque numero de VARIETES " contient : 64 reproductions— 56 pages de texte — nombreux dessins.
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Tragedies et divertissements populaires, par . . Pierre Mac Orlan Des rues et des carrefours (lettre de Paris), par . . Paul Fierens
Le sentiment critique, par Denis Marion
La chronique des disques, par Franz Hellens
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Aux soleils de minuit, par Albert Valentin
'* VARIETES " publishes every month a number of reproductions from exclusive stills of classic and avant garde films, with criticisms by Albert Valentin and Denis Marion.
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Editor : K. Macpherson Assistant Editor : Bryher
Published by POOL Riant Chateau • Territet * Switzerland London Office : 24 Devonshire St., W.C.i
Contents :
As Is
Film Psychology
The Cinema in Retrospect
The Querschnittfilm .
Rene Clair
Lusts of Mankind
Six Russian Films (contd.)
News Gazette .
Litterature et Film
Comment and Review
Kenneth Macpherson Dr. Hanns Sachs Clifford Howard A. Kraszna Krausz Jean Lenauer
OSWELL BlAKESTON
K.M.
Robert Herring Freddy Chevalley
Paris Correspondents :
London Correspondent : Hollywood Correspondent New York Editor : Berlin Correspondent : Geneva Correspondent :
/Marc Allegret \Jean Lexeur
Robert Herring • Clifford Howard
Symon Gould
A. Kraszna- Krausz
F. Chevalley
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Copyright 1928 by Pool
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Vol. Ill No. 5 November 1928
AS IS
BY THE EDITOR
The Editorial I had had in mind for this month has, I am delighted to see (sharing my joy with those who find their Editor's Editorials tiresome, pompous or dull) already been done in The Cinema, I am jubilant for two reasons. The first one is base but human, and is entirely concerned with the saving of work. The second is because such articles, with their safe, secure statistics, are — as the title indicates — the pin that bursts the bubble. The fact that the bubbles to prick are as copious as the Lux suds in which you wash your sheerest underwear offers not discouragement but somewhat humorous prospects.
The article is quoted here in full, together with our congratulations to The Cinema,
THE BUBBLE BURSTS.
There comes hardly a day but the misdemeanours of some recalcitrant juvenile are laid at the door of some inoffensive cinema. The statistics of juvenile crime are reported to be on
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an upward curve, and responsibility is traced to the coinci- dental increase in the number of moving-picture theatres. The statistics show a decrease, and the slowness of deprecia- tion is blamed on the brutaHties of Beery or the machinations of Mix. The bulging prison cells and overcrowded reforma- tories demand an analysis. The Chief of the Police in the Vaud department of Switzerland has just concluded such an analysis. His results make interesting reading for the long-faced fraternity.
For a year he investigated the cases of evildoers between the ages of ten and twenty. Of those examined he found that 30 per cent, had never been to a cinema. These were, how- ever, the ones who had committed the most serious offences. Of the 70 per cent, who had frequented the picture palaces, 6 per cent, could not remember any details other than that they had been to the pictures, 48 per cent, had only seen documentary and topical pictures, comics and fairy fantasies, films which are not wont to contain incitements to murder or unchastity. Of the 80 or 90 per cent, who had been guilty of theft, 30 per cent, had stolen in order to go to the pictures, and the remainder for the more traditional purpose of buying toffee or tops, 16 per cent, were found to have visited films of doubtful morality, but they were also reported as frequenters of dance halls of a morality even more doubtful.
M. Jaquillard, the Chief of Police, in making this report, expresses the opinion that the cinema is one of the most useful and beautiful of modern inventions ever bestowed on mankind.
There is ^ psychological process known as displacement. The cinema as an alleged cause of crime offers a convenient
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displacement for the mentalities who are too lazy or too un- equipped to think profoundly. To blame the films automati- cally for crime and vice saves them the trouble of further thought. But when a realist such as M. Jaquillard gets down to concrete facts and analysis, the cloudy theories vanish as clouds alone can do.
All of which speaks (very eloquently) for itself. Dis- closures like this are no doubt the reason why statisticians are so unpopular. Certainly if our cinemas are haunts of vice I don't know what we ought to do about the censorship. For on the one hand it is agreed the censor is something only slightly less incorruptible than the Creator Himself, then why does his seal of approval, signed, stamped and displayed, rest upon films which drive the young like flocks of sheep into penitentiaries, prisons and the hereafter ?
These statistics come from Vaud, where Close Up comes from. Vaud is a canton, by the way, where Russian films are not prohibited. Mothety for example, has been freely going the rounds of late, in the same original version in which you saw it recently (we hope) at the London Film Society (to which heartfelt thanks). Likewise The Passion of Joan of Arc, Expiation, and others of the same genre where primitive passion (to coin an almost technical phrase) is seen in its most revengeful and bloodcurdling aspects. We would like an English and American and French and German M. Jaquillard to make the same investigations, and prove to us what we already know, that films stop crime, not make it, not by influence, perhaps, but by the very fact of giving young people something to occupy their minds and time.
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Thirty per cent, stole, we learn, in order to go to the cinema. No need for a long face here. I believe, quite honestly, I might have been tempted to do so myself when young if no means had been forthcoming. For the kind of morality in question here is the purely arbitrary code invented by adults for mutual convenience, the economical advantages and reasons for which would hardly be likely to impress a child who wanted at the time something far more advantageous and convenient. This is certainly no reason against the cinema. Rather it is propaganda for cinema. If children want it so much a system whereby they can have it should be evolved.
Yet what do we have instead? Massed educational authorities attempting to coerce the censor into making all films illegal to children. When actually it is the educational authorities themselves who are entirely to blame.
Kenneth Macpherson.
FILM PSYCHOLOGY
The plot, whether of a novel, play or film, consists of closely interwoven psychological coherencies. The film can be effective only in so far as it is able to make these psycho- logical coherencies visible ; in so far as it can externalise and make perceptible — if possible in movement — invisible inward events.
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Psychic events are most freely outwardly perceptible when mirrored in facial expression. The obvious procedure for the film, therefore, was to build itself up upon the actor's power of facial expression. This procedure soon demonstrated its futility ; for man expresses his emotions and passions far more powerfully and explicitly by word of mouth than by movement and facial expression. The film that is built up on mimicry is simply dumb-show, pantomime, an absurd hybrid powerless either to reproduce or to develop itself. What, then, can we substitute for these so severely limited mimetics ? To make human beings artificially dumb is not the proper business of the film, but things are dumb and we do not need to close their mouth by force if we are able to make them express psychic acts, which find their outlet through them, around them, or because of them.
This is amply demonstrated by the modern films in which the Russians, and notably Eisenstein in Panzerkreuzer Potemkin, have gone furthest and most successfully.
Mimetic expression is here only one amongst many means of enhancing an effect already created from another source. The actor stands on an equality with inanimate things. Like them, he can embody the movement of the drama ; but only so far as his embodiment is of such psychic events as are before or beyond speech ; by this means reflexes — and, above all, those small unnoticed ineptitudes of behaviour described by Freud as symptomatic actions become the centre of mterest.
According to Freud these so small, and in themselves so trivial and insignificant movements — as, for example, the dropping or losing of an object, the thoughtless toying with some small article, the forgetting or omitting of some action
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usually carried out with mechanical ease — are in the highest degree indicative of the inner experiences of the subject, of his desires and emotions, and exactly of those desires and emotions of which he himself is unaware. Accepting the inherent conditions of the technique of cinematography, all discriminating producers have used details of this kind as indispensable means of expression : most of them, certainly, without having the smallest theoretical knowledge of their actual significance.
The agreement existing between the artists and poets of all periods and the principles of psycho-analysis has long been known to us, and it is not at all surprising that the film, after its own fashion, should take over and carry on the great tradition.
1. Panzerkreuzer Potemkin.
A friend who had just seen Eisenstein's film for the third or fourth time, explained to me that at one point in the repre- sentation he had been very strongly moved without being able to discover what it was that had moved him. On each occasion this experience came to him at the moment when, by the captain's command, the sail-cloth is being carried on board. In the midst of this operation the head of the fugle- man of the guard called up for the shooting emerges clearly for a moment, turned to watch. This watching head seems to have no particular expression, and any expression it might bear would, owing to the fractional time during which it appears in the picture, be lost upon the spectator.
As my friend is a particularly intelligent and experienced film-professional, I felt urged to discover the solution of the
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■ riddle, and when next I saw the film I paid particularly close attention to the scene that had so profoundly impressed him and that vet in itself seemed so slight and so incidental. Pic- ture the situation : on the one hand the guard standing to attention, firm, stern, mechanised by discipline — on the other the sailors driven hither and thither in the maze of the conflict- ing emotions of rage, despair and long-practised obedience.
When the captain has the sail-cloth brought along, tension rises to its height and our sympathies are concentrated upon the question as to which will be the stronger, human pity or the force of discipline. Will the guard shoot or refrain? When at this moment one of the guard — whom so far we have considered as a creature bereft of individuality by drilling, a mere mechanically functioning unit — is dissociated from the group and, by means of a movement (independent and not dictated by discipline), by looking round at the sail-cloth as it is being carried past, betrays, however slightly, his char- acter of a human-being involved in the proceedings, our question begins to be answered. We know that even the guard, in its totality an unfeeling machine, is made up of men capable of sympathy, and we begin to hope.
In order to produce this moment of extreme tension it was of the highest importance that the transformation should appear suddenly and unexpectedly at the moment of greatest danger, at the sounding of the word of command : fire. Only thus could come about the powerful release carrying each spectator along W'ith it. But for this operation, sudden only in its arrival, the spectator's mind must be cunningly pre- pared. Something within him must have desired, surmised, anticipated an event which otherwise would remain outside
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him, strange, a rescue from the clouds, the work of a deus ex machina. The sense of a strong psychic release is to be attained only in the case of a sudden ending of a painful to-and-fro between hope and fear. The onlooker must anticipate the turn of affairs without himself being aware of his anticipation. This suddenly seen head of the leader of the guard is to be counted amongst the things that assist his unconscious expectation. Certainly only a few of the millions who have seen Potemkin will have even noted the movement of the head, but upon all it will have worked as powerfully as upon mv friend. The film is thus revealed as a kind of time- microscope, that is to say, it shows us clearly and unmistak- ably things that are to be found in life but that ordinarily escape our notice.
2. Mutter, by Pudowkin.
Here, too, everything turns upon the effectual preparation of a moment of tension. The son is in prison, the mother hopes to hand him secretly, during the visitors' hour, a scrap of paper which will show him the way to freedom. The two are talking to each other through a grille and the mother's attention is concentrated upon smuggling the paper into her son's hands unnoticed by the authorities. Two officials are present. From one, seated near her at a table, she has noth- ing to fear. He is fulfilling the duty of all overseers : he is asleep ! But on the other side of her stands with stiffly- planted gun the guard who brought her son to the meeting- place and will take him away again : a yokel with expression- less features who, for lack of something more interesting to
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contemplate, stares steadily at the floor. Now the direc- tor might create the sense of tension by allo\ying the mother to make seyeral attempts to pass the paper through the grille, and in each case to draw back her hand. This effect he might heighten by close-ups of the hand. But he has invented a far more ingenious method. Near the guard stands a bowl of milk, and here a subject is introduced which draws the guard's attention. A cockroach has crawled into it and is trying to get out again. The guard sees it just as it is reaching the end of its eft'orts, the safe rim of the bowl. Grinning, he extends a finger and pushes it back again and while this happens the mother pushes the scrap of paper into her son's hand. Here the tension is enhanced by means of shifting it to a secondary incident, to something apparently trivial and of no consequence upon which yet hangs the life of a man. And how ingeniously is the incident devised ! It gives us a complete miniature of the horrible conditions of prison life, where food is befouled and infected ; it also repeats, as if accidentally, the main movement of the drama : here, as there, we are faced by a prisoner who strives to free himself and is thrust back. But that which brings destruction to the one is to the other the first step towards freedom. Here we have not only a contrast, but at the same time a presentiment. The son has fallen into hands from which there is no rescue, hands which pitilessly push back him who thought himself already rescued. Thus is this episode a prelude, for the son falls later under the bullets of the soldiers just as he has escaped from prison. But the relationship of the two episodes goes even deeper. It reaches to a depth where not the intelligence but only the feeling of the
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onlooker can follow. The milk symbolises the mother in its character of being her first and most important gift to her child, a gift linking together forever the giver and the receiver.
The insect drowned in the milk indicates not only that there is to be for the son no escape, but also that he will die, not in the harsh besoiled prison, but as a free man in the arms of his mother. Thus, through a mere piece of by-play is the deep intrinsic emotional value of this work of art both epitomised and anticipated.
3. Drei Frauen, by Lubitsch.
A young worldling has become, for the sake of her money, the lover of an elderly woman. Having achieved his expect- ations he no longer considers it worth w^hile to go on convinc- ing her of his love. She has no suspicions, refuses to have any, and perpetually offers herself to the reluctant lover. The situation is delicate, one not easy to represent even upon the- stage; upon the film, where things appear without the mitigating veil of words, in all their brutal reality, its repre- sentation would appear to be an insoluble problem. How has the producer found it possible to film this situation without sacrificing anything of its poignancy ?
The two are sitting side by side upon a sofa. The woman leans against the man, caresses him, toys with his clothing. She flings her arms round his neck. Playfully she plucks at his tie and at last draws it out so that it hangs over his waist- coat. The man restores it to its place and is once more irreproachably correct.
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In this case the representation is simple and short. There is no question of creating a tension, only of making the in- expressible expressible by means of displacement on to a small incidental action. The woman says : " Undress yourself and the man I don't want to but the treat- ment is so contrived that both can act as if the behaviour of the other were simply the playfulness of idle fingers. The man does not choose to understand what the woman wants, the woman will not see that the man does not choose to under- stand, but the onlooker gives to the little episode its true value and knows in a moment more than could be revealed to him by means of a long caption. For him the proceedings are clear enough, and this displacement " is exactly one of those means of expression, to which Freud first called atten- tion, used by the unconscious everywhere, for instance, in dreams and in jest, to elude conscious recognition. The film seems to be a new wav of driving mankind to conscious recognition.
In his Traiimdeiitung, page 263, Freud gives an explanation of the symbolic meaning of the tie, which, certainly, neither the onlookers of the film, nor the director, who created it, knew. But, all the same, it fits exactly into the thinly-veiled meaning of the " slip action
Hanns Sachs.
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THE CINEMA IN RETROSPECT
Being the recollections of a primeval scenario writer. By Clifford Howard
Part I
American cinema history is divided into two eras, B.H. and A.H. — Before Hollywood and After Hollywood. Those w^hose association with the movies dates back to the first era, the era of the primeval, must be reckoned among the patriarchs. By a margin of three or four years I find myself included in this venerable class. I am entitled to the badge of old-timer. It may not avail much in this day of the sovereignty of youth and novelty, but, if anyone will listen, it does carry with it the privilege of saying to the present cinema generation, I can remember when — " and then babbling about the old pioneer picture days before the inven- tion of the close-up, the cut-back, or the fade-out ; when the nickelodeon, a converted store-room furnished with wooden chairs, was the only form of picture theatre ; when nobody of breeding would openly attend such a place, and when no self-respecting actor would permit it to be publicly known that he was working in the movies.
Even a self-respecting author in those remote days, if he would retain the confidence of his friends and admirers, spoke
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The deaf gentleman sits oblivious of the scene raging just behind him.
Rene Clair (right) with his operator and assistant Georges Lacombe on location iov Les Deux Timides.
Rene Clair instructing Batcheff for the scene shown in the following
still.
Interesting sketches made at the Elstree studios bv Stella Burford. The above shows the " mercury banks " on an hotel set for A Kmght in London, directed by Lupu Pick and photographed by Carl Freund.
The interior of the "Piccadilly'' set. Painters and plasterers at work. Sketch by Stella Burford.
From Thziesz Racqui}:, Jacques Feyder's film for first ZSational.
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softlv of writing scenarios. If he was caught at it, he passed it oft as a joke ; treating his undignihed work as a trifling side issue, done just for the fun of it — merely curious to see how a Httle story dashed off at an odd moment would look in the " flickers ".
I don't mind admitting that it was in something of this patronizing spirit that I wrote and submitted my first contri- bution to the screen, about twenty years ago. Befittingly enouo'h, it was a comedv, a " soHt-reel comedv entitled The Woman in the Case. At tliat time there were perhaps eight or ten producing companies in the field — such as they were — most of them located in New York, with one or two in New Jersev, and each consisting of a single unit of stock plavers. Of this aggregation I selected Vitagraph as the one most likelv to be interested in my little oft'ering. The choice proved a happy one. The script was promptly accepted, and I received for it the tidy consideration of ten dollars.
This maiden effort, consisting of some twenty scenes, was distinctly a home-made product. I had never seen a scenario ; I had not the faintest conception of its anatomy. There was none within reach anywhere in California, where I was then alreadv living. The first picture company was not to arrive in Los Angeles until a year later. Consequently I had no wav of securing a specimen scenario nor consulting anyone connected with the movies. None of my literary acquaintances had ever even so much as heard of writing motion-picture stories, and moreover were quite uppish at the mention of such a thing. I was therefore left wholly to my own ingenuity, aided by a study of such films as I occasionally sneaked in to see at a dingy nickelodeon down on ]\Iain Street.
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As a matter of fact, as I learned afterwards, there was at that time no estabhshed form of scenario wTiting:, and apparently the technique I devised proved as practical as anv that the earlv companies were then using. Sometime later, however, while waiting for the screen appearance of mv ]]^omau in the Case, I came across the advertisement of an enterprising New York cameraman, offering a complete set of instructions in the mysteries of scenario writing. Price, ten cents. For this modest outlay he guaranteed to reveal everything, including a complete copy of his own scenario masterpiece in eighteen scenes, which had been filmed bv one of the biggest motion picture companies in the world.
This valuable guide consisted of a four-page leaflet, and, true to its promise, contained a full and exhaustive exposition warranted to fit anyone to become a successful scenarist.
Xo literary skill required. Plumbers, stenographers, laundry workers are getting as high as fifteen dollars apiece for good plots. Why not you?"
Naturally, this was most encouraging. I had a barrelful of good plots designed for magazine stories, and I could cer- tainly spare a few of them for this easv method of picking up some ready change. So, prompted by my initial success, I wrote another comedy, done according to the formula set forth in the leaflet. It was called An L njortunate Santa Claus — the story of a kindlv gentleman who undertook on Christ- mas Eve to creep into the house of two very poor but very proud maiden ladies, and there secretly and anonymously deposit on the hearth in imitation of Santa Claus several packages of nice warm underclothing. To make sure that it would be recognised as a comedy, I got the kind-hearted
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o-entleman into a most embarrassino' situation bv tlie sudden and unexpected return of the two prim virgins.
I thought it was funnier than anything" I had yet seen at my favorite nickelodeon. But apparently it was not so good as my first effort. Perhaps I suffered under the handicap of not being a plumber or something. At anv rate, I was not only obliged to submit it to four companies before landing it, with Pathe Freres, but, also, I got onlv eight dollars for it.
Nothing daimted, however, I continued to dallv with this lowborn pastime, selling funnv stories first to one companv and then another ; egged on perhaps bv a vague prescience that the movies were destined to amount to something and by a sneaking conceit that mv contributions might prove a Nmall help toward that end. As film productions these early contributions of mine were all anonvmous, of course. Nobody in those days, from director down, got any screen credit — if credit is the right word to use — so that I felt perfectly safe in indulging in this then unseemlv btisiness.
After having qualified as a split-reel comedy scenarist, I tried my hand at a drama, and had the good fortune to sell it at the top price of fifteen dollars to D. W. Grifiith, then the presiding genius of Biograph. At that time, however, he was known as Lawrence Grifiith. He was an actor bv pro- fession, with a burning ambition to become a dramatist ; and so, forced by temporary financial reverses to direct pictures for a living, he was hiding his identity under an assumed name. He could not afford to jeopardize his legitimate career.
I have forgotten the name of my Biograph story. It contained, if I remember correctly, about forty-five scenes; enough for a maximum-length film, about nine hundred or a
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thousand feet. Like many another of mv earlv movie con- iribuiions, I nevtr ^a\v it in its screen translation. I either missed it when it was in Los Angeles, or it mav never have been shown here. \o one was supposed to be interested in, or even know anything about, any particular forthcoming him. There were no cinema advertisements, no publicitv news item.s. no advance notices of an\- kind for the information of ni<~)vie patrons.
It ! >nf wanted lu see a particular iilm, it was whollv a matter of haA'ini^' the good luck to drop in at a picture show on thtr daA ir happened t(» be running there. Programs were changt^d dailA . The film companies coilectivelv were grind- ing our t-nough material to keep the exhibitor well supplied. A comedy could be made in a dav or a dav and a half. A full-lengtli drama ordinarily required about three da\-s. Such of the moire pretentious companies as specialised in big stuff " were averaging two such pictures a week. The exhibitor, therefore, with an ample suj^plv of fresh films at his command, was quite ablf to offer a daily change of cinema fare, wuh a prijgram of from four to six pictures, varving in length and diversity from a four-hundred-foot chase comedv to a \A>stern thriller of a thousand feet.
\\^ith an occasional full-reel classic, like Evangeline or King Lear, thrown in for polite balance, there is no denying that this was a gener<jus lot of entertainment for a nickel (five cents \ to saA' nothing of the continuous performance of a mechanical piano, which, with its electrical motor, thumped our rhe iaresr popular airs — not as an appropriate accompani- ment to the pictures, to be sure, but solely as a gratuitous incidental diversion.
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It is quite possible that this forgotten Biograph drama of mine may have been honored with the presence of ]\lary Pickford in the cast. Then a girl of about seventeen, she had recently joined the company. It was her initial venture into the movies, after quite an extensive stage experience, begin- ning at the baby age of live years. I saw her in her first picture, The Violin Maker of Cremona. This was in 1909. Of course, at the time I did not know who she was. And neither did anyone else outside of her acquaintances who happened to see the film and recognise her. The players' names were never published. It was not personal modesty that was responsible for this — merely professional self-respect, or self-protection. One of the foremost theatrical producers of the time had given notice that we would blacklist any actor found working in pictures ; and other producers, while not so drastic about it, were nevertheless none too kindlv disposed toward those of the legit " who flirted with the outcast movies.
Therefore, the ambitious Gladvs Smith, jealous of her stage record and her stage future, took pains not to have it known that she had temporarily descended to the flickers. To this end the name Marv Pickford served as a concealment — a pretty nam de guerre which David Belasco had a short while before suggested for this Canadian lass of the golden curls ; and so definitely did the name Pickford become associated with her, that it was later adopted by the rest of the Smith family — the mother, Charlotte, and the sister and brother, Lottie and Jack.
As the movies developed, which they actually did in spite of everything, the situation of the scenario writer hkewise
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improved. There was an increasing demand for better story material. Higher prices were offered for big stories, stories suitable for the big, two-reel master productions which were now coming into vogue.
Griffith, I believe, was the first American director to turn out a two-reeler. This was after he had come to California. He wanted to do Enoch Arden, and do it on a fitting scale. The story had already been filmed several times, under various titles, but never beyond the thousand-foot limit. Griffith felt that it deserved more footage, and he accordingly took up with the business office the question of making it in two reels. The business office staggered under the blow of this sugges- tion. A two-reel picture? Never! Nobody would sit through a picture that long I After much argument a com- promise was reached. The picture would be made in two parts; part one to be shown on ^londay, and part two on Thursday. These were the weekly release days for Biograph films.
It was a momentous experiment. The exhibitors, like the business office, were wholly dubious. Movie patrons wanted their pictures short and snappy, with no hang-overs. How- ever, this two-part Enoch Arden proved an overwhelming success. Those who saw the first reel on ]^Ionday flocked back eagerly on Thursday to see the second. And when the film was subsequently run, on trial, in its entirety at one showing, the response proved equally enthusiastic and carried with it, moreover, the encouraging assurance that the crowds were quite capable of keeping their attention fixed on a single picture for twenty-five minutes.
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Incidentally, I recall that the character of the nurse in this film epic was Jeanie ]\Iacpherson, who was later to join the ranks of scenario writers and become the author of such mam- moth productions as The Ten C ommandments and The King of Kings. Had the prospect of such productions been presented to the business managers of Enoch Arden the effect would undoubtedly have been paralysing, if not fatal.
When the film companies, drawn by the lure of sunshine and a semi-tropical cHme, began coming to Southern California, about eighteen years ago, they settled in various and scattered parts of Los Angeles. There was at first little or no communitv spirit among them. On the contrary, they brought with them a good deal of unfriendlv rivalrv and mutual antagonism. But in time, following the lead of Universal, and Christie Brothers, and influenced perhaps by the geniality of the climate, they adopted Hollywood, the northwestern section of Los Angeles, as a common location for their studios, and thus sowed the seed of the formal busi- ness association that now^ binds them together in one general, harmonious body, under the title of the ^lotion Picture Producers and Distributors of America.
With the immigration to California, production activities increased, business expanded, the pictures themselves grew more promising, the identity of the actors came out of obscurity, popular stage players took fliers " in the movies without disguise or apologies, and the conservative public, which had hitherto been indifferent or downright scornful, began to manifest an indulgent interest.
This rising tide of distinction carried the scenario writer along wath it, and he, too, now took on a bit of dignity, as
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well as added importance. While still outside the pale of letters, he was no longer painfully self-conscious. His craft gave promise of developing into a worthy profession. The studios were becoming more and more dependent upon him for needed picture stories and his specialised skill in preparing continuity for the use of directors. Better prices for his work also added to his satisfaction. In a spectacular bid for the best scenario brains, Universal was offering a flat rate of tw^enty-five dollars a reel, or seventy-five dollars for a full- length feature picture. All in all, the outlook of the humble scenarist was decidedly rosy in those primitive Hollywood days.
Bv 1914 there were probably a hundred or more acknow- ledged scenario writers in Southern California ; and it occurred to some of us old-timers that the time was ripe for an associa- tion. Accordingly, the Photoplay Authors League came into being. In order that it should be more or less exclusive and at the same time truly representative of the craft, membership was limited to those who had at least ten produced scripts to their credit. Among the forty original members were Anita Loos, D. W. Griffith, Lois Weber (already at that time a director, as well as the author of her film stories), Clarence Badger (later a director and now identified with Clara Bow's pictures), Thomas Ince, Wallace Reid and Frank E. Woods.
Woods was elected president, not only in recognition of his record as the foremost pioneer scenario writer, but also because of his rank as the first American motion-picture reviewer and critic. As a staff contributor to the Dramatic Mirror, under the pseudonym of The Spectator, he had begun the reviewing of pictures as far back as 1908. This was an
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unprecedented venture. Xo periodical or newspaper at that time was paying the sHghtest attention to the movies. Indeed, there was a prevaihng rule among publications that any reference on the part of a writer to this cheap, bourgeois stuff should be blue-pencilled.
But Frank Woods, with more vision than his contempora- ries, succeeded in inducing the Dramatic Mirror to run his film reviews. And thus was inaugurated, under protest and with prophecies of a speedy discontinuance through lack of public interest, an innovation which not only survived in this particular publication, but which to-day has become an established feature of newspapers and magazines the world over, to say nothing of the scores of periodicals devoted exclusively to the discussion of the once no-account and disdained movies.
{To he continued.)
THE QUERSCHNITTFILM*
There is nothing more human than catchwords. In the mouth of their creator they reveal the sudden consciousness of presentiment. In the mouth of those who repeat them, parrot-like, they conceal the everlasting mindlessness of the hum-drum day. A slogan is something akin to style.
''' Literally the Cross-cut Film The meaning is, however, a film composed of pieces cut from other films. (Ed.)
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Firstly : necessary expression of the intended meaning. Secondly : an easy formula for tried effects. Slogan, or style — are used; they please.
Thus we repeatedly hear the word : Conciseness. The desire for it originated from the rate at which present-day life is lived. The frequent request : cut it short. We have experienced this with starchy gentlemen who sit behind voluminous writing desks. And it goes even further, we experience it in our family, our private life, our newspaper, our literature, our art. Be brief. Cut out superfluous sen- tences, don't be stilted. Sav things that matter. Call a spade a spade. Say how a thing happened and not what the colour of the sky was at the time. That something happened to someone and not what you think of it. To whom it hap- pened, that is the most important point. Date of birth, religion, single or married, previous convictions if any, cherchez la jemme, what colour is your hair?
Novels have a considerably less sale than memoirs of important people. In Russia, you are probably aware, there is a young, fresh, serious-minded population very keen on reading. The Russians Kuleschov, Pudowkin, Timo- schenko, have so far written the most positive books on the aesthetics of the film. The dry collections of anecdotes about Douglas Fairbanks or Harry Piel are nevertheless sold by the hundred thousand. They are cheap. Both in price and contents. There are some in more pretentious make-up. But I do not know one which has yet related something new, illus- trative, plastic. Their language remains as unfigurative as most of the inserted full-length portraits are lifeless. That is why I often wished to see film artists' biographies produced
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on the screen. At last one has made its appearance : " Henny Porten, Life and Career of a Film Artist."
A Ufa Film after the ideas of Dr. Oscar Kalbus. A " Querschnitt " embracing 40 roles played by Henny Porten. Through twenty long years. From 1909 to 1928. Seven chapters are reeled off. Primitive excitement. Sentimental novel-like happenings. Gav plavfulness. Costume plays. The great comedies. Dual roles. The tragic heroine. Sometimes seriously, sometunes ironically accompanied by musical renderings of popular airs from the various periods of her artistic career. The orchestra plavs very softly whilst Dr. Kalbus holds forth. Anecdote, biography, revealing, fundamental.
So the film rolls on. Twentv film vears flow by us. Not rehashed, copied, but in natura. So thev were, so they are. Ridiculous, helpless, groping, ambitious, genial, erring, compressed. Twenty years of film acting. They have never been so tersely put to us as here, netted in the short space of two hours.
We owe Dr. Kalbus thanks for his idea, for his pioneer work. If our thanks is accompanied by our criticism, he can estimate how seriously his work is taken.
Let us first talk about Henny Porten.
She is the most popular film actress in Germany. Possibly like Alary Pickford in America. One of the few, very few, whose name is a sure box office draw. People know her, they have become used to her, have loved her : for twenty years past. It is like a long marriage. A marriage between her and a generation of the German people. The new arrivals
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and the strangers will find a lot of things they will not under- stand. To be in love on one's silver wedding day seems silly, simulated, w^anting in taste — for the outsider. They ought to be ashamed of themselves — sav these youngsters, not know- ing that the eyes which have been looking out on the world for twenty years do not see the present but the past, a past agelessly idealised.
Naturally, Henny Porten could dispense with all that. I wall not say that she w^as successful in attaining the fashion- able boyish figure through sport, but she has certainly grown younger. That seems to be due to cosmetics, to improved resources. To technique, to routine.
She — the daughter of one of the earliest film directors — made use of everv opportunity to turn cinematographic pro- gress to her own advantage. It is interesting to see how- frequently she played opposite people who later on became prominent ; voung, new, clumsy figures, such as Abel, Bassermann, Deutsch, Dieterle, Hartmann, Jannings, Kastner, Kloepfer, Kortner, Krauss, Liedke, Loos, Schiinzel, Steinriick. After presenting brief examples of theatrical gesticulation and grotesque prancing, she soon learns self- assurance. She takes time to develop tragic plays, and if in a gay mood allows nobody to spoil it.
Now arises the eternal question. Has she become an interpreter of tragedy or of farce. Dr. Kalbus is at one with Henny Porten's ow^n opinion, and emphasises her successes in the former sphere. How^ever, if he gives as the main proof of his opinion, scenes which actually represented unhappy personal adventures of the actress, they are weapons which backfire on their users. There is, indeed, none among her
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tragic roles of which the power has not been diminished by time, whilst her comic parts have decidedly lost far less of their effectiveness. Her talents are not sufficiently original to be tragic. She relies too much on experience. This experience leads to a deliberate lengthiness, to intermittent playing, to rhetorical pauses in the serious scenes; but to an ensured bearing, to a ready resourcefulness, and power of improvisa- tion in the farcical ones. The thing which leads to indirect action in the lirst instance assures directness in the second. The method which helps comedy is detrimental to tragedy.
The most enduring performances of Henny Porten lie in a special type of comedy : in her dual roles. A form of film acting for which (at least in German}^) she greatly deserves thanks. Dr. Kalbus knew quite well how to explain this success. According to him it rests on effect and counter- effect, like the beautiful and the ugly — an effect similar to that produced by the original substance of films (or should we say photography), with light and shade, black and white con- trasts, peculiar to them. Henny Porten was possibly the first film actress with sufficient courage to make use of this ugli- ness. Dr. Kalbus says here with astute understanding, that the pluck to be ugly originates in a longing for beauty. It serves for emphasizing beauty. In no film has a beautiful w^oman been seen as merely ugly right to the end. Neither Henny Porten nor her successors. They understand, she understood, how to become beautiful gradually, to prepare the way for beauty.
But more important than such theory is the practice : Kohloesels Toechter {Kohloesels^ Daughters). A film dating iDack to 1919. Its idea has been repeated since not merely
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once, but very often, yet without ever equalling the original, far less surpassing it. I believe it was her best work.
Judging the best performance appears to be the most ticklish problem confronting the authors of biographies of living persons. In this screened biographv it is especialh' so.
A filmed sketch of this kind has. got to have some basis of construction, even if no actual plot. In spite of this the public has got to be roped in, kept in hand, led on, a career has to be shown, interest maintained, a finale is to be provided. As far as this is concerned, the chronological moment comes into the picture only too readily. However fascinating it may be, it is also shallow, unreliable and disappointing. Dr. Kalbus has only followed in wake of it. As a first attempt everybody else would have done the same, and like Dr. Kalbus have been led astray by the result — a result which is even tainted with a suspicion of insincerity. If the Ufa film which was produced during this season is to be lauded as the acme of what Henny Porten can do, and if it is to be regarded as a summary of the whole, some members of the audience will sneer a little and not without reason.
Not unjustifiably, doubts arise in connection with the commercial aspects. The critic is not in a position to survey the matter fully, and that is why, in any event, he will ask is this reallv all, also is this the right material to show as repre- sentative of Flenny Porten? Have they not paid too much attention to the viewpoint of competitors ? The world is so evil and so distrustful of the film industry. We will, how- ever, charitably assume that Dr. Kalbus has made his selec- tion to the best of his knowledge and ability. We will grant
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that the material to be treated was very difficult, verv old material mdeed, which has caused great trouble in compila- tion. A filmed sketch is not a book which can re-issue the same story over and over again. In this instance of a film biography, every word, every picture has to be searched for, dug out of original roles, and brought to light, and cannot be repeated or copied anew. Here there are difficulties, conditions, possibilities, which were hitherto unknown.
Yes, what possibilities.
P^rst of all, a certain objectivity. Something describes itself. The living picture describes the living picture. In the same wav as the work of a painter interprets him in an exhibition or the verses of a poet in an anthologA . There are limits in this to the chance of under and over-statement. In contrast to cases w here one would try, for example, to express one's opinion of an author bv means of music, or one's opinion of a sculptor m verse, or of a film in literary essays, as so often happens. This time it is not indirect but direct comment and quotation made.
Now we know, too, that we need not be afraid of this objectivity. We can quote in manv ways. There is no con- vention governing the selection of sentences Cjuoted, or the choice of the picture. One can string them together and justify their sequence at will. One can curtail them, regen- erate their content, give them different shape, turn them upside down, quite at will. In what measure Dr. Kalbus has made use of these liberties does not greatly matter. But thev can be made use of in the widest degree. One need not merely make fresh plots from genuine biographies, or serious
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essays from old films, but also from sensational disclosures, satirical reports, severe caricatures, libellous pamphlets.
Furthermore, in film biography talking is possible, even allowed, both in titles and in words. If anywhere, assuredly here. The question whether films should be strewn with sub- titles is just as debatable as whether novels should be illus- trated with pictures. But just as journalistic reporting is undisputably allowed its explanatory illustrations, so reporting films must be also granted the explanatorv assist- ance of the spoken word. It should be said here that Dr. Kalbus has taken this into account with balance, good taste and skill.
Repeatedly one had to sit up and take notice of his stimulating words, but there was also good reason to be startled when he spoke of the development of the film from Piffle to Art.
I do not venture to decide whether he was right in his proud reference to this development, that is to say, whether we reallv mav look back on these twenty years from such a high pedestal. If we may we shall have to accept the theorv that between piffle and art, there are merely differences of exterior, make up, technique, but no differences of substance. Because —it is painful to confess — onl\' the very first ones have altered in the sequence of the examples given. Gesticulation has become more subdued. The monocled dudes rarer. The casual pawnshop inventory has been hunted out of drafted plans. The lighting attempts to adapt itself to a certain naturalness. The photography strives after effects of its own. The Direction breaks up the scene into more and more pic- tures, gets nearer to the objects, and gets landed all too soon
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in a super film. But as for the rest, the subject which yester- day was garbed primitively and is to-day dressed in modern fashion can hardly belie its past. Just wait I If I tell you that Henny Porten takes in one film the murderer of her brother as a lover, and if she in another film marries the brother of her seducer, can you with any degree of certainty tell me w^hich one of these two subjects belongs to 1917 and which to 1927? No, these human frailties have shown but little improvement in these last twenty vears. If Dr. Kalbus speaks of the development from piffle to art, he either shares the view that quality is a problem of the " How " alone, or else he has made a mistake in his valuation of the latest developments.
However, before we decide about far-reaching effects, it would perhaps be better to admit that Henny Porten's lif- and career have been selected as a starting point for biograph- ical excursions into the land of cinema history, for the reasoij that the widest public interest in her personality promised a favourable economic funding for this experiment. Not, however, that one should imagine that the development and the present position of film art should be demonstrated most aptlv by her power curve.
Henny Porten is a star. She has been one from the begin- ning. Have I to explain what that means? At least, then, that she stands in the foreground uninterruptedly. That her greatness fills the canvas. That her playing outdoes that of the others, that her inclinations, her taste, ambition, will, style, have a more decisive effect than these qualities in her fellow actors, in the architects, the photographers and the Directors. We see here primarily Henny Porten films, and
c
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only secondarily 1909 films, 1914, 1923 or 1928 films. These figures which one can gather from the different scenes, camera and decorative work, remain after all something incidental, immaterial, a mere background. The lessons thev teach are too sporadic and do not justify methodical deductions.
But it is just these which would be the most vakiable. Lessons on the development of the scenic play, courage to utilise those lessons, mobility, cutting. The Development of Film Art ]\lade Visible as Dr. Kalbus would have it, but could not have it in the case of Henny Porten, with a
Porten Carnival ". " My hat off to you, Madame, my hat oft' to you. Monsieur." We will take leave of her, and will hope to see him again.
A. Kraszxa-Krausz.
RENE CLAIR
A few days ago I found myself in a somewhat embarrassing situation. Close Up had applied to me for photographs of the Chapeaii de FaiUe d'Halie, and also of Rene Clair's newlv-finished film, Les deux Timides. In vain I searched for comic stills, for stills that should be brilliant demonstra- tions of Clair's peculiar comedic power. Xot one did I find, and presently I realised that there were none to be found that could give any idea of his work. For the keen, mordant wit of Rene Clair's satires and comedies is purely cinemato- graphic. So cinematographic that everything is lost when it
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is presented in stills, for his quality is to be found only in his rhythm, his astonishing sense of movement ; so cinemato- graphic that any attempt to reproduce in words what exists only in gesture must be abandoned as hopeless. Conning over those stills I grasped this at last, and rejoiced in the hopelessness as being the measure of Clair's cinematographic quality.
Although extensive and significant, Rene Clair's work is still almost unknown outside France. This, no doubt, is largely because his spirit is so entirely French, the most com- pletely so of all the French film-makers. By way of consola- tion, I may add that even in France Clair has only recently received the recognition he deserves.
Beginning as a journalist on Ulntransigeant he later became an actor in a small way, and then for a while was Baroncelli's assistant. In 1922 he was at last able to produce his first film : Paris Qui Dort, one of the wittiest films ever made. Shortly afterwards appeared Entr^acte, with a scenario by Picabia, a film which placed him in the front rank. His next film, the Fantdme du Moulin Rouges is, in my opinion, the least considerable of this series. But in the Voyage Imaginaire, an entrancing dream-comedy, his talents once more find full scope, and his success is the more remark- able by reason of the obviously very strictly limited costs of the production.
Then followed the second period of Rene Clair's creative activity; a period that has been widely misunderstood. Towards the end of 1925 he accepted a contract with Alb aires and was obliged, therefore, to make certain concessions,
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wrongly, and to the detriment of his reputation, credited to him personally. Clair realised that for the production of films money is required, and having found a firm willing to guar- antee this prime necessity he accepted its conditions. Never- theless, he may to-day rest assured that his gifts and his talents have not been squandered.
Into La Proie du Vent he succeeded, in spite of an unin- teresting scenario, in introducing excellent cinematography and in making of the whole a first-class piece of film work.
The next to appear was the Chapeau de Faille d^ltalie. In my opinion Clair here approaches the level of that mighty film genius for whom he cherishes so deep a reverence : Charles Chaplin. This is no mere blasphemous assertion, nor is it intended to convey the idea that Clair is in any sense an imitator of Chaplin. Clair pursues his own way. To make from a stage comedy of the last century a film for 1927 was a hazardous enterprise — and a complete success. This comedy, or rather satire, for Clair's wit is always sharp and biting, is pure cinematography. Not a single comic caption, not a single forced situation. Could one have believed it possibe to represent with compelling power upon the film a man who is a little hard of hearing? This seemingly impossible task (for surely the comedy of partial deafness can be worked out only upon the stage) Clair has transformed into a radiant possibility.
I have seen this fUm four or five times, discovering each time something fresh and surprising and on each occasion growing more convinced that in Clair we are dealing with genius on a large scale. It is impossible to describe his films. They must be seen.
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The commercial result was small and the artistic very little larger. This need not surprise us when we consider that his earlier adherents, expecting him to continue along his own lines, were disillusioned, and the larger public, under- educated by the average film, were unable to find their bear- ings ; Clair, moreover, is not particularly kind to the larger public. The great mass of poor-spirited, small bourgeoisie that is so large a proportion of the French people, saw itself, half-consciously, of course, mercilessly caricatured : its pettiness, its gestures, its very clothes. And this in such a way as to render impossible any illusion as to who it was that w^as being caricatured, any escape into malicious joy at the discomfiture of one's neighbours.
The result was unfortunate. For a whole year the firm to w^hich Clair was bound by contract was foolish enough to refuse him permission to produce. This in a country where qualities comparable to his own are to be found, perhaps, in three or four makers of films, appears inexplicable, but such was the case. Clair, together with Pabst (though, it goes without saying, on quite other lines), is, amongst European producers, the one whose personality is most completely misunderstood.
At present he is once more adapting a stage comedy, Labiche's Les Deux Timides (the Chapeau de Faille d'ltalie was also adapted from a play by Labiche). The film is not yet finished and, as I know Clair too well to worry him with questions about his current work, I am not able to say much about it. But in spite of myself I am rejoicing in advance, and I know I shall not be disappointed.
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From the morass of uninteresting productions that will make up the total of the films shown in France during the coming year, Clair's promises an escape for all those who value films worthy of the name. And such, let the picture factories do what the\' will, increase in numbers every moment'.
Jean Lexauer.
LUSTS OF MANKIND
By Oswell Blakeston
Lusts of jNlankind was made just before La IVagedie de la Rue It is the story of a famous opera singer who lives on cocaine and opium. (Cocaine for the practical needs of the day, and opium for the more decorative moments on a couch behind screens of beads.) The oriental grandeur is supplied by a sinister gentleman who uses Madame Thamara as a deco}^ to attract rich society patrons to the house, where he sells drugs and looks evil. So the daughter, the pure little daughter, must not know that her mother is alive and a dope fiend ; her father brings her up in the barbaric manner of fortv years ago. You must not do this or that. One day (the one day " of the sub-titles) a girl friend of the daughter persuades her to call on Thamara, and add a treasured auto- graph to her collection. The daughter gets the autograph
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and is invited to stay to tea. The villain offers her further hospitality. He entices her into a Chinese cubicle, dopes her, and threatens to seduce her.
Yes, there are shots of dancing feet, and hearts ache while feet dance I There is an out and out villain ; Alfred Abel, the devil I You must make no mistake, a man who sells drugs is very, very wicked ; therefore Mr. Abel wears his hair in two mephistophelean horns. Do such wicked men exist ? Really and truly ? The audience goes home feeling very virtuous, or else it laughs and laughs, and laughs.
It is a pity that Abel overacts, it is a pity that the scenario is black and white (good and evil, no people), it is a pity that the direction of Meinert is ordinary ; for there are many lovely moments in the picture.
Asta Nielsen is so beautiful. She looks into a mirror. She cannot go on with life. The corners of her mouth fall, and you know at once that she must go on doping and doping. Drugs, the craving for them, force her to live — their life. There is no hope, no wa}' out. She falls in a heap on the floor. The Chinese servant glides in. Expressionless face. Just another of Madame Thamara's attacks. She picks up the lifeless body on the floor without love, pity or hatred, and lays it on a couch. The camera shoots along the plane of her face. Her nostrils are distorted by the angle. So ugly, so lost, so beautiful.
Or she takes cocaine. Her shiny black hair, cut uncom- promisinglv, is brushed into order. She laughs, she smiles. How deeply she has entered into the part. We feel how wonderful it is for her to put life back in those dead features, the death of vears ; not how clever it is of her to simulate an
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expression of depravity. All her past in her eyes. Time- worn phrase, but Asta Nielsen is doing time-worn things and making them live. The way she sweeps round the room to impress her society clients, the cynical twist of her mouth.
Werner Krauss has some of the moments. An irrelevant part. A dope victim. He arrives at the house, he must see Abel, but he arrives at the critical hour when Abel is busy with Thamara's daughter.
Krauss is a kind of commentary on the dramatic incident, much as the Russian use Nature for a commentary on the themes of their dramas. There is a scene when our devil villain gives Thamara a pistol. " You say," he tells her,
that you want to be rid of me, that is the only way." She throws it from her. Not that solution ! The pistol lies on the floor. Here," I thought, " is where Krauss comes in. He breaks into the room, seizes the pistol . . ." But he does not, and Thamara shoots herself.
The lust, the craving. Krauss refuses to leave the house. He is waiting with his back to the audience — the first time we see him in the picture — his hand drums on the arm of a chair. There is no close-up of the hand, all is played in long shot. After all that was said about the back of Jannings in Vaude- ville, here is Krauss really doing it. Abel, the smiling devil, invites Krauss to come upstairs. Give me cocaine. Soon, soon. Upstairs. Abel first. Krauss follow^s in jerky rhythm, drawn up like a puppet on wdres by a man who promises cocaine.
In the room Abel tells Krauss that he has been tricked. The director can think of no better wav of treating the sequence than by cutting from Krauss to a close-up of Abel
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after each title. ^lust one always see the speaker of a title painfully framing his first or last words? This is one of the rare occasions when quick cutting would have been successful. If the scene had been played in one shot by Krauss it would have been far more effective. Apart from the fact that ]\Ir. Alfred Abel, with his ridiculous horns, is not an inspiring figure, and that Krauss is a far better actor, we Avould have seen the words mirrored in Krauss's acting, felt the presence without seeing it, in fact, it might have introduced quite a diabolical touch.
Locked in the room Krauss goes mad, and breaks ever}'- thing within his grasp.
As the Chinese servant, Maria Forescu is remarkable. Greater than the drug seller of Abu'ege. She glides in and out of the scene, counterpoint when lurid passions run high. She smiles instinclivelv at men, to humour them, to get them to be reasonable. Elizza la Porta as the daughter is cold, more restraint than one would have imagined after seeing her in a series of prostitute studies.
At the end of the film, when Abel lies dead on the floor, there is a dissolve to the head of a devil. The crudest devil since the early films revived at Die Kamera,
But Asta Nielsen . . .
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SIX RUSSIAN FILMS
(Concluded)
The Forty-First (Der Einiindviersigste). The Son (Das Kind des Andern).
The Forty-First, (In place of Zvenigora, as announced.) Meschrabpom-Russ Film (Derussa), directed by Protasanov.
Sand.
No pretty oasis, or distant minaret on the sky line, just sand. It gives one a peculiar feeling that the scenery has been rubbed out by deliberate hand to emphasize the faces. Faces of men fighting in the sand.
A girl is the crack shot of a little band of revolutionaries. She counts the number of officers who fall victims of her bullets, but the revolutionaries have to flee before the machine gun. (Here is a foreshadowing of the famous machine gun of Te7i Days,) Sand. Most of the men are on foot. The}" trudge on, till one of the vanguard sights a caravan. Horses and men run down from the hills of sand and circle the isolated detachment. An officer, behind a hastily erected barricade, falls to the ground.
That,'' cries the girl, is mv forty-first."
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The caravan is captured, but the officer is onlv wounded.
They question him. Has he got papers? He smiles sardonically. They search him, and find an official document. None of the men can read the language, so their leader decrees that the officer must be taken to headquarters. There is a hint that information can be extracted from the unwilling at " headquarters ".
Xow the procession winds off on camels, grateful for their good luck. The curves of the camels against the background of sand, which is no background, create absolute patterns.
A sand storm. In the confusion the water bottles are broken. Discouraged, they rest; but good luck has deserted them. While the sentr\- sleeps some roving brigands steal the camels.
The little band awakens to fmd no water and no camels. Thev do not kill the man who has betraved them, vet their privations are terrible. Men fall in the sand on the march and are left. These scenes have the peculiar poignancy of the later Russian pictures like The Peasant Women of Riazanj, It seems so heartrending to see the men fall by the wayside; types, and therefore more pathetic than individuals, who at least have their own destinies; just as the Peasant Women are types ; all suffering that comes to them is cruel and wasted.
At night the man who has brought so much disaster on his comrades sits alone. The officer is chewing meat, the other has no meat, he has been miissed out in the rations. Food. He stretches out his hand with an involuntary gesture to the officer. A smile, the meat is tossed over. The other eats. Pauses. This is a hated officer, a prisoner. He throws back the meat in the officer's fare.
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An interesting scene. They have not yet evolved the brutal officer of The End of St, Petersburg, who strikes the bound worker with his fist. Perhaps because the sand is so stark the men appear less harsh — the men who did not kill the sleeping- sentry. Is this your discipline sneers the officer — or perhaps they had not the courage in the early days to hit out so strongly.
The procession moves off in the sand. A man pauses to kill a friend with parched lips writhing in agony on the sand.
Meanwhile the girl and the officer are strangely attracted. She is writing in a tent. He asks her what she is writing. She shows him — a poem ! To show her poem, an act of the greatest friendship ! They are drawn together because her disguised feminism is satisfied by his education. Which of her comrades could understand her poem ? A poem of four or five lines !
He is drawn to her because of her beautiful primitive attraction. Culture appeals to the primitive, and the primi- tive to culture. It is very quietly shown. The basis of a volcanic love affair.
At night she cuts his bonds so that he can sleep in comfort.
At length the survivors come to a friendly village. For a few weeks their leader allows them to take part in the village activities. What a relief for us also to watch boats putting out to sea. The tension has gone with the sand. The officer lies on a bed sulkilv smoking, the girl busies herself with a thousand and one affairs.
But these men are doomed. They set out in a boat. The villagers wave good-bye from the shores. A storm arises.
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The boat is shipwrecked. The man and the girl are washed ashore.
The girl (primitive) takes the initiative. She finds a dis- used hut, which is always there to be found by the ship- wrecked. She lights a fire, and leaves the man while she goes out into the waves to look for any of her comrades who may be struggling near the rocks. The man develops fever. For weeks the girl nurses him.
The love story, as it is told by the second half of the film, is overwhelming. The first half suffers from frequent use of iris, which the cameraman must fortunately have lost. It is difficult to describe this part of the film. Here is a room. People live in it and love in it. It is not the kind of film in which people do little polished things so that they can be shown in close-up.
The man wearies. " Shall I stop in this hole all my life?" The girl glances round the hut with frightened eyes. Hole? It is, for her, home. His cigarettes are gone, there is a little loose tobacco but no paper or pipe. The girl fumbles in her bodice and hands him her poem. He rolls a cigarette, and gazes moodily into the fire. Dreams, smoke. The whole film is weighed with this rather heavy symbolism, which manages, on the screen, to be convincing.
Whirr of an aeroplane propeller. Shot from the aeroplane of a tinv speck. Waving arms. Gone. The man bursts into tears, the girl forces him to kiss her.
Quarrels and reconciliations.
A sail. This time their signals are seen. The girl, too, is excited. She does not realize. Suddenly she sees that he has become white " again, that she has no part in his
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excitement. Rowing boat draws near the shore. He is going away. 1 cannot live without him. (Culture tires of the primitive, before primitive tires of culture ; carefully concealed educational propaganda) . . . She bends over his dead body.
Who is this man, and why have you shot him?"
He was my forty-first, and I killed him because he was the only man I have ever loved."
O. B.
The Son,
SovKiNO Film (Derussa release), directed by E. Tscherviakov. With Anna Sten, G. Mitschurin, Peter Beresov.
Attention is seized by the very first shot in this film; not only seized, but given its clue. The husband greeting his wife in the hospital vestibule. Love and exultation. He embraces her tenderly, embraces also the infant in her arms. Wan and weak, she tells him This is not your son Repudiation, not of him alone, not of her motherhood alone, but repudiation of compromise, of willingness to submit, to pretend, to be falsely presented, falsely exalted. Her young, exhausted face is not hard or indift'erent, only weary. It is not worth while or it is not of help submitting to jov which she has scanned in her husband's face. Her eyes, searching his, have seen that the price of his joy is the price of too much effort, or even of too little effort. He is so willing to believe. Without bitterness or complaining, without timidity or feeling, " this is not vour son ". They go down the stairs.
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A large empty foreground, with two ligures and the bundle in her arms, taking the stairway curve of the background. One of those poignant, unforgettable " shots " native to Russian films alone.
The Son is an interlude, a comment, a transition, not a thing here or there, as, for instance, Ten Days or Two Days, The Son is the slipping past, the journey from milestone to milestone. It has almost a nebulous existence. But nebulous as thunder clouds, with a rolling, sonorous power.
The voung couple reach home. They have walked home together. Home is the " married quarters " of a great fire station. Neighbours are there to greet them. The husband (G. Alitschurin), stricken more deeply than could have been thought, has come home wild-eyed, wide-eyed, hurt and lost and alone like a suffering child. He shoulders away from the curious group, shrewd-eyed old women who make Cjues- tioning signs to each other. They look at the wife (Anna Sten). She has seated herself. Hunched and regardless. The child lies there, swinging in its cot. The} watch it in the tense atmosphere. Their shrewd eves grow more shrewd.
The husband has gone to a cafe. He sits and drinks, staring bleakh' with his child's stare. A woman seats herself at his table. She drinks and he drinks. Thev stare at each other. They look at each other across mutual grief. Thev see and do not see each other. She takes her drink and goes. He sits on, staring with his child's ca'CS, and his child's woe.
The night passes. Morning comes, and he has not been home. The wife is the centre of attention. The old women are saying now she has had a lover. They, at least, are find- mg life full of thrills. The wafe (Olga), with her shopping
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basket, encounters Gregor (her lover) in the street. He hurries along, keeping pace with her, plying her with ques- tions, until she has hurried away and out of sight.
Here is the atmosphere build in the first reels, deft, with extraordinary economy of means. Not lightning rapidity of Eisenstein, nor Germanic deliberateness — the imitated deliberateness of The Way of All Flesh — but in largo time, with heavy, exact chords.
The bovine misery of the husband, driving him further and further into estrangement, brings scandal to its summit. Olga is driven by the malice and gossip of the w^omen out of the fire station. Gregor takes her into his room, but they have no longer anything to share or give each other. She leaves him and lives alone with her child. One day she is visited by the chief of the fire station, an old man who has watched the disintegration of Andrei (the husband) with mis- giving. He arranges to have the child sent to a nursery school, and to give Olga work. A new life is opened to her. Here is needless trick-work. Radio is emphasised as a bringer of joy. Jazz bands dissolve in and out while heads of happy mothers dissolve out and in. Radio, we must re- member, is being used in the U.S.S.R. for education and propaganda almost as widely as the cinema. But we did not need this long passage of over-emphasis.
Fire, one night, calls out the brigade. It is the house (naturally) where Olga is living. Andrei and Gregor are also (naturally) there. Gregor rescues Olga, and ironically, Andrei goes into the flames for the child. Were this anything but a Russian picture we would begin at this point to put on hats, coats, do up our chocolate boxes, grope for umbrellas,
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Lusts of Mankind, a ]\Ieinert iilm photographed by Ludwig Lippert with sets bv Robert Dietrich. Important because of Asta Xielsen. herewith.
Lusts of Mankind. Werner Krauss as the drug victim and Maria Forescu as the Chinese servant.
Lusts of Mankind,
For full particulars of this film see article of same name in this issue.
Two dramatic stills from Mother, Pudowkin's ^^ onderful film, recently revived at the Camera' in Berlin, and at the Film Society in London.
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and, in short, begin to get ready for the scamper for the exit. But anything mav — this being a Russian film — yet happen. The rescued, Olga, child, husband, burnt but alive, are bundled into an ambulance together. They sit opposite staring at each other over miles of distance. The problem is unresolved. They do not fall into each other's arms. They both sit mtimidated, familiar strangers, ready to know each other again, but unable to. The wagon rumbles on. The film ends.
Leaving the problem open that way is clever. Not new, but — and this is what really does constitute newness — done in a new way. Done in life's way, not the theatre's nor (Russia apart) the screen's. You feel simply you are losing sight of them. Their lives have not been rounded off, sewn in and laid to rest in lavender, as are the lives in most films. We do not feel that we are leaving a theatre or projection room, but simply going away from people. We will go on wondering what will happen to them, if Andrei will cease to be so stupidly hurt, if Olga will be able to forget loneliness and humiliation, if they will love each other again, how the son will grow up. It is an interesting end: not only interesting, but piquant. We will remember Andrei and Olga long after people we have seen cosily settled, snugly disposed of.
The psvchology of all the film is very sound, and very sure of itself. The photography is excellent. Characters live and impress themselves upon us. It is all done with enviable restraint. The small parts — and this is a rare thing — are as real and alive as the principal ones. It is created, not fabricated. The technique is slick, and the acting beautiful.
K. M.
I)
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NEWS GAZETTE
So Eisenstein is visiting Hollywood, and Louise Brooks is coming to Europe. Why was Alarion Davies so careless about her photographs at the Lido, and why is Sir Nigel Playfair, at present acting as twenty-one-year-old Tony Lumpkin at his very much of a playhouse, director of a new cinema? Then, for to-day's glimpse of royalty, without which none of us would go to the pictures, The Circus was shown at Balmoral.
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It is a mistake only to arrive in time for the big pictures, we see too many of them. And it is a mistake only to write articles about the big pictures, big articles. We write too man}^ of them. Just as those thrilling flashes, like a good revue, all too short, enable one to sit back, tuning in for the main feature, these odd comments (not, alas, very thrilling) let me sit back and consider and digest, and not get clogged by writing again about imagery before I am ready. Topicals rest and spur the mind and put it in good humour, by which I mean Avorking order. That is why so little good work is done
in London, the humour's missing.
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Mary has gone gay, if you read Photoplay, and Gloria's voice will be heard in her next. But as that is a Stroheim, we
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shall probably all be having third-dimensional colour tele- vision by the time it is shown, and will she be able to say what we are all sure she does say in her parts ? They charged eleven dollars for the opening of the second Al Jolson Vitaphone film in New York, and there, I suppose, they did not even have the fun of it breaking. What good, anyway, can sound films be until colour and the third dimension are added as well? And when the images are so many times larger than life, why isn't the noise? Because our ears could not stand it. But it should occur to people that when our eyes are coping with an increased scale, we, as living organisms, are subjected to enough.
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They laughed at Sunrise when it was shown at the Avenue Pavilion. Not at the good technique, but at the bad story. Perhaps it is safer to be in London for a little — it is not quite so shattering — with only one or two films, Stella Polaris, to keep one alive, one can sit back and think, wrap the public apathy round one without letting it touch. Need not bother to keep up with things, any way out of date or irrelevant. We see a film, we label it " good " or frightful " ; that's that, where is the next, /loiu up-to-date I am keeping, but what has one done, doing that ? So much better to observe quite a bad film and study it, because if it is a bad American film, it will still be well-made, and we want our own films to be that as well. Studv even The Fake and see how many shots are taken to convey the suggestion made by the hero that the kind of man Norman Alckinnell always plays should telephone. Gesture, caption, " Why don't you telephone?"
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same gesture again, cut to N.M. regarding instrument, cut to hero, cut to N.M. taking instrument, cut to person other end, caption. Such an important incident, so deftly done — one of the best British films. Study The First Kiss and see how interesting the sequence of Fay Wray walking through a shipyard is made to be.
All of whicli is saying, you can as profitably go to bad films as to good ones, so there is no rest. \A^ell, it isn't, quite. It is saying, clumsily, no doubt, and very quarrelsomely, that it is more important to learn to see films, which can be done from bad, than to gloss over " big " ones. And as for clog- ging and the need for refreshment, there is hi a Monastery Garden. This is one of the British Acoustic Films that were put on tw^o nights before the Vitaphone came on w^ith its own obsolete programme. There is a gentleman who composes pieces for cinema organs, called " In sl this or In a that One of these has been taken and filmed with noises. This music was of the atmospheric kind that will accompanv por- tions of most films. In a Monastery Garden in particular did for religion, remorse, regret, evening, death, and garden- paths. This music, written to accompany films, has now been given a film of its own. We watch sound accompanying a film made to accompanv music that originally accompanied pictures. The logic is so absurd that we should laugh were not the film so charmingly entertaining. Built on a simple and easily understood plan, it shows a monk singing a verse, which verse is then illustrated by long shots of monks pro- ceeding to service in what looks like a garden of one of England's stately homes, lent for the purpose. The atmos- phere is in all respects definitely Old-W orld.
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But this is not enough. One cannot remain in England much longer, even for fun or politeness. The Regal will soon be finished. And the Regal is one of our newest theatres and it is one of those atmospheric affairs. There has just been opened at Golders Green a cinema that is like the Lido. The atmosphere of these two places is not so very different, so it may be called an example of home architecture. But the atmospliere of the Regal is that of a woodland glade in autumn. The roof or the dome, whatever these places have, will have a sky capable of changing from sunrise to sunset and a moon that will very obligingly wax and wane. The auditorium is to give the efiect that one is sitting under a pergola in autumn, a thing that rarely happens. Strands of autumn leaves hang about. The colour scheme is russet and gold, and the specially-woven carpet is to represent red tiles on which autumn leaves have fallen. It is odd to think of red tiles in a glade, but at least it is consoling to know that such things do have to be specially woven.
The programme girls, who are to have red hair, ought really to be dressed as robins, handing out programmes printed on autumn leaves, with which to cover the man}^ couples of babes in a wood more comfortable than the Park. At the end of the session the moon should rise, to their sweet discomfiture, while an amplified owl, hooting, would warn them it was time to go home. Dew might also be turned on to the same effect. The onlv thing that will be out of the scheme in this is, of course, the screen. Can vou imagine Lilyan Tashman as an appro- priate adjunct to autumn leaves, or Alady Christians thoroughly at hom.e in a wood, or Menjou, Negri (of whom there are so many films), Brigette Helm or Patsy Ruth?
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Presumably tlie Regal will confine itself to Westerns, Fair- banks and Lillian Gish.
It must be very wonderful to be able, mentally as well as practically, to decide to have one's theatre like this. I should build a chain, one like an airship, one like a submarine, a coal cellar, a racestand, a conservatory (though some are like this). Finally, a cafe to look like a cinema. There would be aerial, marine, underworld, or racing films to fill them all. Perhaps there would be even the audiences. I think they would come, because the scheme is not a bit new. It goes back to the days — here some flashes of nickelodeon history (I have been read- ing R. P. ^^lessel's This Film Business) — when ingenious gentlemen built a place like a cabin and installed seats that went up and down, giving the illusion one was at sea, what time a marine panorama went bv. The enterprise failed in those days. At least, the one I knew did.
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No, one cannot stay in England much longer. Six weeks has given Berlin time to open two new movie houses. This is what has been done with one of them. The purpose of the exterior of the Titania Palast (reading from Cinema for September 12th) is " The creation of an architectural aspect, simple, rythmic, yet strong ; striking an individualistic note, yet never leaving the purpose of the building in doubt Here it should be remarked that the purpose of Berlin cinemas in the main is, not to provide a parking place for housemaids and their half-crown Guardsmen, but to show pictures to the people who come to see them.
Night lighting was thought of in the designing and not applied after so as to effectuallv destroy line and mass. Broad
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black and white bands of translucent material were embodied in the building so that, when lit from within, thev bring it out in all its modern mass against the Berlin skv. The exterior illumination, incidentally, is of 160,000 candle power. The surfacing of the walls is metallic, silver or gold, and " the vaults, tapering to the four sides of the lobby, so as not to impede reflection nor interfere with the diffusion of light, are treated in pale colours Light is clearly important already in this house that lives by light-thrown images. The inside lighting of the auditorium is indirect. Instead of in those old trellis things each side of the stage, behind which the organ pipes can be heard breathing, as in a harem, the pipes are ranged around the proscenium, brought into the decoration and used as a lighting surface. Well, well, " it is all very modern and won't last '\ But, alas, the Regal will last: all it stands for has lasted since before when. The Empire is nearing completion in the old square, and a new cinema is being built in Queen's Road, Bayswater. They are bound to be more like the Astoria than the Titania. A picture on the scaffolding of Queen's Road shows the usual flippant, half- Georgian, half-cottage aft'air. One wishes it had taken example from the really pleasant Solex factory oft' the Edgware Road, behind the Blue Hall. It is maddening when so much building is being done b}' Iightspiel concerns to see the complete failure in England to realise a modern idiom in architecture. Why, why, ix'/za' is one here? Xow a Society has been formed to promote — guess what — the showing of only what (that which) is desirable in the social and economic life of the Empire and foreign countries. So that one word rules out all the Governments and their effects on the one
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hand, and all of serious modern life on the other. Since no one can consider both these desirable. Of course, they will have their own meaning for the word, but the society is really another form of censorship. If it means nothing to say a film is " good what can it mean to call it " desirable " ? A little thinking would show that it is impossible to apply either of these words to a film.
* *
Belle Bennet intends to film the Life of Isadora Duncan. Forthcoming attractions, four British films will be shown in the U.S.S.R., including the one for which Hugh Gee's designs recently appeared in Close Up, and, next month. The Imagery of Eisenstein.
Robert Herring.
LITTERATURE ET FILM
Force nous est d'etablir un parallele entre le livre et le film, tous deux renfermant une tranche de vie, inanimee dans le premier, il est vrai, et animable chez I'autre. Le film emprunte souvent aux textes litteraires, et le style de Tecrivain moderne subit I'influence du cinema. Tous deux sont moyens d'expression et revelent une epoque aussi siirement que peut le faire une chronique historique.
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Si les caracteres typogTaphiques n'ont pas une puissance de suggestion egale aux images, ils depassent neanmoins celles- ci en precision. II faut egalement leur conceder une souplesse d' interpretation qu'on ne pent atteindre par le moyen de Tobjectif et des acteurs.
Le film serait infailliblement inferieur aux oeuvres litteraires s'il n'avait le privilege de nous interesser, parfois, unique- ment en raison de notre curiosite de badauds ... la meme qui nous pousse a contenipler, de la fenetre, les passants et les choses. Un mauvais livre est irremediablement perdu, rien ne saurait le sauver, hormis une reliure de prix, mais i'ecran ou se joue un stupide scenario, vibre neanmoins et nous permet, si Ton veut, de lacher le fil de I'histoire pour nous borner a suivre automatiquement le jeu de tel ou tel personnage. Xous sommes susceptibles de nous interesser a tout, lorsque nous en avons la possibilite.
Cet avantage du film est si connu des regisseurs qu'ils n'ont pas manque d'en profiter autant que possible. A cette fin, ils enrolent a tour de bras les physiques " susceptibles de seduire Tattention, certains apres cela que le public exigera moins d'une bande ou il aura le loisir de contempler nombre de jambes finement modelees ou heros-types sacres photo- geniques.
II y a les romans et les oeuvres classiques, les documentaires . . . et le film est tour a tour I'un ou I'autre, mais sa predilection est pour les romans. Les romans-feuilletons, la vous touchez a la corde sensible. Quels accents ne peut-on en tirer. \^oyez un peu, la gamme est etendue. Debutant en mineur avec evocation de milieux aises, affranchis des " banales preoccupations, on noue une intrigue policiere
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avec, si possible, question d'heritage, ou elevation brusque d'une creature de classe " inferieure " au niveau superieur. Et puis, comme personne ne saurait tolerer voir un bonheur parfait on cree un conflit a base de jalousie, et I'on termine en pincant des notes plus graves accompagnant quelque operation necessaire de cloture, quelque liquidation d'un geneur qui disparait, perfore d'une balle, asphyxie, pendu ou ecrasse. Quel soulagement I Apres cela oseriez-vous dire que vous n'en avez pas eu pour votre argent ! Ce d'autant plus qu'in extremis les rayons du soleil couchant vous permettront de contempler les deux " cheres " silhouettes echanger un baiser. Bonsoir !
Freddy Che valley.
COMMENT AND REVIEW
The Adventures of a Ten-Mark Note By OswELL Blakeston
Direction : — Viertel.
Cameraman : — Helmar Larski and Robert Babesske. Sets : — Walter Reinmann.
The strength and weakness of this film is the story. The episodic scheme almost forces the cutting into briskness, but the episodes are too contrived. (A blind beggar girl stumbles
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down the street. The ten-mark note sticks to the sole of her boot, then adheres to the pavement.)
There is a long sequence of mixes in the middle of the film, when the note is passed from a prostitute to a coffee-stall keeper, and so on till it is laid to rest in a prosperous safe. Handbags are opened and the note placed so deliberately within, w^hile hands take just that much more time than is natural in shutting the bag. Inserts are frequently as artificial, but these seem to give a key to the whole film ; the bank note is placed in the scene so carefully. Cats carry the note in their mouths, rain washes it down gutters, w-ind blows it into the air, and the title-writer talks about " the ironv of fate
The second half of the film is more conventional than the first ; the girl who nearly sells herself — to pay for her mother's expenses in the hospital I How often we have seen it before ; but, owing to the nature of the film, these episodes could easily be cut out, and the film deserves doctoring, for it is crowded with interesting types. At present, too, it is burdened with wise-crack '' titles :
DISC MUSIC FOR THE DANCERS. PILSNER FOR THE PARCHED, Etc.
Another title tells us that a man is so mean that he prays to become bald in order that he need not spend any money on a hair-cut. Surely this is not fair treatment of so good a film?
Even in its ramshackled condition the film held my atten- tion. The direction has manv inspired moments. There is a fascinating shot of the villain sitting in the window of a
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cafe. IVams, buses and passers-by are reflected in the plate- glass. The city is intent on doing- something and getting somewhere, but we know at once that to our villain work and its purpose are but idle reflections; he has only one thought. I like also some of the earlier scenes of a soiree with the agonized face of a long-suffering wife. However, I cannot overlook the moments that strain after inspiration. What reason can there be for placing the camera on the floor to shoot a man and a woman sitting at a table drinking aperitives? Anything for an angle! When Righelli, in the opening scenes of Exiled, places his camera on the ground to photograph a mad onrushing crowd, he achieves a legiti- mate eft'ect because such a crowd would be most terrible to a man prostrate in its path. Righelli wants to suggest terror with his opening shot, therefore he is psychologically justified. Freak angles, unjustifiable angles, must ever be an abomina- tion ; thev distract the attention, and one wants to argue w^ith A^iertel about the meaningless angle instead of w^atching the characters.
Throughout the picture the photograph v of Helmar Larski is excellent. I should like to make an exception of the con- ventional centering of the characters, which I find verv tedious. Neither can I forgive the black backgrounds for the sake of some of the beautiful compositions. The better the general level of photographv the more shock is felt when large heads are shot against black velvet. Much the same shock might be experienced if somebody in the middle of a dramatic scene whispered in your ear : After all, it's only a picture, don't you know." Most of the large heads of Imogene Robertson are shot against black velvet.
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Werner Feutterer is charmingly boyish, and it is a pity that the girl is so colourless. Walter Frank, who plays the part of the vicious son, is more fortunate in being partnered by Anna ]\Iiel1er, who can give points to some of Hollywood's perfect screen mothers.
Re-edited and titled, this film would be worthy of attention. Will nobodv rescue it?
HOLLYWOOD NOTES
L^nited Artists' film translation of Jacob Christoph Heer's novel, " Der Konig der Bernina is well under way. The plavers in the picture, under the direction of Ernest Lubitsch, recentlv returned from " location " in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, where the major scenes, presumed to be in the Swiss Alps, were filmed during a stay of several weeks and amid manv hardships, as well as actual danger. Soon after their arrival the company nearly met destruction by a glacier slide ; a happening which at the time suggested the title Avalanche for the picture. This was subsequently aban- doned, how^ever, upon learning that Lasky-Paramount were doing a picture under that caption, and the Lubitsch film accordinglv reverted to its original working title of King of the Mountains .
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John Barr\ more enacts the leading role. Others in the cast are Camilla Horn, Victor Varconia and Mona Rico, a Mexican girl chosen from the ranks of the extras because of her striking personality and demonstrated dramatic talent.
Jesse Lasky has announced that the pictures obtained by Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack during their year's stay in the Sudan are to be used as the background or chief mise en scene for a film version of A. E. W. Mason's one- time popular novel,* " The Four Feathers ". Differing, therefore, from these film authors' former productions, Grass and Chang, the present picture will fall into the more con- ventional classification of a photodrama. Many scenes supplementing those of the African wilds have been taken at the studio since the return of Cooper and Schoedsack. Richard Arlen, known for his work in Wings, is cast in the role of the young Englishman, Henry Faversham, about whom the story of " The Four Feathers " revolves.
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A recently organised film company, Productions of South America, Inc., is planning to make a series of twelve pictures dealing with the life and legends of the ancient Peruvian Incas. Some modern American sequences are to be included in the films. These are now being shot at the Los Angeles studio. After their completion the company, under the management of J. Barstow Budworth, will leave for Lima, where a studio will be established. Existing remains of the Incas — temples, monuments, fortifications — will be used as sets and backgrounds for these unique pictures.
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I'exas Giiinan, who has been in the limelight during the past few vears as the proprietress of a notorious Xew York night club, has temporarily returned to Hollywood, to plav the featured role in a Warner Brothers vitaphone production under the title of The Queen of the Xight Clubs. Before her venture into the sophisticated gaieties of metropolitan nocturnal life, Miss Guinan was identified with Hollywood pictures as the dashing heroine of many vivid Westerns
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The hunt is now on for big names in the musical world as contributors to the phonohlms. Irving Berlin, John ^^IcCormick, Paderewski. George Gershwin and Percy Grainger are among those already secured or who are being angled for with tempting financial bait. Paderewski is reported to have been offered 8150,000 for three short film contributions, while Fox is said to have offered Gershwin $50,000 for the film rights to his jazz bizarrerie, " The Rhapsody in Blue to be used as a theme for a symphonic screen story.
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Preparations are under wav at the Christie studio for filming a series of Xegro comedies. These will be drawn from Roy Octavus Cohen's popular stories of present-day Alabama colored life, and will bring to life on the screen such of his picturesque characters as Florian Slappy, Lawyer Evans Chew, Sis Callie Fluskers and Dr. Brutus Herring. Accom- panied by audible characteristic speech, these dusky comedies promise to be an entertaining novelty.
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Michael Arlen's The Green Hat '\ done in celluloid, under the direction of Clarence Brown, is M-G-M's latest vehicle for Greta Garbo. To placate the moralists who have registered objections against the screening of this story, the picture will be released under another name — A Woman of Affairs. This simple device will no doubt prove as effective here as it did with the protested Ram, which under the film incognito of Sadie Thomson successfully satisfied the
American puritanic conscience.
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Harold Lloyd's new comedy, which went into production in September, is laid in San Francisco's Chinatown. Lloyd will be seen in the role of a police officer's son. It is reported that the picture will be at least part talkie ; Lloyd having been won over from the ranks of talkie skeptics after witnessing a demonstration of the Roy Pomeroy sound device which the
Lasky-Paramount are using.
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Robert J. Flaherty, producer of Nanook of the North and Moana, is preparing another like screen opus; this time with the Hopi Indians of New Mexico as the dramatis personce. With headquarters established at Santa Fe, he is at present living among the people of this aboriginal pueblo tribe, securing scenes of their picturesque daily life and their ancient ceremonies. The camera work is in the hands of Leon Shamrov.
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Adrienne Lecouvreur " has been adapted to a modern setting for film production by M-G-M. Fred Niblo is direct- ing the picture. Joan Crawford, supported by Nils Asther,
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Aileen Pringle and Warner Oland, will essay the screen version of the role first made famous by Rachel and later immortalized by Bernhardt.
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Russian stories continue to hold their vogue. United Artists are alone planning two more photodramas of this genre. In their search for material they have resurrected Pushkin's " The Pistol Shot and Gogol's gruesome tragedy, " Taras Bulba Each of these will be modernized in its cinema treatment, including the employment of sound effects.
* * *
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer are filming Jules Verne's " Mys- terious Island ". Directed by Lucien Hubbard, the picture will include many under-water scenes of unusual novelty and interest, secured off the Bahama Islands. The film will be done in color, with movietone accompaniment.
Mary Pickford's next production, to be done with audible dialog, w^ill be an adaptation of the recent New York stage success, " Coquette
«■ * *
Warner Brothers' net income for the present fiscal 5^ear, ended August 31st, is reported to be approximately two million dollars. Last year it was only thirty thousand. The tremendous popular response to vitaphone explains the difference. C. H.
E
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METROPOLITAN AMATEUR CINEMATO- GRAPHER'S SOCIETY
A Society, with the above title, was recently formed under the auspices of the British Empire Film Institute.
Its objects are : — The study of the motion picture as a medium of art, education, and entertainment ; the encouragement of the art and practice of cinematography ; to encourage local talent ; to produce amateur films for exhibition ; to negotiate the disposal of any films made by amateurs; to secure facilities for its members to film topical places ; and to formulate, collate, and propagate a vigorous Empire film spirit in favour of a higher standard of theme and artistic depictation.
A general meeting will be held on Tuesday, 6th November, and those wishing to attend are invited to communicate with the Joint Hon. Secretaries, at 15, Alatheson Road, London, W.i4.
BOOK REVIEWS
HERACLITUS "
Heraclitus, known as the weeping philosopher — " but gave no angle for glycerine tears, only he said Traura and so provided the motto for Ernest Betts, his book,
Heraclitus, or The Future of Films (Kegan Paul, 2/6.)
Why films have a future, why the cinema is a unique vessel holding the fluid forms of a new art we should have
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learnt as well by inference, if the author had dipped more bravely into that future — the tele-cinema, colour, stereoscopy, the talkies. Instead, he belabours the why.
As commerce, " films have as assured a value as aeroplanes, or ships, or newspapers But " it is difficult to write of the future of something- which has very little past, though it is undoubtedly more amusing ".
Films have a present, however, and it would be fun, taking standpoint in the future, to consider it. Yank-baiting would lose a little of its point if we could look back and see the real American contribution, their fast comedies, which seem one of the only genuine unselfconscious forms of art in the-world- to-day. Our sons will look back on the freshness of the early world, the folk-art of Hollywood.
Meanwhile, adjusting the balance with a footnote, Mr. Betts lets us in to some good baiting : a story being considered for the films : —
Is the author famous?" (Yes : full marks.)
" Can the public spell his name, or hers?" (No: fewer marks.)
^ Could Susan Switch, for example, ' star ' as Cleopatra, and swell the bank roll ?" (Yes : prepare scenario.) " Has it all the merits of a play, novel or short story, but none of the merits of a good film?" (Yes: start production.)
The way out of this state of things is by a self-denying ordinance : let films be poorer and less successful for a while. With this attitude it is not surprising that the author wastes no time bawling out the talkies. Unfortunate that their boost should have come after the book had been printed.
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Soundly, he sees the real educative value of films in their art rather than their pedagogy, but also foretells the inevitable development of the news and information side, when someone wakes up to do it properly.
Newton may have had a headache, but there is no reason why you should have one. Laws of Gravity now showing. Also, next Thursday's Revolution in Mexico, relayed pre- televisually from Vera Cruz."
R. d'E. B.
A THOUGHT
We compose sets of sub-titles in German and French : the Orientals make shift to follow the story without anv informa- tion, or on a slight knowledge of English. What will be the procedure for the talkies ?
If ever it mattered to the cinema industry it could, for the price of a film or two, teach sufficient Esperanto for the under- standing of sub-titles and dialogue in next to no time. Each sub-title would have the Esperanto version below : short lessons would be given after the news reel, it would be a publicity stunt, and for less than is wasted on a bad super-film the industry could prbpagand all over the earth. It may be forced to do this yet, because of the talkies.
We tell each other what the cinema will mean, but we hardly feel it yet.
R. d'E. B.
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vStella Burford, a young artist whose paintings may be seen from time to time at the New Enghsh Art Club and similar exhibitions, has struck a new line by her vigorous sketches made, bv the courtesy of the company, in the British International studios at Elstree.
The two sketches reproduced in this issue represent the exterior and interior of a huge cabaret set designed by Alfred Junge for Piccadilly — the fihn which is being produced at Elstree by Dupont. Arnold Bennett wrote the story, in which Anna Mav ^\"ong, Gilda Gray, and Jameson Thomas are starred.
Alfred Junge was the art director for Moulin Rouge, and other of Mr. Dupont's pictures, after a career as artist and designer for the theatre and opera in Berlin.
The set consists of a dance floor surrounded by a balcony, which is supported without pillars on the cantilever system. At one end an extremely decorative flight of stairs leads to the entrance. The dancing floor has a floral design carried out in inlaid wood, paint not being considered sufficient for the hard use to which it will be put. The design is sumptuous without being gaudy, and, while the general plan is quite simple, the strong curves promise to be more satisfactory to the camera, even, than they are to the eye. As the set is completely enclosed a mobile camera will have the freest scope, and there is hardlv a point from which lines and masses do not construct interesting pattern, while still remaining explanatory of the simple ground plan. This is more important than is gener- ally realised by designers, for interesting composition is often spoilt by the bewilderment of the spectator, who misses the action in trying to And out just where he is.
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Sketching in the studios is far from easy, as the light is continually changing, and it is almost impossible to judge colour, while hardly any corner remains the same from one minute to another, though these particular scenes were more permanent.
The whole collection of sketches will be exhibited shortly in a Bond Street gallery, and will open up a hitherto un- touched field of the greatest interest to artists.
It was a real joy to have the sub-titles in Mother (shown by the Film Society in London on October 21st) so faithfully adhering to the original ones. The translations were literal and lost none of their strength. The Society is not only to be congratulated, but thanked. The mangled, distorted or gelded versions of films shown from country to country, either as art films or even as ordinary commercial films, are so fre- quent that Mother, with every title intact, and every shot in its right place, was something in the nature of an achieve- ment, since not only its subject, but its treatment, are unmis- takably somewhat delicate matter in this land of the Bull Dog Breed. For as H. D. remarked, " The red flag of ' mother ' as she lies, a peasant woman, trampled to unsightly death at the frigid command of an aristocratic cavalry officer, is as red as an}' Flanders Poppy." And that's where the rub comes in. It IS I
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Those who have the chance to see Verdun, the French war tilm of Leon Poirier, released generally in England on Armistice Day by Gaumont, should certainly not fail to do so, and they should take their children, for although it was reported in the Press that small schoolboys whooped That's the way to wipe 'em up or words to that effect, and senior schoolboys said, " Although we know we ought to hate war we could not help feeling that if it were to happen again we would be among the first to go " (or words to that effect), we cannot believe that even a public school could make such a complete muggins of a boy. For Verdun does not gild or glorify war. On the contrary, Verdun goes very far (not as far as Pudowkin) in showing you what war really is like. It does not show you how to avoid war, which Pudowkin does with nothing more than rows of artillery garlanded with flowers and old men and women waving, but it does show you that war is a thing to be avoided ; that it wastes everything and builds nothing, certainlv not honour and glory, and cer- tainly not " the freedom of nations And it does succeed in showing tliat nothing in or out of the world is worth the finest of each and every race being nonchalantly butchered in the most unhygienic possible ways. It is not a propa- gandistic " fihn as such (ahhough if it came out of Russia frantic County Councillors would promptly ban it), but by its very impartiality, and juxtaposition of lives and circumstances (here, there, flashes back and forward), makes a strong case against war for all who do not rise up and hullabaloo and wave their hats whenever they hear their country's name. The photography is, on the whole, very good. The balance and continuity are excellent. But the apparition of the white
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robed angels all agog with their gravitation, hoisting up the weighty spirits of the dead they shall arise might well have been dispensed with. So might much of the sub-titling. However, see Verdun. It has much to give.
The American Film Meteor presented its first number in October, and is to be congratulated warmly on the excellence both of its conception and execution. The A. F. M. is a monthly journal priced at the low rate of 20 cents a copy, or 2 dollars a year, and edited by Walter Kron, who, inciden- tally, contributes a delightfully vigorous autobiography, wrested from him by the publisher, Howard Sanders. I am," he states, one hundred per cent. Sw^ede. My blood holds no other race. My father was a baker and my mother an excellent cook. For two thousand years my forebears have lived in the land of the midnight sun. I have never been a hobo nor a prize fighter ; my hair is blond, not red. I have never worked on a newspaper, nor sold advertising, and I don't know what truffles look like."
Mr. Kron's self-revelation is brief — which we regret, having as far back as paragraph one, where he tells us I am a skeptic, misanthrope with a distinctly negative mind ", found friendship dawning in us. If the world v/ere full of such misanthropes life, we feel, would be fairer, and if the same quality of " negativism " could be found in the minds of all humanity, we'd be willing to let it go at that !
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The first number of The American Film Meteor contains — among other interesting contributions — a searching article on The Little Theatre, which makes us realise that here is cer- tainly a journal which is not going to permit compromise or stand on ceremony. " We must expect," says the writer,
to see much nonsense and doggerel, dizzy shots of sky- scrapers, proclamations against God, light funny-paper satire . . . and, in fact, all the disjointed ideas that enter a director's head. This stuff will be pieced together and presented as serious art of proportions understandable to only a select few." This, certainly, is the danger of the Little Theatre. There is a kind of experimental film which makes most people feel with the author, that " if the Little Theatre survives with such notions, then I will go to theatres far more inviting ". On the other hand, a real service to the cinema is possible, and, indeed, often rendered by them. The author is right in his condemnation of the precious — and often ridiculous atmosphere of pretension w^hich surrounds them, but he has no word to say for their part in the encouragement and, more than that, the actual preservation, of film classics; for the splendid work, to take one instance, done by the Avenue Pavilion m London, in finding and reviving the acknowledged masterpieces of the screen.
There are some excellent critical notes on Vocal Movies. Says the author : " If sound is the one factor that has kept the movies in a complete morass of primitive notions these many years, then it holds my support without question." Our only British examples to date would seem to show that sound, far from sweeping primitive notions " from the film., has driven them backward to a naivete which has been
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laughed even from the stage for the last twenty years !
There are Three Thumbnail Sketches by the Editor of Raoul Walsh, Ernest Lubitsch and Clarence Brown, which command admiration for their critical insight; and also the promise of similar analyses of the work and methods of C. B. de Milie, Erich Von Stroheim and D. W. Griffith for next month. We are given some penetrating criticisms of several films, including Potemkin, White Shadows in the South Seas and The Last Moment, of which the author says, a large fanfare of such stuff is not drama nor does it reach any mys- terious depths With which we are in complete accord.
The American Film Meteor is in every way a stimulating and — better still — sincere journal, with plenty of vigour and virility and a real comprehension of the meaning of " the motion picture as an art That it has no illustrations
whatsoever would point to the probability that there is some definite prejudice against them, but apart from this, most of what it has to say is provocative and conducive to profound thought. Congratulations to its creators, who deserve the full success which we feel sure awaits them.
K. M.
Many letters have been received asking for information with regard to renting privately uncut versions of good foreign films for study. An article will probably appear in the December issue of Close Up on this point, as the situation in England with regard to private renting is full of difficulty.
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The Ufa educational department is releasing a film on pearl tishing- and oyster breeding. The picture shows many of the tricks used b}' the Japanese to make the oyster produce pearls of value long before the ten years which is the average time the untreated oyster takes to mature the pearl.
•Sc ^ ^
Readers of Close Up are w^arned that there is a movement on foot to stop the showing of any film with an A. certificate to voung people imder sixteen, even when accompanied by their parents. As this would mean that practically no film of value (owing to the present ill-adjusted system of rating) would be available for educating the critical taste of the young, all readers are urged to protest and resist this tightening of the censorship as much as possible. It should be for parents to decide what is litting for their children to see, and not commissions out of touch often with the art and feeling of the times.
The Production list for Prometheus (1928 — 1929) is one of the most distinguished on record, and includes two films directed by Pudowkin. The principal films are : —
Germinal
from the well-known Avork of Emile Zola. Directed by Pudowkin.
The Living Corpse (Der Lebende Leichnam)
After the novel by Leo Tolstoy. Directed by F. A. Ozep (director of The Yellow Pass), with W. Pudowkin starring.
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Storm over Asia {Sturm iiher Asien) Directed by W. Pudowkin.
Foreign Blood [Fremdes Blut)
Directed by Scheliabuschky, with ^loskvine starring.
The Way of the Betrayer {Der Weg des Verrdters) Directed by Scheliabiischkw
Against the Stream (Gegeu den Strom) {Salamander) Directed by Roschal, with Bernard Goetzke and Elsa Ternary.
FILMS TO SEE
First Choice (A). Second Choice (B). Third Choice (C). Russian.
Bed and Sofa {Trois dans un Sons-Sol). Sud film release. Ludmila Semenova, W. Fogel and Nicolei Bataloff. Directed by Alexander Room. Masterpiece of tragic psychology. (A)
End of St, Petersburg, The, Meschrabpom-Russ produc- tion. Deriissa release. Direction : W. Pudowkin. Mss. : Natan Zarchi. Photography: Anatolij Golownia. Sets: Koslowski. Played by Baranowskaja, W. Oblensky as Lebedeff. J. Tschuwileff and Tschistiakoff . (A)
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Forty-Firsty The. ^Nleschrabpom-Russ film, Derussa release. Direction : Protasanov. Particulars elsewhere in this issue. (B)
Mechanics of the Brain. Scientific film made by W. Puclowkin and Professor Pavlov. (A)
Moscoii' that Laughs and Weeps. Meschrabpom-Russ, released by Derussa. Direction : Barnett. Anna Sten, J. Kowal-Samborski, W. Fogel. Delightful new aspects of comedy possibility. (B)
Mother, The. Meschrabpom-Russ. From the story by Maxim Gorki. Direction : W. Pudowkin. The mother : W. Baranowskaja. The father : Leinstjakoff. The son : Nicolei Bataloff. (A)
Peasant Women of Riazanj {Das Dorf der Siinde). Sovkino film, Derussa release. Directed by Olga Preobrashenskaja. R. Pushnaja as Anna, E. Zessarskaja as Wassilissa, O. Narbekowa as the mistress, E. Fastrebitski as Wassily. (A)
Pits {Die Fallgruben des Lebens), a new film by A. Room. Meschrabpom-Russ Film. (B)
So7ij The. Sovkino film. Derussa release. Direction :
E. Tscherwjakov. Anna Sten, Gennadij Mitschurin. (B)
Ten Days that Shook the World {Oktober). Sovkino film, released by Prometheus Film A. G. Direction : S. M. Eisen- stein. One of the strongest films ever made. Cameraman : Tisse. Assistant : G. Alexandroff. (A)
Two Days. Wufku Film. Directed by George Stabavoj.
F. E. Samytschkowski in a marvellous role. S. A. Minin as his son. (A)
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Yellow Pass, The. Meschrabpom-Russ. Released by Derussa. Direction : F. Ozep. Anna Sten, J. Kowal- Samborski, W. Fogel. (B)
Zvenigora. Wufku. Direction : Dobschenko. Nikolas Nademsky in remarkable character role. (B)
German.
Crisis (Abwege). Erda Film, released by Deutsche- Universal. Direction : G. W. Pabst. Brigitte Helm, Jack Trevor, Herta v. Walter, Gustav Diesel, Fritz Odemar. (B)
City Symphony (Berlin). By Walter Ruttman. A day in Berlin with neither actors nor sets. Photography by Carl Freund. (B)
Edge of the World {Am Rande der Welt). Ufa. Direction : Carl Grune. Sets by Neppach. Brigitte Helm, Jean Bradin, Wilhelm Dieterle, Albert Steinriick. (C)
Looping the Loop. Arthur Robison production for Ufa. Mss. : Arthur Robison and Robert Liebmann. Photo- graphy : Carl Hoffmann. Sets by Robert Herlth and Walter Rohrig. In the cast : Werner Krauss, Jenny Jugo and Warwick Ward. (C)
Loves of Jeanne Ney. Ufa. Direction : G. W. Pabst. Mss. : Leonhardt. Photography : F. A. Wagner. Edith Jehanne, Brigitte Helm, Uno Henning, Fritz Rasp, A. E. Licho, Vladimir Sokoloft'. (A)
Marquis d^Eon. Emelka Film, directed by Carl Grune, with superb photography by F. A. Wagner. Liane Haid mistakenly cast as the Marquis. (C)
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Master of Niirnberg. Phoebus Film. Direction : Ludwig Berger. Maria Solveg. Gustav Frohlicli. (C)
Out of the Mist, Defu Production. Direction : Fritz Wendliausen. ]\Iady Christians, Werner Fuetterer, Vladimir Sokoloff. (C)
The Spy. Ufa. Fritz Lang Production. Mss. : Thea von Harbou. Photography : F. A. Wagner. Willy Fritz, Lupu Pick, Gerda Maurus, Lien Devers, R. Klein-Rogge. (C)
Tragedy of the Street. Pantomim Film. Direction : Bruno Rahn. Photography : Guido Seeber. Asta Nielsen in wonderful role. Oscar Homolka, Hilda Jennings, W. Pittschaw. (B)
Ten Mark Note, Adventures of. Fox-Europa Production. Direction : Viertel. Werner Fuetterer, Anna Meiller, Imogen Robertson, Walter Frank. (C)
Frenxh.
Chapeau de Faille d'ltalie (Italian Straw Hat). Albatross film. Directed bv Rene Clair. Featuring Olga Tschekowa. (B)
En Rade. Neofilm. Direction : Alberto Cavalcanti. (B)
Passion de Jeanne d'Arc. Carl Dreyer's great film, with Falconetti and Sylvain. (B)
Rien que les Heures. Neofilm. Direction : Alberto Cavalcanti. (B)
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Therese Raquin. First National. Direction : Jacques Feyder. (C)
Voyage au Congo, Neofilm. Record by Marc Allegret of his journey with Andre Gide to the Congo.
American.
Chicago, Pathe-de Mille. With Phyllis Haver and Victor Varconi. (C)
Docks of New York, Paramount. Directed by Josef von Sternberg. George Bancroft, Baclanova, Bettv Compson. (C)
Dragnet, The, Paramount. Deft Underworld touches. George Bancroft, Wm. Powell. Laurels to Evelyn Brent. (C)
King of Kings, Producers Distributing. Directed by C. B. de Mille. (B)
Man Who Laughs, The, Universal. Direction : Paul Leni. Conrad Veidt, Mary Philbin, Baclanova. (C)
First Kiss, The, Fay Wray and Gary Cooper. (C)
Speedy, Paramount A really good Harold Lloyd comedy. (C)
Stella Polaris, Fox. Fine film of northern hunting. (B)
Sunrise, Fox. Direction: F. W. Murnau. George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor and Margaret Livingston. (C)
80
The Avenue Pavilion
101 Shaftesbury Avenue, W. 1
A GAUMONT-BRITISH THEATRE The Home of International Film Art.
Managing Director - Reginald C. Bromhead. Manager - Leslie Ogilvib. Director of Music - Arthur Dulay.
The following attractions will be presented exclusive to this theatre :
Premier Presentation —
HE WHO COVETS
A story of Russia, the Bolshevic risings, and Revolution. Directed by Robert Dinesen. Featuring Olga Tschechowa, Paul Hartman & Robert Dincsen.
KEAN
From the play by Alexandre Dumas, and the authentic documents of the period. Directed by M. A. Volkoflf. Featuring Ivan Mosjoukine
TWO BROTHERS
The story of an idealist and a materialist. Directed by Karle Grune. Featuring Conrad Veidt, Lil Dagover & Liane Haid.
THE OYSTER PRINCESS
Pure farce, constructed in the spacious Lubitsch manner — an extravaganza on the subject of the burden of riches. Directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Featuring Victor Jansen & Ossi Oswalda.
A WOMAN OF PARIS
A story of everyday life, as lived every day by everyday people. Written and directed by Charles Chaplin. Featuring Edna Purviance & Adolphe Menjou.
MANON LESCAUT
Adapted from the famous and tragical romance by the Abbe Prevost, and the Opera by Massenet. Directed by Dr. Arthur Robison. Costumes by Paul Leni. Featuring Lya de Putti &
Vladimir Gaidarow.
Premier Presentation —
TARTUFFE
From the story by Moliere. " He who sins in secret does not sin at all.** Directed by F. W. Mumau. Photographed by Carl Freund. Featuring Emil Jannings, Werner Krauss and Lil Dagover.
THE LAST LAUGH
The story of an hotel porter whose tragedy lies in the loss of his uniform. Directed by F. W. Mumau. Featuring Emil Jannings, George John, Emille Kurz & Mady
Delschaft.
Buses to the Door : — Nos. la, ic, 14, 14a, 19c, igd, 22, 24, 29, 29a, 29b, 29c, 38, 39» 48, i39» 138.
In view of the fact that Dates of forthcoming attractions are often unavoidably subject to alteration, the Management respectfully request Patrons to be guided finally by the advertisements in the following newspapers : — Times, Daily Telegraphy Morning Post, Daily Express, Daily News, Evening
News, Star, and Standard.
Continuous Performances DAILY, commencing at 2 p.m. till 11 p.m. SUNDAYS 6 — 11 Each session lasts three hoars, thereby making 3 sessions per day, viz : —
2 till s S till 8 8 till II
MATINEES recommended for comfortable choice of seats,
W^nat s Happening m A merica
along the line of visual instruction in schools, and in the general field of public education, is presented in
Tlie EDUCATIONAL SCREEN
The only magazine in the United States specifi- cally devoted to the serious side of pictures
New thought on the subject
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Disinterested Advice from A Discriminating Source
The Film Bureau offers its subscribers A year's subscription (six issues) to the Film Bulletin (a monthly guide to the best pictures), November to April inclusive. Complimentary and specially priced tickets for some of the best pictures. Privately screened pictures. Service in arranging enter- tainments in connection with motion pictures. A fifty per cent discount in renting The Bureau's Portable Motion Picture Machines (for private screenings). An office information ser- vice and special advantages when it opens its own Little Picture House. The subscription is ten dollars a year.
Join now. Application cards and other data (including a complimentary copy of the film bulletin) mailed on request
Film Bureau, 4 West 40th Street, New York, N.Y.
The best voice in a wilderness of films "
That is what a New York motion picture man has said about The Film Spectator, edited by Welford Beaton and pubHshed in Hollywood.
Two years ago Welford Beaton conceived the idea of a new magazine devoted to the production and criticism of motion pictures. It was to be a publication that was different from others — one that did not fear facts — one that might not always be right, but one that would be courageous and honest.
Now The Spectator is acclaimed by public and press and Mr. Beaton is referred to as " America's most discerning motion picture critic He tells the truth about pictures and the people who make them with rare ability. Hundreds of heartening letters of commendation have been received.
** Read The Spectator ? Of course ! Where else could I find the same spirit of courage, conviction, and joyous contempt for consequences ?" — Samuel Hopkins Adams.
" I read the Film Spectator with increasing interest. There is vigorous and excellent writing in it." — H. L. Mencken.
" The Film Spectator reveals its editor as a writer of practically perfect English, and as a man with an analytical mind, a sense of humour and a profound knowledge of the screen." — ^Arthur D. Howden Smith.
" I naturally receive many magazines — all deadhead, bye the way, except The Film Spectator ! — but the latter is the only one of the lot I read, or have read, from cover to cover. And that is not because I pay for it, either." — Stewart Edward White.
** The numbers sent me confirs Mr. Ralph Flint's suggestions to me that your magazine is truly the best voice in the wilderness of films. Not only do I find your judgments honest, but they are penetratingly just." — Symon Gould. Executive Director, Film Arts Guild, New York.
** I find more sound sense in what you write about the present situation than in anything that has ever been said or written about it." — ^JOHN W. RuMSEY. (President American Play Co. Inc., New York.
** Welford Beaton is America's most discerning motion picture critic.** — London (England) Express.
" Welford Beaton ... a literate writer of motion picture criticism ... his opinion has been uniformly sound." — New York World.
are some
comments :
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DECEMBER 1928
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Contents
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An Early Work The Cinema in Paris Film Imagery : Eisenstein The Cinema in Retrospect — II A Museum of the Movies How to Rent a Film . A Fairy-Tale Film . Apotres et Multitude Two Film Snags Comment and Review
Kenneth Macpherson
OSWELL BlAKESTON
Jean Lenauer Robert Herring Clifford Howard K.M.
Bryher
A. Kraszna Krausz Freddy Chevalley P. A. LE Neve Foster
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Vol. Ill No. 6 December 1928
AS IS
BY THE EDITOR.
Once again on the subject of Russian films, if that is not too great a liberty, a few words, not in reply to anybody in particular, but because of criticisms in general, and dishonesty slightly more flagrant than that usually dished out in the critical columns.
And why did Mr. Atkinson have to talk as he did on the radio ? Britons are individually a fair minded people, and the most tight-laced Tory could not but admit — in fact, did admit and even protested — that if dice were overloaded, if Truth had been surgically demolished, if misrepresentation had run riot and falsehood shamed Jack's beanstalk as a flourishing garden weed, this certainly was not confined to Russia and to Mother in particular, but met its master in the O so bed-time-story of our truculent friend.
While on the subject of Mother, you must have read, too, all over the place, that it was a devilish, cunning, reprehen- sible tissue of lies, that the workers were represented as so many guileless lambs led to the slaughter, that Justice was made a farce and an abomination, and— in short — that since
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the workers were represented as other than besotted cut-throats the whole thing was a dangerous fake and must be suppressed at all costs. In the middle of such condemnations would appear sentences something like these : Mr. Pudowkin's genius is prostrated by his one-sidedness. The picture ceases to grip on this account. Authority and Justice are repre- sented as brutal to a degree, made up of types (and here is Pudowkin's'' cunning ") which emerge with all the terrifying and convincing truth of a Galsworthy study.'' Either this is suggesting (with devilish cunning) that Mr. Galsworthy's types prostrate his genius, being consummate falsehoods, or else you have to discount the whole criticism since you cannot have convincing or terrifying truth emerging from a tissue of lies.
Certainly to read all these silly, muddled critiques you would assume that the Russian Revolution sprang merely from a little light-hearted perversity. You would also assume incidentally, and this rightly, that the class hatred and venom which they claim to have discovered in Russian films is nowhere more pronounced than in their own criticisms. Can Close Up, then, in the face of all this tomfoolery, justly be dubbed biassed? Mr. Macpherson deceives no one, says one of them. Mr. Macpherson, to the best of his knowledge, has never sought to deceive any one. Not all Russian films are excellent, says the same critic, because Russia is politically unpopular, and not all Anglo-Saxon films are bad because Anglo-Saxondom has refused to accept the theories of Com- munism. . . Is it not possible that Anglo-Saxon films are bad because the attitude governing them suffers from much the same irrelevancy as this statement?
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Anglo-Saxondom (not Angles, but Angels) must be less bitter, less angry, less afraid. There is good material, there are good and willing workers, there are Vv'onderful possibili- ties, and we and many others are waiting with friendship and support for the time when they will emerge, not with cudgels and not with T.X.T. There is a great place in the world for British films. The ultimate power of Europe will in part depend on Anglo-Saxondom. Germany and France the wings, England the body. They must operate together. The body cannot learn to fly without the wings. But it can learn to fly by assimilating the principles of flying, and if Russia happens to have the best method, surely it is common enough sense to learn from them instead of wasting good time and energy saying that those who suggest it are trying to over- throw the Empire?
Anglo-Saxons all, we have much to learn and far to go. Let us admit it. Let me try to think of a good British film and I will give you Moulin Rouge^ with its German director and cosmopolitan cast. Not that this matters, for any one should be able to make a picture anywhere. But you could not blow a fanfare for Anglo-Saxondom here without includ- ing a blare or two for Germany, Czechoslovakia (if that is where Tschekowa comes from) and France. Yes, we have far to go. Our critic here on page 12 here beside me marvels at the perspicacity of Rin Tin Tin, but Mother, says he, could not possibly be shown. Poteinkin, you know, lies in War- dour Street, but you are liable to, I think it's penal servitude for life if you so much as try to touch it !
One has to come back like a dog to a bone always to wonder again and again just how all this can possibly have come
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about. America did bring itself to show about a third of The End of St. Petersburg and slightly less, perhaps, of Potemkin and Joyless Street, but even that is something. Moreover, America has given us films we can go to and be comforted by, like warming one's hands at a fire, and films like Moana, and Grass and Nanook and Chang and Stella Polaris or Lost in the Arctic, of which we do not have to speak except in praise. But England gave us Mons as an answer to The Big Parade, and Britannia as an answer to The Saturday Evening Post, and one wishes it would stop answering back and get on with its own development. We shudder to think what its answer would be to Ten Days That Shook the World or to the forth- coming Storm Over Asia, for answer it would given only half a chance. We must bend our backs, you must bend your backs to make films that others will answer. There's your task, directors. Truly you'll need the help of the Holy Ghost.
Can it be done? You are dubious. But you are trying, you are straining and struggling, working with joy and fury and rage and despair, with love and infinite pains and with miracles. Let me tell you I have seen men working thus ; you are not impressed. Let me tell you, if it's a question of money, millionaires work in much the same way. I once heard a director say Oh, that's good enough But it
wasn't. He is still seeking a job.
We have not caught up to America yet, how can you expect us to catch up to Russia?" Who would have the honesty to put it that way ? That is what it amounts to. But what work, what revaluation, what intellect and energy and striving it would mean ! ' ' We are not so badly oft' as we are, now you shut up."
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Meanwhile we have Red Dancers of Moscow and Patriots. Hush Russia up. Mr. Macpherson and his over- enthusiastic contributors would prove too much about their Sovkino friends." Oh, far too much, far, far too much for the man who wants to just jog along. And why? Simply because they are not afraid of asking you to work for that not-too-smallish salary. Go to it.
Kenneth Macpherson.
AN EARLY WORK
By OswELL Blakeston.
Before Joyless Street, The Loves of Jeanne Ney, or Bypaths — Don^t Play with Love! — I saw it run through in a little projection room in Wardour Street. The copy was old, men carrying stacks of film tins kept on passing through the room, the screen was too small for the throw " ; I tabulated every adverse condition, but I could not feel that I was seeing Pabst. I never would have guessed that the director of this film was to give us some of our greatest pictures, had I seen it before the others.
The chief interest in the film lies, then, in its lapses, film conventions that Pabst would now scorn, for the story is dull
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and (still worse) it is uncinematic. Prince ]^Iax Werner has aged before he has tired of light-hearted love affairs with the ladies behind the footlights. His friend, ]\Iichael Hennet, is one of those lucky movie heroes, the only child of a multi- millionaire ; and his chief occupation is his daily riding lesson at Theodore Nepallek's riding school. But (you have guessed it?) Michael is not really so interested in the horses, but in Theodore Xepallek's daughter Paula, who lives sedately at the Palace, which has been converted into the riding school. Prince ^lax invites Michael, as a kind of added attraction, to dine in a private room with himself and Eleanor Palmar, a prima donna, who presumably is allowed to look at Michael if she reserves her conversation, and other favours, for Max. This complicated system of giving a dinner is spoilt by Amina Hirst, a music-hall actress, who bursts in on the little party declaring that her companion is a bore, and may she have a cigarette? Polite Michael holds out his case and is rewarded with the theft of Paula's minia- ture. Professional training helps Amina to guess that Michael is the son of a millionaire and she returns the minia- ture to Paula with a note, savino' " ]\Ir. ]ylichael Hennet left this picture at my house. If he has been careless enough to leave my photograph in your house, perhaps you will return it to me. Yours sincerely, Amina Hirst." On the same day, at the same hour, the Government, who seem to know more about movies than most Governments, decide to sell the furniture in the royal palace. Paula's father is ter- ribly grieved, for he treasures each piece, and as Mr. Hennet, senior, buys the entire collection for his son Michael, is regarded with suspicion.
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At this point in the story I lost touch, and I can only remember incidents. The situations call for countless people arriving at the enormous doors of the palace, and each time the doors are shot from the same angle. Eleanor, played by Erna IMorena, is a baffling character; I could not make out why so much footage was devoted to her conversations with Michael. The next incident that I recall clearly was Paula being told to choose between the Prince or Michael. Poor Michael feels insulted at her choice, seeks out the unfortunate Prince, who is enjoying another dinner, less complicated this time, in an exclusive restaurant, and dashes a glass full of wine into his face. Werner Krauss, disguised as the Prince, behaves with beautiful restraint ; during the rest of the picture he just underacts, and his indifferent performance is as puzzling as the confused direction.
A duel. The combination of Krauss and a duel made me think of The Student of Prague, so that the duel may have been thrilling in spite of the fact that it was spoilt for me. Krauss, with more beautiful restraint, refuses to shoot Michael, who, in despair, turns his pistol on himself.
The- Prince and Paula go to Paris. A series of composite shots of electric signs, streets and shops and (oh dear ! oh dear !) the Eiffel Tower. La Bal du Moulin Rouge " and the Prince and Paula watching the Charleston. No need to go to the Plaza to laugh at the films of twenty years ago, the wild abandon with which the dancers throw about their legs in this scene seems equally remote and ridiculous as any fashion parade of 1908. Seated at a table near the Prince and Paula are a young couple verv much in love. The Prince and Paula look at them. Large close up of the Prince's hand
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pouring out a glass of champagne. Paula takes a glance at the young couple, raises the glass to her lips and — DOES NOT get drunk, instead, she asks her father to take her home, (I had already visualized the walls flying round and mixing to the diners — photographed in a spherical mirror.) In the hotel lift Paula meets the young couple once more, she goes to her room and dreams of Michael, so that the Prince receives the Avelcome she has given to Michael in her dream. After the Prince has left the room she runs to the door and flattens herself against it in the form of a decorative cross, an example of one of the stupid film conventions that would not be found in a modern Pabst.
The film flickers quickly to its happy end. Paula realizes how silly it is " to play with love " and flies back to Michael's bedside, where he is recovering from his wound, while the Prince resumes his friendship with Eleanor. We are not even spared the final sequence where Michael goes to work, cheered by the love of Paula, in his father's factory.
It is difficult, with imported films, to know how^ much of the muddle and spinelessness is due to the English editor and censor, yet one is tempted to ask how Pabst learnt to be the genius cutter of The Loves of Jeanne Ney, There are two shots juxtaposed which must have been so placed in the original version because nothing could conceivably have been placed between them. In one shot there is a triangular white polished floor of a large hall, in the other a black triangular mass of a library, but the apex of the white triangle is higher in the picture than the apex of the black triangle; the result of the juxtaposition of these two shots gives the immediate effect that the picture is out of rack Smooth cutting
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demands careful attention to the opposing of the masses of black and white. Another fault noticeable in the film, which is the fault of the director and often attributed to the cutter, is that characters arriving before a door walk with slower gait than when we glimpsed them in a long shot hurrying down a street. The set constructed in the studio, representing the door and adjoining walls, is not large enough for the actor to get into his stride, he should be made to start his walk at least a dozen yards before he enters the picture, whereas he is generally waiting for his cue just out of the picture.
In the afternoon of the same day I saw the trade-show of Show Life, a German picture directed by Richard Eichberg, starring the little ex-laundry girl, ex-Hollywood actress, Anna May Wong. I am myself a " fan " of Anna May Wong, and I used to \\onder if she would ever leave Holly- wood to work with people who might appreciate her charm, for Hollywood seemed to be blind to the grace of the little creature. The American casting directors occasionally gave her small parts of Chinese serving maids, but she had to go to Germany to be made a star.
Paradoxical as it may sound, Anna May has gone to Germany only to be Americanized, for Show Life is full of the stock movie situations punctuated by large heads of the star. Richard Eichberg, the director, is the author of many film comedies.
There were some amusing comparisons to be drawn between the two films. Mary Kid in Show Life plays a typical vamp, with frizzed hair and glittering gowns ; Maria Paudler, the Amina of Don't Play with Love, is quite a creature of flesh and blood. Her broad face is certainly not
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pretty, while her clothes, especially the short morning wrap, are sufficiently ugiy to be part of her characterization. In the scene that I have already mentioned, when Paula opens her arms to the Prince believing him to be Michael and sud- denly realizes her mistake, G. Pabst allows Werner Krauss to wrap his dressing-gown more tightlv around his body and leave the room. Richard Eichberg would have made Henrich George throw half a dozen knives.
And in the photography. The copy of Don't Play iK^ith Love was scratched, nevertheless there was a pleasing natural- ness abotit Seeber's camera work; Heinrich Gaertner, on the other hand, uses white gauzes throughout ShoiL' Life to smudge the edges of his pictures, and his effect arcs in the lamps of a studio street were so strong that they flared in the most unlifelike manner. The worst example is a travel- ling shot when Anna May Wong walks down the same studio street followed by a powerful spot light. There was also a meaningless pan from a mirror to two actors standing in front of it and back again to the mirror, where nothing is gained hv shooting into the mirror as no third person enters the room. It is just a tr\'ing moment of \lr. Eichberg showing the critics that he has grown out of his revue girl comedies, and that he can move his camera with the best of them.
This much I can sav for the early Pabst, but it was not distinguished.
I have so often rhapsodized in Close Up over Joyless Street and Jeanne Xey that I hope I have a right to make these comments.
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THE CINEMA IN PARIS
Perhaps it is only recently that the significance of the special Paris cinemas has emerged. These cinemas, which were destined in the beginning solely for intelligent spectators who demanded better material for the screen, have become, it seems to me, places where you may see ordinarily good films ; that is to say, films which ought to please everyone and which ought to be understood by all classes. Whereas last year these cinemas, as a general rule, showed films with a limited range, that is to say, films which could not be shown in the commercial cinemas, to-day their programmes must be considered in a totally different light.
The Studio des Ursulines, manao'ed so ablv hv Tallier and Murga, has been showing for over two months Howard Hawks' film, A Girl In Every Port. After its exclusive run at the Ursulines, this film will certainlv pass on to the cinemias of a more popular type. Here, surely, is real progress, for last year the experimental and abstract films shown here, in- teresting as attempts, were considered erroneously as the cinema's true future. A Girl In Every Port confirms mv hypothesis with regard to the nature of the small cinemas, for this frank and delightful film will on its own merits satisfy everyone. Additionally, they are shoAving the technically interesting film of ]\Ian Ray, Star of the Sea, While not
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" true cinema perhaps, it is very beautiful and well made. The fluid images which Man Ray obtained with the use of ground glass in front of his lens are of a magical beauty, like impressionistic paintings, charming the eye with the suavity of their flow. Man Ray has rendered perfectly the peculiar atmosphere of a modern poem. Clearly such was his inspira- tion, and the result is very remarkable.
Georges Lacombe, Rene Clair's assistant, is also showing at the Ursulines a documentaire on the Zone, that vague terri- tory encircling Paris between the city and the suburbs. An extraordinary section, this, inhabited mostly by rag-and-bone men. The sombre and bitter beauty of the district has been well captured in this film. Can one rightly call this a docu- vientaire ? For Lacombe shows it to us from a very special and personal angle, and makes us see as he himself must have seen the Zone and its inhabitants. In one small scene two actors are employed, but their acting merges so into the rhythm that it is not apparent to those who see it. Hence this can scarcely be termed a document, for it is not solely a report- ing of facts, but rather an excursion or small voyage seen through the eyes of Georges Lacombe. Not that this is in any way a reproach, for we are held constantly by the pic- tures and not for a moment bored. The photography and cutting are equally praiseworthy, and it is made with a technical exactitude which has the great merit of being in no way pretentious.
The Cine Latin has revived Room's Bed and Sofa, and its orchestra has been replaced by mechanical music.
The original installation of this, however, was made in the Studio 28, and now we have it also in the newest special
16
Photo : Derussa
Alexandra Woizich who plays the leading role in The Forty First.
Photo : Derussa
The Forty First.
Two scenes from All For A Woman [Loves of Ike Mighty) the historic film of Dimitri BuchoAvetzki, shortly to be seen at the Avenue in London. Jannings, as Danton (below) gives one of his most famous
roles.
By Courtesy of Varietes.
Typical scenes from White Shadows in the South Seas, a Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer production, directed by W. S. Van Dyke, in which the leading parts are played by Monte Blue and Raquel Torres, supported by a large cast of natives of Tahiti, where the picture
was taken.
Giving the Movies A Voice. . . . Tons of steel and concrete, huge two- ton doors and other elaborate details went into building the giant sound- proof stages forM.G.M. Movietone at the Metro-Goldwvn-Maver studios.
From Emil Jannings' latest Lasky-Paramount picture, The Sins of the Fathers, directed by Ludwig Berger, and scheduled for re- lease in December. Above, Wilhelm Spengler (Emil Jannings) as aprosperous and contented restaurant keeper. Below with Zazu Pitts, who plays the part of his wife.
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cinema, the Salle des Agriculteurs. Unfortunately, it has not yet been grasped that a cinema needs special construction. The Salle des Agriculteurs, which was originally a concert room, could hardly be termed distinguished for its comfort. Its opening programme consisted of Voyage en Tripolitaine by Marc Allegret, Rien que Les Heures by Cavalcanti, and also that delightful film by Roy del Ruth, Wolves Clothing. The second programme contained Le Perroquet Vert, by Jean Milva, which would have been interesting had not the young director been crippled by an almost impossible scenario. Therefore, while the film holds much promise, it is not vrai cine '\ Its chief value was in the acting of Pierre Batchefif, an actor who so frequently mis-directed, shows here an astonishing sincerity.
At the Studio 28 has been a document on Leo Tolstoy, which seems a little old-fashioned and out of place, in addition to which was Tolstoy's Puissance des Tenehres, This, in spite of certain qualities, has aged perceptibly and disappoints on account of the falsity of acting common to its period. La Marche des Machines, an experimental film by the young Ukrainian director, Eugen Deslaw, who is, at the time of writing, in Paris, has great interest. With no story whatever it is composed of cinematographic rhythm, effects achieved by brisk cutting (Russian), and shows us the overwhelming and almost irreal force of machines in motion. He has found many unfamiliar machines which achieve astonishing effects of movement. I myself like the verity of the subject, but I do make this reservation : Deslaw was quite ruthless and cold in his experimental film and it is unlikely it will be approved by the general public. ; r;/l
B
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The Vieux Colombier's first programme contained Stern- berg's magnificent film, Underworld, which, in my opinion, should be classed among the masterpieces of the screen. Underworld has lately been replaced by Galeen's Student of Prague,
It will be seen that on the whole there has been an important evolution in the programmes of the special cinemas which undoubtedly tends very much to the good.
It is much harder to speak of French production which seems to have landed itself in an impasse from which there is no escape.
The reason is perhaps that in France, with the exception of a few enthusiasts, the real elements of cinematography have not yet been understood. Even the most interesting directors let themselves be led away — though they have no other option than to work for those w^ho pay them — into making films which may be interesting and well constructed so far as they go, but which lead one no farther in the development of the French cinema. France at this moment is too self-centred and not eager enough to know what is happening in other coun- tries. Let me recount an example of the unjust and foolish restrictions that are being made.
Last year a society called Les Amis de Spartacus was formed to show films of special interest, and above all those which could not be seen for various reasons in the ordinary cinemas. Naturally, they showed Russian films, such as Mother, Potemkin, The End of St. Petersburg and Ten Days. A few weeks ago this society was informed that it could not show in future any film that had not been submitted to the censor in the ordinary way. And as Russian films are almost never
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passed by the censor this virtually amounted to their being entirely blocked. There was nothing so extraordinary in this, perhaps, except that scarcely anybody protested against such a violation of intellectual liberty. But the story became much more significant and inimical when it transpired that the firm of Aubert (which possesses a large circuit of cinemas in Paris) had acquired exclusive rights to show Russian films through- out France. There is no reason why Aubert should not gain money through showing Russian films, but the danger is that they will be cut in a ruthless manner. The opponents of the Russian cinema will point to these incoherent remnants and prove from them that Russian films are bad. So far no one has protested against this broad injustice.
To return to French production. Jacques Feyder (who is shortly going to America) has finished Les Nouveaux Messieurs. I think this will count among the two or three French films of the year. Albert Prejean, Gaby Morlay and Henry Roussel are included in the cast. In it we shall see also a sitting in the Chamber of Deputies which ought to be amusing.
Cavalcanti is finishing the cutting of Capitaine Fracasse, with Pierre Blanchar, Lien Deyers and Charles Boyer. It is an historical film, and for that reason I am a little doubtful whether Cavalcanti, who is so essentially modern in spirit, will not lose himself in a subject that must be quite alien to him. ,
Marc Allegret has just finished Papoul, a comedy after Louis d*H6e, with Alex Allin and Colette Dafeuil as chief actors.
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Marcel THerbier is now cutting his latest film, L*Argent, after Zola, with an international cast, including Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, Marie Glory, Alcover, an English actor Henry Victor, and Yvette Guilbert. There will be many spectacular sets.
Jean Gremillion, who gave us that very visual and poetic seascape. Tour au Large, is now directing for a new society, " Le Grand Guignol " (which proposes to give to the screen programmes similar to those already given to the theatre), Le Gardien du Phare, with Gilbert Dalleu. But it is question- able if the adaptation of such theatrical pieces for the screen is desirable.
And that is all. I have noted here the films from which one has some right to expect a certain artistic merit. I hope we may not be disappointed in them, but shall we be so fortunate ?
Jean Lenauer.
FILM IMAGERY: EISENSTEIN
Admitted that I have only seen two films of this director. But he is going to Hollywood, and when you consider that the result of even Tourjanski working even in Berlin is that Lillian Hall-Davis is the heroine of a Russian film, you will feel that it is truly now or never. As I have only seen
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two, it is more natural than ever that I should talk about Potemkin; it is essential, and it helps that so many others have. Stills, too, are so sunk into peoples' minds that they will at once know what I am talking about. Those guns and the doctor and the bit of meat are so familiar, you do not have to expend energy in taking in the fact that I am saying that in a film called (pardon me) Potemkin there is a bit of bad meat, you know it already and can progress a little further. In fact, listen to something new about the meat, w^hich may atone for what you think we are all doing, killing the film, as books have been killed, by too much criticism.
In these articles I am not, so far, discussing what film imagery is, nor dealing with the " images ", in the other sense, of which each shot consists, each picture on the square being a light-brown pattern of black and white. That is a cross-cut question, that latter one, and the first is best con- sidered when we have seen what such and such directors do, and so can reach a general conclusion that we know about. A spade must be assumed to be a spade till we have seen it digging. Images " here then mean, not the French meaning, but the screen equivalent of ephithet, metaphor and simile. So now, Potemkin begins with some shots of water, the sea. The first sub-title says that cold, or dark, and unruhig broke the day. And the first thing evident about the film is that there is more imagery in the sub-title than in the shot. The seascape is straightforward, atmospheric, reminds you what sailors do, what they are up against, sea and cold, and of the spirit that made them be sailors. The sub-title is atmospheric, too, but it says two things, or if you prefer, it means one thing while seeming to say another. It
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seems to be talking about the quality of the sea, yet we feel at once prepared for what follows about the crew, the day dawns dark, as so many have, the atmosphere on panzer- kreuzer Potemkin is unruhig. Nothing especially Eisenstein so far ; Pudowkin has an equally symbolic caption with that An die Briicke of Mutter, But now there comes the trouble. The meat given to the crew is bad again. Shot of the meat, crawling. The meat is quite plainly, with no non- sense about it, crawling. We get the disgustingness of it by seeing it as it is, crawling. No external shot, no symbol. Pudowkin would have given us some other shot, not at first sight connected with it, not logically. Eisenstein does not. I am not saying that he should, he works on a different method; I am trying to find out for myself what it is. He gives us the meat as it is, not as it seems. Or might seem to individuals. As it is, so that we can't mistake it. He in- tensifies it. He heightens the drama. He makes it as significant as he can by heightening the drama. And think- ing of the other shots in this and Ten Days, I think this holds good.
The eve-before-battle is intensified in Ten Days by the women^s battalion, and their powder and their shoulder-straps under their tunics. And the death of the sailor is intensified by the crowds streaming from all parts of the town, and so on. Drama. And the images are dramatic images. Nearly all of them are dramatic images, that is the difference. When the body of the sailor (the one who died for all) is laid out for the populace (all ready to die for that one), the tent flaps in the wind. Quite naturally. There is no other shot of something subconsciously connected, we just see the tent
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flapping, at first incidentally, gradually more significantly, gradually becoming more important, while something else crops up in the scene incidentally. The tent which was flapping all along is used to cap the scene finally. It is what we remember it by. The dead man was so vigorous and now he is under the tent, and it goes on flapping. Similarly, the crowd. They came in while we were concerned with the dead man, the dramatic interest shifted, we saw more crowd streaming in, until there was that remarkable shot of the jetty or dyke or bridge out into the harbour, thick with them com- ing in. That was what they would do, that was what it meant, the narrow strip across the water was filled with them. They would come across that, making it black, there were so many of them. Ein fiir alle, alle fiir einen. So we got what the man's death meant, quite simply, always with some imagery clearly connected with the drama. In fact, Eisenstein makes our consciousness fully aware, brings it fully into play, by playing on it till the subconscious is awakened ; dragged up to reinforce the conscious. Pudowkin (again, this is not to make the argument I am so sick of, which is greater, merely to make each clearer by comparison) plays on the subconscious till it touches the ordinary state of mind.
The same thing happens on the famous steps. The crowd gathers to welcome the cruiser as it arrives at Odessa, manned by its mutiny crew. (The news which brings out the gay crowd has been brought by officers of the ship, who swam ashore.) Among the crowd many women, among the women, many parasols. The scene is one of joy and — what one fails to get from the stills, which is why one thinks the film can be talked to death — is glistening with light. On dresses and on
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parasols as they revolve in light hands. Here again we receive the full impression of the scene by a significant detail. The turning parasols. And let us note that they are in move- ment (also in use). They are not held up to us in a close-up, in the American-artistic way, note this, w^e have discovered what a symbol is. It is just natural that on a bright day, when the w^omen are eagerly waiting, they lightly turn their parasols.
And now note what Eisenstein makes of this natural fact. He does not get it and throw it together with other natural facts and think he has made something. He uses it in two ways. P'irst, as we have seen, dramatically. Then visually. It should not be fanciful to see in the stone steps, glittering with light, rustling with skirts and veils and parasols, a sea. A stone-sea bed, overlaid with waves of silk and lace and light. And so we progress and are visually ready for the progression out of the harbour, with the sailing ships taking supplies to the cruiser, where a lady gives them a bird, and so the sailors see w^hat w-e have already seen, the crowd waiting to welcome them. Attuned as we are to the motion of the sunshades, we fall in more readily, are able to appreciate more fully, the larger, swinging sails. The parasols link to the cruiser, they link also, as that first sub-title did, to what is about to happen. For the gay movement they provide is followed by the frenzied rush, the crumpled stillness when the soldiers fire, fire on the crowd w^aiting to w^elcome the sailors, and legs descend the steps, and the w^hite rounds of the parasols is repeated then only by the bundled baby hurtling down. By two conscious facts, our subconscious is reached; by association of plain things, sunshade and bouncing pram ;
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visually reached also by repetition of design. This is how Eisenstein works.
He brings out his drama by composition. He relies on composition to heighten (the word I have used) his drama. Pudowkin, once again, does not rely on composition so much. Plenty of scenes in the two films I considered are significant more by being complementary than pictorial in composition. But they suffice supremely, because his care is with subcon- scious imagery and that is his appeal. The picture he forms in our minds, not what he presents separately to our eyes. I know that one can cite at once several scenes seeming to disprove this. The scene I wrote about in St, Petersburg, of the figures crawling across the square, seen from above, and in Mutter the tenseness of the about-to-be strike is doubled by that particular view of the gates, the men and the group. But Pudowkin knows when to abandon his general plan (as does the other) in order to get the effect it would not yield in some particular case. If he is not always different from Eisenstein, let it be remembered there is no reason why he should be. There is a recognisable quality in all Russian pictures, and a recognition of pictorial value is one of them. Eisenstein has it so strongly that he does without any but dramatic imagery, and that is brought about mainly by the success of his compositions, which seem to make something symbolical. When we consider Eisenstein we are aware of something different. There is one curious fact, that the symbols that leap to mind are never people, always objects. The ship thrusting out in Potemkin (it was reproduced in Close Up for March) and the crowd streaming over and under a bridge in double movement; the tables swinging, the
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machine-guns . . . these are symbols. The people are only dramatic images. You would not say that they symbolised anything, only that they brought out the drama. The seamen holding a shell in readiness, the man speckled with light, these are images, and not svmbols, because they are not carried so far.
It would be as well, despite what I said earlier, to remember or formulate the kinds of imagery and the way it may be used. The three main kinds are decorative, dramatic and symbolical. Each of these is used or invented by a director in the desire to state something vividly. To image " is defined as ''to describe vividly, to typify So when a thing has been vividly described by the use of imagery, it is found that imagery has come to typify it. It is a near step from this to symbolism, but it remains distinct, all the same.
If you state a thing vividly enough by a succession of images, those you have chosen come to condense the meaning of the whole and to contain it. This is what Eisenstein does, but it does not make his people symbolical because he is not primarily concerned with them. He uses them to make the theme of his films more vivid. They are there to bring out the scale, as painters put in a figure when they paint a vista. Their care is with the vista, they waste no detail on the figure, but it has to be there to bring out vistaness, which just a vista would not do. People emerge now and again in Eisenstein, and make the revolution or the mutiny or the struggle for life more vivid. They bring it home to us, they make it more vivid, they are images. But dramatic images, not symbols. The woman with the child, rushing back to face the soldiers, may be symbolical, but she is not so entirely
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symbolical as Baranowskaja with her potatoes in St, Peters- burg, The same with all the people flung up from time to time : the women's battalion, the priest, the sailor of the firing party, the sailor about to be shot. They are bits of glass which catch the light for a moment. Bits of glass in a factory which, suddenly catching the light, make us see, from our distance, the window they are part of, all the other win- dows too, and the life that goes on behind them. By a bit of glass the life of the factory. They are bits into which the whole for a second becomes concentrated ; they represent, however, by concentration, not by expansion, as symbols do. That is why one is aware that the personal element is missing from Eisenstein, but it is not always realised that it is pur- posely missing. The priest in Potemkin is a ready and rather rough sketch. We know no more of him than that he opens an eye during the fight and decides it is better to go on shamming dead. On the whole, we do not need to know more. He is only an image that reflects that side, and in a theme, a factory of this size, a more completely lit window would have been out of balance. Room's Death Ship is a psychological ship, and the difference between it and the cruiser I shall study next time, for Room uses drama to produce reactions from which he makes a pattern, and in this is unlike both of these Russians I have studied. Eisenstein has a simpler pattern. The drama is caused by one trait, courage, determination, and after that has been made -clear, the drama serves it. Though he works on an -epic scale, as has been said, he allows no conflicting characteristics to inter- fere with the development of the one main trait. At most it may oppose it so as to challenge and bring it out more, but
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his films are not, because they do not set out to be, a conuict of two determinations equally portrayed. One main one goes marching on.
Pudowkin took the end of St, Petersburg (and, strange as it may seem, from an American story) and made it show through the lives of his people. It was the personal element that started things. Pudowkin's revolutions are seen through his people; Eisenstein's people are only seen through the revolution. They are poured into the mould of revolution, whereas the man seeking work and the woman wondering where the food will come from (Baranowskaja) in St, Peters- burg are moulds themselves into which revolution streams, and brims over and destroys the whole mould. So Eisen- stein's characters are images in a wav that Pudowkin's rarely are. The lout that knocked down the capitalist and got the woman's house searched and her husband led off is really the hero of St. Petersburg, but the sailor, the one sailor, who was killed in Potemkin is not really the hero. The hero — what Eisenstein takes to be the hero — is visible in the last momentous shot; the crew clustered and cheering over the cruiser. The collective spirit that made their revolt success- ful. Sailors, not a sailor. Not even one sailor expressing and doing dramatic duty for them all, and not even sailors, but the determination that made them sailors, I mean made them put up with the life and then made them refuse to put up with what was unnecessary in it, in the shape of bad meat (which was a symbol). The last comment is not the flag flying, as in Mutter, but the crew on the ship they have made their own. And let it be remembered that the film opened, dark and unruhig was the day, shots of empty waves and
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the battleship, and it closes with the crew who have con- quered the unruhigkeit (I am sorry, but I will not sacrifice expressiveness to say " uneasiness ") with which the film began. That is how they are made images.
You may have thought you could not bear to see those Potemkin steps, but you have forgotten the light that springs over them and forgotten how they link on. You may feel unable to look at those over-familiar decks for the first time actually in the film, but when you do you find that no one has told you how the men rush out from under the gun- turrets, how dramatic it is.
The film owes its peculiar throbbing vitality, so like the throbbing of a boat's engines, to the effects of light and shade, living light and shade, that either Eisenstein or his assistant, since we are told that he is greatly helped by Alexandroff, whose name now appears on Potemkin, fully realises the dramatic and the cinematic value of. There is a sailor covered with a speckled reflection, the still was in Close Up, there are queer efi'ects wMth a searchlight, there is the ghostliness of the sailors under the sheet, which is purely dramatic, I mean it happened, it was called for, it was no whim, no camera angle (which, of course, in Russian films are not whims), and yet its realisation was extremely cine- matic. Vrai film. The shot which was cut when I saw Ten Days in the offices of Prometheus, of Kerensky burying his head in the pillows, is almost abstract as regards design and mass (it was printed in Drawing and Design for June). This is how Eisenstein heightens his drama, in the same way, to the same end, that Pudowkin brings in his images . . . with the camera and a sense of what it alone can do. And deal
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with. And both are working in an equally pure cinema. So it is that Eisenstein's imagery, to summarise, is visual and dramatic. It is a part of the whole that catches the light for a moment. And he is a master at making the right part catch the light at the right moment. By cutting and com- position. This is where he comes nearest to reaching the subconscious direct, by the beauty of his visual imagery. The steps are seen from every angle ; the preparations for the firing of the machine-gun in Ten Days are so cut and so presented to us that we are keyed up, ready for the climax, apprehensive, alert, living unusually.
The question of imagery is, of course, bound up with rhythm, with long and short cutting (the raising of the bridge in Ten Days, with the cab and the dead horse and the girl's hair the other side, but everywhere, bridge, bridge, bridge). There is also dramatic symbolism, such as the destroying of the statue and the shape of the decanter stopper. But the individual quality one is aware of in Eisenstein's imagery is, I think, due to the fact that it is his people who are only images and his objects symbols. The reason for this, if you ever want to know hurriedly, is that he works with a telescopic lens, not a microscope. He does not enlarge the little to express the whole (by showing how much unrevealed of that the whole every particle has), but he expresses the whole by insisting that the details are only a part, and by using them as images.
Robert Herring.
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THE CINEMA IN RETROSPECT
By Clifford Howard Part II.
The scenario writer in relation to the history of letters is a recent and distinct species of author. As I have already recorded, he first made his appearance about twenty years ago. Reflecting the character of the movies from which he sprang (their character at that time, I mean), the primitive scenarist was an insignificant and unpromising newness ; bashfully uncertain of himself or his destiny and utterly ignored as belonging to the genus literati.
In the remote era preceding the decade of 1910 there was no prophet sufficiently inspired to foresee the day when a Hans Kraly or a Frances Marion would be receiving twenty-five thousand dollars for preparing a single scenario. In those pre-Hollywood days a full dozen complete photodramas could be produced for less than one-half that sum, and a scenario writer would have regarded himself as among earth's chosen fortunates could he have received a grand total of two hundred and fifty dollars for his share of the work in their production.
Out of the early scenario writer came the scenario editor.
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As the movie industry developed there arose the need for someone to relieve the director of the task which originally fell to his lot of handling the scripts submitted to the studio, selecting the picture material, and editing such of the scenarios as were chosen for filming. Directing a picture was found to be enough of a job in itself ; and so the scenario editor was called into being.
And with his advent came the germ of the scenario depart- ment, destined to become one of the most important and most expensive features of a studio. Beginning with this one lone individual, the scenario department has grown and expanded until to-day in a typical Hollywood studio it comprises a corps of readers, a staff of story adapters, a staff of continuity writers, a bunch of gag-men, and a coterie of title writers, besides the editor-in-chief and his immediate assistants, as well as the supervisors of production, who have a vote in the selecting of stories and who oversee their preparation for the screen.
This, too, is a development that none could have foreseen even as late as 1913, when I undertook my first work as a scenario editor. This was in connection with a company that had recently established a studio in one of the suburbs of Los Angeles. For some reason it was called the Balboa Amuse- ment Company, and was conducted by two brothers, enterprising lineal descendents of Abraham.
Being progressive and ambitious chaps, they decided to instal a scenario editor. As they told me afterwards, they believed it would add to their prestige as producers to have it known that they had such a person connected with their enter- prise. Up to that time they had done their own reading of
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story material and had allowed their director to whip into shape such scenarios as they selected. Having seen some of my screen stories, followed by a view of me myself, they decided I was the man for their purpose and they accordingly tendered me the honor of gracing an editorial desk.
The honor did not carry much money with it, but it did offer me the opportunity of becoming directly associated with motion picture production ; and this being something for which I had been looking, I accepted it with pleasure, albeit with a show of reluctance in deference to my dignity.
Like the new boy at the soda fountain who devotes the first period of his delectable job to drinking all he can hold during his spare moments, I was out on the stage on every possible occasion and pretext getting my fill of the novelty of picture making. Nor was I averse to helping out as a subordinate character, now and then, by way of accommodation to the company in the interest of economy. And so, in addition to my legitimate role of scenario editor, I also filled such modest screen roles as a police clerk, a doctor, a clergyman, a hang- man, a professor, and a superintendent of an insane asylum, to say nothing of mingling with the background patrons of a gambling dive or with the guests of a wedding party.
My regular duties comprised the reading of submitted scenarios, making selections from them, editing such as were chosen, and also writing original scenarios. The company had two units at work; one doing dramas and the other com.edies, and I was called upon to supply material for each of them. Henry King, who has since made a name for him- self as one of Hollywood's foremost directors, was the leading man of the drama company. According to the ratings of
c
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to-day his position was that of a star, but the movie firmament with its stellar glories had not yet come into being, and except in Jack London's Sea Wolf, which was the Balboa's chef- d*oeuvre and a momentous production for its day, I doubt whether King's name was ever even mentioned on the screen.
The Balboa Company sold all of their product to Pathe Freres. They received a dollar and a half a foot for it, or approximately $1500 a reel ; a price w^hich netted them a very comfortable profit. The total cost of producing a picture averaged only about a dollar a foot. Many of the items of expense that enter into the making of a present-day film were then undreamed of. The studio itself was a converted bun- galow. Its one-time kitchen served as the editorial sanctum. Salaries were low — mere loose change compared with those of to-day. Seventy-five dollars a week was the maximum, and only two persons received it — the director and the leading man. Nor was there more than one cameraman to a picture ; and he had no assistant, either, and was thankful to get his thirty-five dollars each Saturday for his unaided cranking of two films during the week. Neither was there more than a bare margin over a thousand feet of actual film consumed in the taking of a reel of picture. Numberless retakes and excess footage of from one hundred to five hundred per cent, were luxuries then non-existent and beyond the vividest imagina- tion of the director.
Then, too, there was only one stage, and that consisted of an open platform out in the back yard, with two or three dressing rooms and a laboratory adjoining it. Artificial lighting had not yet come into use, with its incidental increase in cost. Sunshine, the outstanding and alluring asset of
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Southern California, was the sole source of light supply. Re- flectors and diffusers were the only adjuncts employed for modifying it or regulating it. The diffusers were strips of w^hite cloth hung on wires which were stretched at short intervals across the top of the stage from side to side. These cloth strips were moved back and forth on the wires at the direction of the cameraman for such effects as he desired to obtain. Occasionally a high wind during the rainy season would tear them to tatters.
All interior sets, therefore, were built out in the open on this unenclosed stage. A study of the films of those simple al fresco days will frequently show a playful breeze moving the papers on an office desk, or ruffling draperies or whiskers which becomingly ought not to be ruffled. Night scenes taken at night were, of course, out of the question. When the sun quit for the day so did the cameraman. To obtain the desired effect for nocturnal scenes, the portions of the film containing such scenes were tinted blue. Technically this particular tinting was known as moonlight " ; and a part of a scenario writer's training was to remember to append the notation Moonlight " to every scene in his script in which the action was required to take place supposedly in the dark, w^hether in a storm out on the plains or in the quiet depths of a dungeon. For lamp-light effect the scenarist wrote
Amber ; and the laboratory man would tint the film accordingly.
Incidentally, it was also the duty of the scenarist to divide his scenario carefully into reels and see to it that reel one (and reel two, if the picture w^ere of feature length) came to a stop at some suspenseful situation, for double projectors had not
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yet come into general use in the picture theatres, so that there was always a wait between reels to enable the operator to re- wind the one and place the next in his machine. End of Reel One. Reel Two will follow immediately was a stereo- typed title with the scenario writer, and was originally regarded as of vital importance as a means of keeping the audience in their seats. And hence, also, the additional pre- caution of ending the reel in suspense. Otherwise, as experience had demonstrated, the audience were likely to walk out between reels, none too well pleased with the brevity of the show.
During the tw^o years following my initiation into scenario editorship, motion pictures made very rapid strides. Five- reel dramas became commonplace, and true feature pictures made their appearance, with Griffith's Birth of a Nation heading the list of American productions and incidentally establishing Hollywood as the film capital. Two-reel comedies also took their place among the normal happenings of filmdom, although still exciting special comment. The first one of this length had attracted unusual attention. Its advent had been heralded for weeks in advance. It was a phenomenal event in cinema history. A full one-reel comedy had previously been accepted as the ultimate limit of sustained hilarity; and here now were Ford Sterling and Mabel Xor- mand in a mammoth two-reel creation of mirth and merriment — Zusu the Band Master! What was the w^orld coming to?
It was in the midst of these developments — harbingers of the dawning of the modern cinema era — that I assumed my second editorial office. This was in the fall of 1915. The invitation came from the American Film Company. Their
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studio was in Santa Barbara, a lovely little seacoast town about a hundred miles north of Los Angeles, and noted particularly for its old Spanish mission. The studio was located within a short distance of the mission, and with an uncommon eye to beauty was patterned after its picturesque architecture.
Instead of the single stage to which I had been accustomed at the Balboa studio I here found five or six stages, one of them enclosed and using the Kleig lights which had recently come into use. There were eight separate units working at the studio, turning out a wide range of pictures — single-reel comedies, two-reel Westerns, three- and five-reel dramas, fifteen-episode serials, and a periodic super-special of six or seven reels. Also, the scenario department had three readers and a staff of nine writers in addition to the editor. SpeciaHzed continuity writers, however, and adapters and title scribes had not come into existence. A scenario writer still combined in himself the functions of all these latter-day specialists. The term continuity had not yet been invented.
There was no film-printing machine at the studio when I first went there, nor any outside laboratory for doing such work. All of the cutting of a picture was done with the original negative. When that work was completed the nega- tive film was sent to the company's eastern headquarters, in Chicago, where the positive prints were made for distribution to the exhibitors. We at the studio never knew how our pictures actually looked until after they had been released and shown in the theatres.
Working only with the negative, as we were obliged to do, was not only risky, but was also for me a bit confusing at first. It was soma time before I could adjust my optical sense to the
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reversed blacks and whites when running a film in the projec- tion room. However, in the course of a year we were supplied with a printer, and held a little celebration in honor of our first studio positive.
During the time I was in Santa Barbara the use of music on the set as an aid to the actors was first introduced. And it was there at the American studio that it had its origin. A young Italian in the casting office, who had a penchant for playing the Hawaiian steel guitar, was innocently responsible for it. It happened one day that he was called over to one of the stages to play a small bit in a scene. Having his instru- ment with him, he beguiled himself with soft melodies while waiting on the set.
The leading lady in the picture — and a lady of considerable temperament — was vSO touched with his plaintive performance as he sat there in patient waiting, that she insisted upon his going on with it during her scene before the camera. The director resented the innovation, but its good effect upon the actress's work was so marked, that the guitar player was there- after called upon to twiddle soulful accompaniments to all of her more emotional parts. Whereupon other temperamental leading ladies, not to be slighted, also demanded musical stimulus. And with this as a beginning, studio orchestras eventually came into being as recognized adjuncts to picture making.
The star system and the exploiting of notable persons on the screen got well under way during my two and a half years with the Santa Barbara company. Mary Miles Minter, Lottie Pickford, Gail Kane, Julia Day, May Allison, Lew Cody, William Russell, Douglas MacLean, Warren Kerrigen and
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Nigel de Brullier were among those who began their twinkling in the cinema firmament at the American studio. Some of these then promising luminaries have continued to twinkle through the years with more or less uncertainty, while many others have completely faded out.
Henry King, Edward Sloman and Frank Borzage are three present-day established directors who began their directorial careers in Santa Barbara back in the days of my editorship there. Borzage, who first came into prominence with his Humoresque and later added to his fame with Seventh Heaven, was playing the lead in wild Westerns at the time of my arrival. He was ambitious to direct, and when the oppor- tunity came it happened to be an original scenario of mine that was chosen for his initial effort.
Richard Bennett was one of the first of the prominent stage actors who condescended to play openly before the camera. He made his screen debut under the auspices of the American Company, in a film version of Brieux's Damaged Goods. This proved so striking a success that Bennett was prompted to follow it up with other film appearances. In this connec- tion it fell to my lot to write the story and scenario for one of his pictures and later to edit a film for which he himself wrote the story. He was not only the scenarist in this case, but he was his own director as well ; and the result was not what it should have been. Indeed, it looked at first as though the picture would have to be shelved. But by dint of cutting and editing and the re-writing of titles, I succeeded in making something of a different picture out of it — at any rate, suffic- iently different to make the film marketable and at the same time win the displeasure of Mr. Bennett.
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Another celebrity of that time with whose film work I was identified was Audrey IMunson. She had leaped into fame as the result of having been chosen out of a multitude of models, to pose for the figure on the memorial coin of the World's Fair at San Francisco in 1915. The newspapers took her up and exploited her as the woman with the ideally perfect figure. At the height of this notoriety the president of the American Film Company, w^ith laudable enterprise, secured her signa- ture to a contract to appear in a moving picture ; and forthwith proceeded to w^het the public appetite with appetizing advance notices regarding the forthcoming super-special film in w^hich this famous artists' model, receiving the enormous salary of five hundred dollars a week, would appear in the unequivocal glory of her professional perfection.
Following which the selection fell upon me to write a scenario that would not only fulfil these promises to the public, but at the same time would also disarm the censors. As a beginning to this end I hit upon the title Purity ; and with this as an inspiration I constructed an eight-reel scenario along highly poetic and idealistic lines. Moreover, in order to insure the carrying out of my design, I was entrusted with the responsibility of selecting the supporting cast and co-directing the picture.
Whatever may be said of the outcome as a production of art, it fulfilled the company's expectation as a profitable sensation. It was the most costly film they had ever turned out, yet by the end of the year they were more than half a million dollars to the good. And I believe the picture is still alive and still earning dividends. A friend of mine during a recent world tour came across it at a little show house somewhere in the
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purlieus of Panama. As was hopefully anticipated, of course, its initial showings aroused wide-spread talk and no little con- troversy. Some towns forbade it and others frankly welcomed it. Critics unmercifully roasted it, and critics enthusiastically praised it and recommended it. Sermons were preached about it, pro and con. The old maids of both sexes who sneaked in to see it were becomingly shocked, w^hile stout- moraled men and women openly extolled it. The motto of the garter Honi soil qui mal y pense, was resurrected from its classic limbo and hurled at the picture's detractors by those who saw^ in the film a work of beauty and a consistent fulfilling of its title.
Altogether, as the involuntary author of the production, the hullabaloo inspired by it was an exhilirating experience for me. It was the first time I had ever had a hand in the creating of a sensation, and I have never since contributed to another. As a result of the success of Purity I was given a small bonus for my scenario, besides an increase in salary and some added responsibilities as head of the scenario department.
By the time I left Santa Barbara, in 1918, the modern era of picture making had arrived, and gone were the good old days of the pioneer and the trail blazer and the cinema prophet afflicted with visions of world-wide acceptance of motion pictures.
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A MUSEUM OF THE MOVIES
The Problem of the Avenue Pavilion
The Avenue Pavilion in JLondon has now completed its sixth month in the service of showing artistic films to the British public. This, to the astonishment of the watchful foreigners, is another way of saying that the Avenue Pavilion has now completed its sixth month of unparallelled prosperity, riirough the whole of this period there has not been among all the films which the trade has considered obsolete or un- suitable, one which has not carried success with it. Here is an incontrovertible fact which is causing quite a great deal of eye-opening not only in England, but more and more among the producers abroad. Realisation on their part has been wary and slow, for they have learned by bitter experience that (to put it mildly) England has been, until recently, far from encouraging in its dealing with films of value which they have sent across. Indeed, England has been very much a closed oyster, and the hope now entertained abroad is that the Avenue Pavilion will be the means of prizing open the firmly-closed mollusc. Certainly the indefatigable manager- ship of Mr. Ogilvie has worked wonders, both before and behind the scenes, so to speak, and he has earned for himself a reputation for discrimination and integrity which few enjoy.
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Consider the position. It is all very well to say *' Every country has now its ^ art ' cinemas Every country has not a British censorship ! That is where the rub comes in. Not one of the facilities normally extended to any art cinema on the Continent has so far been granted. The diffi- culty of importation, let alone the difficulty of talking the foreign producer into taking a chance on showing his film, is colossal, let alone the fact that once they are imported they have to run the risk of being banned by the censor. To a more easily daunted showman than Mr. Ogilvie the situation might have seemed impossible. In view of this, when it is stated that Mr. Ogilvie has his programmes ready as far ahead as he can book, with a long waiting list at the end of that, it clearly shows that if anything on a big scale is to be done in England he will be, and is, the original pioneer.
So far the films shown have been mostly the gems of the past. The Avenue Pavilion has been, so to speak, the Museum of the Movies. That the newest films have not been seen is due to the fact that — let it be stated — foreign exploiters have been wary to the point of short-sightedness. They have not supported the venture as they might have done, and as they should, and will, and are already beginning to do; realising that here is a sound proposition quite apart and opposed to freakishness and artiness and highbrowism. The support must come — not from the public, whose support is more than assured — but from the trade in England and abroad.
The important point to be grasped is that the Avenue Pavilion does not set out to be, and is not one of the little theatres. At present it works alone and is unique. Soon it
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will work in conjunction with theatres in several leading pro- vincial centres, the first of which will be the Century at Liverpool, run also by Gaumont. This is important, and equally important, it should be noted that the Avenue Pavilion, together with the chain of theatres with w^hich it will w^ork, are not stunting " art for art's sake and mummifying themselves in an atmosphere of overcharged ^stheticism, but running as any of the high-class cinemas in Berlin, for in- stance, are run, on a solid commercial basis with an ordinarily intelligent audience capable of appreciating the film as an intellectual entertainment.
In view of this, all foreign companies would do well to reconsider their attitude to Great Britain and the artistic film, for which there is no longer contempt or indifference, but an ever-widening public of a proportion which cannot possibly be any longer overlooked. Mr. Ogilvie is the right man to approach, being in sincere sympathy with real development of the screen, and, even more important from their point of view, an able and experienced showman who is not going to lose their money and his employer's. Those who approach him will be sure to find an open mind and a courteous con- sideration of what they have to offer.
Once bitten twice shy savs the now cautious Continental. But he is watching, not without a belated triumph, the latter- day success in England of films which have made film history. If the old ones are so well supported, he reasons, so should the new. It is quite true that ^Ir. Ogilvie is now receiving offers almost every day from abroad. It is a delicate position. Joyless Street he cannot have, nor The Tragedy of the Street, certainly not Poteynkin, certainly not Ten Days That Shook
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the World. No need to tell you why. These films cannot be given at a special theatre conspicuously renowned for its serious, impartial presentation of films of value. In Berlin they are shown freely in the Plazas and New Galleries of that city, as well as in the Biographs of the back streets. In Berlin the censors have stated that what a man like Pabst puts into a film is there for good and sufficient reasons and must stand. Were Mr. Ogilvie's policy to provide salacious matter of the lowest order he could not be submitted to restriction more severe. Let the contrast speak for itself — and for him !
Here is a story more heartening if no less incredible.
Warning Shadows was witnessed by a lady who, having sat through its entire length, came out and demanded her money back. Nothing less than legal action would compensate her for the loss of her one and sixpence, filched under false pre- tences. She had not been entertained. The scandal was kept out of the papers !
K. M.
HOW TO RENT A FILM
Letters reach the Close Up office weekly requesting information as to how films may be rented for private showing and the approximate cost. The following article is the out- come of some weeks research, and quite frankly, the situation in England is deplorable.
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Film renters are quite willing to rent films. There is no difficulty about that. They are usually most courteous and helpful. The trouble is that there are practically no films in England in a state fit to be presented to serious students of the cinema.
And it all hinges on the question of censorship.
All countries abroad have a censorship, but it is used with more discrimination and there is usually no barrier to the showing of any film in private. Also, art and treatment are taken into consideration, whereas for a film to be submitted in London as artistic means that it will be frowned upon immediately. And there are no copies available for private showing other than the cut commercial versions.
Glancing, for instance, at random down the list of films at the end of this article which are or will be available for private showing, there are Secrets of the Soul, Jeanne Ney, Metro- polis, The Student of Prague and Moana, Secrets of the Soul is a film with a valuable educational bias, meant to explain to the world in general the value of psycho-analysis and its function in the realm of mental healing. Recently a Berlin cinema asked all its visitors to request those films for revival which they had most enjoyed or most wished to see again. The two asked for most in the final total were Dr, Cagligari and Secrets of the Soul, Every step in the film was controlled and supervised by one of the best Austrian analysts. But in the English version exactly one-third w^as cut out, including the " key " sequence of the whole film, because it was sup- posed it would infringe the British Medical Association's regulations as to medical advertising. So that English friends sent to see the picture could not make out what it was
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all about. However, for sheer technical delight it is recom- mended for private showing. Then in Jeanne Ney, a great deal of the orgy which gave such point to the beginning of the picture is omitted. But an orgy is the accompaniment of warfare, and if one can read The Enormous Room and Man- hatten Transfer, why can one not see the same things rightly used on the screen? In Metropolis two of the chief scenes .were cut out in London, one the visit of the boy from the underground, in the son's clothes, to. the upper world for the first time, and the other, the amazing acting of Brigette Helm as the Robot luring people to destruction. This^ which was psychologically perhaps the one great point of the film, was carefully cut out by the English censor and so the entire symbolism and contrast between the girl worker and the Robot was lost. Jagged little lumps were cleft out of The Student of Prague for no apparent reason. Worst of all, just one half of Moana, particularly some lovely water sequences, were cut from the English version as " unlikely to interest "I So all Close Up readers who have read comments on the above films must remember if they are disappointed with the English versions that they are not seeing the films as they were made, and that it would be extremely difficult to judge Romeo and Juliet if the beginning were omitted, the family feud men- tioned casually in passing and a happy ending staged in the tomb.
So in England the first consideration is to get the present form of censorship altered.
It is probably impossible to get it abolished. Therefore, the aim should be to establish the granting of a separate certificate to artistic films destined for private or limited
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showing. Such films to be submitted to a committee who will judge them from an artistic and not a commercial pomt of view, and the certificate only to be issued to films submitted (as is now the rule in France) in their original uncut form. Films allotted such a certificate and being available only for limited showing to be allowed a reduction in duty, as the customs dues are now so high that only a film certain of many weeks' showing can possibly be brought in from abroad. How can this be brought about?
Only bv active work on the part of Close Up readers. They are requested to sign the form at the back of Close Up and forward same to the London office. They are then requested to take the matter up with their Member of Parliament. It may be argued that nothing will be done. But unless some- body moves, not only will nothing be done, but worse restric- tions may be imposed. (There is already a movement on foot to prevent children being taken to any films with an A certificate, even by their parents. As even many travel films get an A certificate in England, it would mean the practical closing of the cinema to all under sixteen.) Close Up readers are asked to express their dissatisfaction with present conditions in print wherever opportunity presents itself, and also to speak of the matter to the manager of their local cinema. Other arts belong too often to the few, but the cinema belongs to the many. If you do not care enough about films to write a few letters for them, it is hardly to be expected that a satisfactory state of affairs will come about in the English cinema world.
Coming, however, to practical considerations as to what films can be rented in England at this present moment and
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Oj CD -
The Box of Pandora.
From La Mavche des Machines, a film by the young Russian experi- mentor Eugene Deslaw. Recently shown in Pahs, and entirely composed of machinery in action, it has points of similarity to In the Shadow of the Machines by Leo Lania and Victor Blum.
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how they may be rented, the following practical points must be borne in mind.
1. It is advisable to examine copy before using and to note scratches, as copy must be returned in good condition.
2. Unless you want a heavy bill for damages be sure you understand how^ to run your projector. Film can too easily be spoiled in running.
3. Copy must be covered by insurance (including transit risk), as each copy may be worth from thirty to sixty pounds.
1. In renting a copy be careful to make some enquiry as to what state it is in. Readers will do well to refer to Murder in the Dark Room, by Oswell Blakeston, in the March issue of Close Up.
5. It is customary, but not inevitable, for the renter to pay postage one way and the hirer the other. You must enquire into this when renting.
6. A copy rented for a single showing must be returned within twenty-four hours.
7. The fees vary from two to ten guineas a showing, according usually to the age of the picture.
The following list does not pretend to be complete. We shall hope from time to time to give particulars in Close Up as to foreign films available for private showing. Where fees are quoted they are for a single showing, and while they have been copied from letters from the firms in question, they are approximate only and merely for rough guidance.
I might add that I have written letters on the censorship question to most of the leading English newspapers. None
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of them have been printed. Perhaps Close Up readers will have better luck. At any rate, to those despairing of our present lethargy, I commend the following story. At the end of the revolution a number of Russians gathered together who were interested in cinematography. They had no film, no camera, no lights, no cinema. They worked their prob- lems out on paper. When opportunity came and they could make their films in actuality, they made Mother, Expiation and Potemkin.
Impetuous Youth. Secrets of the SouL Metropolis, Wrath of the Gods, Vaudeville. Faust.
The Waltz Dream. Other German pictures.
Jeanne Ney,
Marriage of the Bear. The Postmaster. Student of Prague.
Wardour Film, Ltd., 173, War- dour Street, London. These are available at two guineas per evening.
Held by Wardours, but as it is only now generally released might not be available yet and would be more expensive.
F. A. Enders, Esq., Messrs.
Film Booking Offices, 22, Soho Square, W.l. Requests of this nature can only be entertained after theatrical circulation of such films is entirelv exhausted.
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Waxworks,
Great Arctic Seal Hunt,
Frank Wheatcroft, Esq., Cinema Exclusives, 164, Wardour Street.
Moana.
Warning Shadows.
The Nibelungs.
Famous Lasky Film Service, 166, Wardour Street. All copies out of service.
Lionel Gillings, Esq., Gillings Kinema Enterprises, 60, Vic- toria Street, Manchester.
— . Solomon, Esq., Messrs. Graham Wilcox Productions, 174, Wardour Street.
Adventures of a Ten Mark Present renter unknown. Note.
Out of the Mist.
Bryher.
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A FAIRY-TALE FILM
Berlin. Mid-November.
I think we should try to be without prejudice. Even in its civilized form called principle. Even let it be employed in given spheres; theory and such.
We ought never to say a motion picture must be so or so. At least not within the next hundred vears ; nobodv should speak this way. Until then, I hope, it will be clear that the sense of iilm " covers only an abstraction. An abstraction, indeed, which can be defined, and which can demonstrate its philosophic, psychologic, aesthetic and tech- nical maxims. But it only becomes concrete, living and enjoyable through its methods of employment. The living power and effect of these methods are usually subject to those qualities bA^ virtue of which they deviate from familiar paths.
By this I do not mean at all anarchy between life and art. Only I object to giving too much importance to the iinite judgments. To obediently binding oneself to the demands of fixed principles. To using too constantly the critical ruler. For we are doing so. And in order to prove we have learnt how to measure, especially with our own rulers, we keep draw- ing them out of our pockets to examine possible and impos- sible alike. Here and there quite aptly is a piece of material that can be measured with this ruler. But we use it more
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with unsuitable and immeasurable things, a pile of fruit, a drinking vessel, an unbounded atmospheric substance. Instead of breathing, drinking, eating.
And it is just this critical ruler I see snapping in the hands of those who examine the photographs of the film Gehvniiisse des Orients {Secrets of the Orient), Whom now I modestly ask to slip their rulers back into their pockets. At least until I have told the plot of the story.
In the bazaar of an Orient town — full of sun and motion — Ali, the shoemaker, is living. He has a virago for a wife, making him even more slave to his wretched workday. Only his dreams show him life, delight and beauty.
One day, however, these dreams are troubled by the appear- ance of a sinister rider, bringing the strap of his whistle to be sewn. Secret powers seem dormant in this little w^histle. Ali finds this out as the great chance of his poor life, and escapes with the precious instrument. He smuggles himself on the galley of a prince as quaint as he is broad. The galley being destroyed by fire, Ali is saved on the back of a sea monster w^hich straightway swims with him to land. It is the night of the full moon. The sultan and people and chief courtiers are awaiting there the messenger from heaven. Ali is received as a prince and given the hand of the sultan's lovely daughter. Brilliant festivities follow, and All's good luck ends only when he hears that the sweet princess loves secretly a prince equally sweet but imprisoned. Generously Ali frees the sultan's daughter, but the sultan becomes en- raged, seeing that now^ he has lost all the riches he believed Ali to have possessed.
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Ali flees to the desert among fighting brigands and the members of a caravan. Not fully conscious of what is hap- pening, he captures this caravan and brings it to the sultan. But the joy of reconcihation is short lived. The real origin both of the caravan and of Ali are discovered. He is placed beneath the gallows. His last request : once only to trill upon his little whistle. And lo ! at its magic note all begin to dance; sultan, courtiers, people, soldiers, horses, camels, towers, gallows, town, altogether, all at once.
Ali has fallen off his shoemaker's stool and awakes beneath the blows of his wife. There is no one to dance to the song of his whistle which the sinister rider is taking from his hands, examining the seam, throwing to Ali a small coin. But he looks into his eyes somewhat smilingly, as if he had under- stood. The door behind him has long snapped in the lock, and All's glance still follows the rider with his little w^histle. Full of longing, quiet regret and the tiny bit of luck of one night's dream.
This is a tale, isn't it? If well told it could be one of A Thousand And One Nights, or from some such other book. And now, please reflect, is the same literary ruler to be used for fairy tales as for an epic poem, a novel, a drama, or a lyric verse ? Surely not ! It might be just as false to measure Secrets of the Orient with the critical ruler adapted to four or five other kinds of film. We must become used to the fact that within the scope of Film " several categories are to be separated, the worth of these being independant of the degree of their mutual relationship. And of the idea that they all must please every one. There are people who don't like
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dramas, but this cannot diminish Shakespeare's significance. There are also people who do not like fairy tales, but how far does that count against Anderson ?
And so it is no argument against Secrets of the Orient and those who made it, that many people do not like it, though a number of them are quite definite in their taste. And now I will tell you why I like it. Or rather I shall tell you why I think it excusable that I do.
I am so fond of touching upon a theme which some years ago was often discussed with the greatest interest. It was said that the motion picture is specially suitable for showing that which is on the borderline of unreality, things escaped from triviality in one step, touching the key to our imaginings, the good and the evil. I know each art form does so. More or less. The film, however, in a wider way. Destined by its technical peculiarities. By the fact of being two-dimen- sional, sufficient to truly illustrate, keeping back, however, a margin not seen. By the boundlessness of space over which it can explore and roam. By its indifference to time which it can slow down and quicken. By its independance of precept which it can beautify and distort.
The film is more directly related to fantasy than words, and superior to it. The film has power to form before our eyes, to stimulate in figurative motion, what words can only say to our brains. More unbounded indeed, more absorbed. But grey, therefore shapeless and hardly defined.
It is easy for the word ! We hear it, we read it and behind it we conceive the sense that is most agreeable to us, cor- responding to our momentary feeling. Words tell to each
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what he desires to hear. Pictures, on the contrary, show the same thing to everybody alike. Without considering the feelings of the spectator. Its contents remain unalterably as their creator made them. It is difficult for the picture.
Its expressions are richer, its contents poorer. Happening but once, more personal and precise. It is the simplest thing in the world to declare that a picture is not conceived as it should be. Or it seems too lame or too quick. Never, per- haps, has it our own particular rhythm. And we feel authorised to censure this fact. To criticise it. Convinced and inexorable.
How easy to ask scornfully, these Secrets of the Orient, will they be a fairy tale? The towns therein are too ethno- graphical, the figures too earthbound. The fable too hindered by triviality ! Just as easy to say the towns are too highly dimensioned. Figures too strange to mankind. Fable is too silly. We see it is much too beautiful to be a fairy picture and too difficult for us to enjoy it. It is too ugly to be a fairy picture and too easy for us to find fault.
If these critics at least would get accustomed to saying : I do not like this film ! Instead of stating : It is piffle ! For in any case this one is not so. It cannot be so since it has to be regarded as a fairy tale. And in a fairy tale all exaggera- tion, glitter and excitement is permissible, which elsewhere we would find untrue. Fairy tales do not seek to be true. Some one complained : These walls eternally remain scenery ! And I could only reply : Thank the Lord they do not stiffen into apartments ! The scene of a fairy tale is never a piece of ground ratified by building regulations. To damn a fairy tale as piffle proves the same misconception of art as to inter-
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rupt a poet with the objection : But you are lying ! The invective Piffle in this instance is only another form of Lie used against art. To call the exaggerations of the fairy tale piffle is indeed merely silly, much the same as giving the poet the lie or complaining that music is unnatural.
Let them have their music and their poems, then let them have their fairy castles. They are not to be lived in. But to let us forget there is naught to house in them.
And now, after this apologia for the fairy-tale-film in general, it is time to say why I consider Gehimnisse des Orients just the right kind of fairy-tale-film.
Firstly : In the dreamy longing of the poor shoemaker of Cairo we find something of real spiritual value. This value, indeed, is smothered with revue-like pomp and mingled with clownish intrigue in the greater part of the play. The form, slightly indicated in the beginning, is worked out in the final pictures. A sentence starting in the first hundred feet is ended in the last hundred. A question asked there is here answered.
Secondly : Because this answer is given by Nicolai Kolin in his long close-up at the end with one single, melancholy look. He might have copied it from Chaplin, but Chaplin also might envy him therefor. A pupil of Chaplin, but a masterly one. So Kolin appears in the many humorous situations of the dream play; full of comic surprises as well as of tragic danger. The spectators laugh, but most cautiously, so that the clown shall not lose his balance and fall from the rope. Hanged. Awoken !
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Thirdly : That the dream in the whistle of the sinister rider contains so rehable a film idea. At its sound evervthino: springs into motion. Rich and poor; living and dead; mov- able and immovable ! All must dance and spin round. All that the picture contains, even itself, too. Here the film, the motion picture, overflows its own content. Its contents overwhelm the form. Contents and form become one when the picture begins to circle round itself.
Fourthly : That this union of content and form has been preceded by a constant mutual approach. Expression adjusts a playful rhythm to playful contents. Now soft, now loud. Like a hammer on the galley whose rowers keep time together though the helmsman sleeps. And he snores in time with the whole crew, with the prince and the unseeing passenger in the sack.
Fifthly : That this same rhythm becomes the unconcealed motif of the decoration, processions, dances and buildings. The symmetry reminds us of the primitive games and build- ings of children. Onlv quantity and quality have been enhanced to gigantic proportion.
Sixthly : That as courage is admirable — is it not laughable to so colour the magnificent pictures, to have the heroes pierce one another with their lances and have their heads lopped off with their swords — yes, indeed I This consum- mate enhancing of ingenuousness is the most cunning to be imagined.
Lastly : Because I liked it so.
Please, my excuses !
A. Kraszxa-Krausz.
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APOTRES ET MULTITUDE
Le branle est donne; partout Ton sonne le tocsin pour pre- venir le peuple du grave danger qui le manace, et bientot, le plus petit village sera a son tour informe du role detestable que le film a joue jusqu'ici.
Les apotres foisonnent, qui viennent annoncer I'aube d'un art nouveau, d'une rehabilitation du cinema. Comment, vous n'avez pas conscience de Tetat d'hebetement dans lequel les films vous ont graduellement plonges ; vous ne vous rendez done pas compte que ces films n'etaient que des vehicules de niaiseries ? Secouez done votre inertie, luttez avec nous pour elever le niveau des productions cinematographiques, abstenez-vous de soutenir cette deplorable industrie, ne vous laissez plus gaver de nourriture abjecte, affirmez votre volonte de gouter enfin quelque chose de noble, d'eleve. . .
Et tandis que les illumines s'agitent, groupant autour d*eux le public habitue a la reflexion et au gout, la multitude ne sait de quoi il retourne, ne pressent aucunement le danger signale . . . et continue a porter ses vingt quatre sous au guichet habituel, sans trop sMnquieter jamais de la qualite ou de la valeur des films annonces. Quoi de plus naturel ! Sommes-nous vraiment fondes a accuser le cinema, plus que toute autre chose de la torpeur du peuple? Et la littera-
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ture, les gouts memes de ces gens diversement cultiv6s ! On ne peut suggerer, a qui n'en a Tidee, qu'il est malheureux, qu'il desire un perfectionnement quelconque. Eduquer le public n'est pas petite affaire, et, en admettant que le cinema puisse contribuer pour une large part a cette education, il n'en reste pas moins que la tache est infiniment dure. Ce qui n'a pu etre realise jusqu'ici qu'avec lenteur et tenacite, par Tenseignement, les journaux (dans une certaine mesure) et les oeuvres litteraires, ne peut Tetre beaucoup plus vite au moyen de r6cran.
Ce que Paul ou Pierre viennent chercher dans une salle obscure, c'est quelque chose dans leur genre : le premier, sportif, veut du fracas, des prouesses, de la rivalite ... a moi les muscles, foin de ces longues histoires qui ne finissent par un bon uppercut ou une magistrale embardee d'auto ; tandis que le second tient essentiellement aux histoires raisonnables, aux denouements heureux. Certains, qui ont vu les affiches, lu les titres aguichants, savent qu'on leur servira des processions de girls aux toilettes sommaires. D'autres enfin, et ils sont nombreux, apprecient, en hiver, la chaleur des salles, Tentrain du pianiste ou la foule bruyante. Et Tobscurite, propice aux premieres hardiesses sentimentales des couples timides, n'a pas moins d'importance.
Dans tout cela, vraiment, la preoccupation d'art parait reduite a sa plus simple expression et les hardis reformateurs du cinema ne gagneraient pas beaucoup a vouloir Timplanter de force dans les esprits, et ceci d'autant moins en projetant publiquement des bandes quintessenciees qui font a Pierre ou Paul Teflfet, cette fois indeniable, de drogues abrutissantes.
Mon Dieu que c'est idiot,*' s'exclamera-t-on, cela ne veut
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rien dire." La recherche outree d'un effet artistique echappe a Tattention du plus grand nombre, d'oii, en verite, elle obtient Teffet exactement contraire.
N'exagerons rien, ce me semble, et sans prendre la lune pour objectif direct, sans conseiller au public de s'abstenir de voir les films qui lui plaisent, nous pouvons bien caresser notre chimere d'education sociale et tourner de bons films, des films d'elite repondant aux besoins actuels des spectateurs avances et critiques. D'autres se chargeront assez de poursuivre la fabrication de Tarticle courant, en sorte que chacun en aura pour ses yeux. Qui salt, en ne sautant pas trop brusquement dans un genre precieux, peut-etre reus- sirons-nous, plus vite que nous oserions I'esperer, a mener a bien la croisade du film intelligent.
Freddy Chevalley.
TWO FILM SNAGS
Close up, recently, has been at great pains to knock down a lot of silly bogeys which have been put up to frighten away the amateur film makers. But, in case anyone has got the idea that amateur picture making is easy, let me whisper that there are difficulties, lots of them, but they just don't happen to be the ones which one would expect.
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Scenarios, for instance, don't sort of appear out of the blue because one happens to want to produce a film. And even if one has got ideas it is not good enough to scribble a nebulous plot on half a sheet of notepaper and then trust to brain waves, after you have started production, to fill in the gaps.
Yet there are many amateurs who work with a script " which amounts to little more than a few pencil notes scrawled on a writing pad. They will talk by the hour about the dififi- culties of making a mix on an amateur camera, but they never think of putting one-tenth of the thought into the real problem of preliminary organization.
Have you ever tried to collect the same dozen people at a given place for three or four Sundays on end ? It seems to be a task almost impossible of achievement. It is this collecting of amateur artistes and technicians over week-ends which wrecks so many amateur film projects.
Mr. A. is going to London this week-end, the week-end after that Mr. A. can come, but Miss B. is going to Land's End to see her grandmother or Mr. C. is taking his wife away for the annual holiday. And so it goes on till at last a day when everyone can turn up is found. At this point Mr. X. or Mr. Y.'s motor-cycle breaks down and Mr. X or Mr. Y. (who is invariably the lead or the cameraman or something equally important) turns up about two hours late and upsets the whole programme.
By this time you will be saying : Ah, but that fellow Le Neve Foster doesn't organize his things properly." Well, I dOy or at least I try to, but there are so many unforeseen circumstances " in dealing with an amateur film company that no amount of organization can get over.
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The only satisfactory way of meeting this difficulty of collecting one's company is, as far as I can see, to take them away and camp out for a fortnight. This is what Ronald Gow does with his Schoolboys, and he produces better amateur films than anyone else I know. Unfortunately, however, you cannot take an ordinary amateur film society away, en masse, as you can a crowd of schoolboys.
I am afraid this is not at all constructive or helpful, but it is a snag I have hit during every film I have made, and I pass it on because it is one which appears to face every amateur pro- ducer and is one which is never realized by the potential amateur until he actually starts producing.
Peter Le Neve Foster.
COMMENT AND REVIEW
A RUSSIAN TOPICAL.
To commemorate the 11th Anniversary of the Russian Workers' Revolution, the Tooting section of the Communist Party of Great Britain screened, at the Tooting Co-operative Hall, a film depicting the British Workers' Delegation to the U.S.S.R. in November, 1927.
On October 29th, 1927, a party of British Delegates, elected at the Workers' Conferences throughout the country, sailed in the Russian steamship Soviet for Leningrad to spend
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four weeks in Russia. A large number of delegates were also sent from other countries, and altogether there were nearly one thousand delegates from forty-three countries/'
With the censorious words of the Sunday Express still ringing in our ears we went to the Tooting Co-operative Hall very self-consciously, determined to be unbiassed. We rose when the comrades sang The Red Flag, we kept silence in memory of the fallen Lenin and other comrades ; we did not want to be conspicuous, but we maintained our judicial outlook. . .
The film opens with the shots of the Soviet steaming into Leningrad. A ship arriving, something about to happen. The suggested atmosphere is immediately spoilt by shots of the old tourist-loved buildings ; these might have been included in a topical taken under Czarist regime. It is dis- appointing when we expected a sudden revelation, a pouncing on the new ; but we only have to wait a short time for the revelation. . . The camera is mounted on some railway which is taking us through suburbs. Here are rows of lovely houses in the style of Le Corbusier. Another street ; a concession to those whose tastes are not so advanced; rows of glorified villas such as we know in England. These houses have been built within the last few years. Then scaffolds ; so more are being built. Surely this is a real solution of the housing problem ; the beautiful (and hygienic) houses of Le Corbusier, and (tolerant and kindly thought) the little villas ?
Enthusiasm may spoil our promised judicial mind, and thinking of The Sunday Express we tell ourself : This is camouflage activity to hide the decay of the old.'' The fihn answers us at once by showing us wondrous shots of factories.
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I have seen many treatments of machines from the early Leger and Murphy to the new La Marche des Machines of Deslaw at the Studio 28 ; but I have never seen the poetic vision that has been brought into this Russian Topical, More important is the fact that here are the old factories running smoothly ; moreover, the camera takes us down a mine, and we see the men working in the pits. Extremists, whom we have had the misfortune to meet quite often, are under the impression that no modern Russian worker would deign to go down a mine. Why," they tell us, that was why these men revolted." The camera shows us men quietly going about their jobs, and we are inclined to ask if these pictures do not prove that the revolt was against impossible conditions.
Oil-fields, cigarette factories, every conceivable industry seems to be conducting itself normally. Cranes swing into the air their loads, dynamos revolve ; but the film record does not rest with assuring our troubled minds that the old factories are running smoothly, we are led inside new factories that have been completed within the last three years, we are shown enormous new water stations. Again, surely this is a real attempt to solve the unemployment problem ?
In the country as well as the town. New machinery, re- search laboratories for new agricultural methods. . .
The film reveals sociological as well as economical aspects. An orchestra, without a conductor, a theatre, a play resem- bling Potemkin; a dancing school, founded by Isadora Duncan; a children's home; a peasant's music hall, acrobats in cubist decor; physical culture classes; a reading room thronged with men and women ; a workers' club where men play chess.
E
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Scenery in the Volga, nicely photographed; more new factories and towns and (alas !) new statues. After The Last Days of St. Petersburg and Ten Days we would have thought that the Russian would have had enough of statues. There must be something in man that compels him to make monu- ments. Thank the gods that these are the least displeasing of statues, sculptured in modern style.
At the conclusion of the tour there is a triumphant march past the Kremlin in Moscow of thousands of Russian workers, led by the Red Army.'*
This sequence has the power of the best Russian classical films.
A comrade on our right asked us if we would like a copy of the words of the International. Our judicial mind warned us that we were carried away by the art of the film, but we almost felt sorry that we cannot sing.
O. B.
FILM REVIEWS A Document of Shanghai.
The first production of Volksverband fiir Filmkunst. Direc- tion : Leinhard. Cutting by Albrecht Victor Blum. Titles by Franz Hollering.
The strength of this film is in its presentation of actuality. The real event has so great a hold on the observer. These photographs of the Chinese insurrection in Shanghai last year, despite their crudity, move us more profoundly than any
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fabricated scenes. The Document of Shanghai, in spite of almost desperate attempts to be a strongly propagandistic film, succeeds not through propaganda at all but through its impartiality. And in a case of this description impartiality is, so to speak, its own propaganda. For instance, in the long sequences of drawn out comparisons between native coolie life and that of the European and American " culture although the natives are shown to us in circumstances of misery and subjection more than sufficient to bring home to us the need for alleviation or reform, we are next shown the lives of the Europeans and Americans in such a light that we feel we are called upon to say shocking when we can hardly claim to be shocked or surprised at anything except that such simple conduct should be thought corrupt or cruel. Thus, the first scenes, the toiling coolies, the teaming river, and incredible hovels on the city's outskirts, impartial, tragic and sufficiently eloquent, are overlaid with a comparison or contrast which does not make us feel, as it was intended to, that here were indolent, indifferent and insufferable tyrants, but, on the other hand, called forth our defence, and the thought that oppres- sion and social tyranny did not come merely with the coming of the Americans and Europeans, whereas sanitation, health propaganda, drainage, commerce and developments did.
As an example of weakness where there might otherwise have been strength, we are shown a small procession of coolies toiling down a dusty road drawing a heavy cart. Hot, says the sub-title, are the summers of Shanghai. The coolies stop at a roadside fountain to quench their thirst. One of them peeps through the fence at the roadside and sees the Euro- peans and Americans pleasantly bathing in the swimming
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pool. The coolies drink the water from the fountain (we are spared a close-up showing it teeming with impurities), while we are next shown a close-up of a glass of lemonade being stirred with a straw. Yes, we feel, quite right. The coolies, too, should have these pleasant things. Dancing now on the plage to a gramophone. The Coolie looking through the fence seems to appreciate the spectacle. Sub-title (scathingly)
The European and American culture We must be for- given if we are somewhat shocked. Instead of the point being why should these things not be available to all, it was look at the corrupt taskmasters.
This incident and others like it merely wasted time. The women and children working in the factories, with their babies on the floor beneath the tables where their mothers worked, together with the statement that women and children worked twelve hours per day for roughly sevenpence and twopence respectively, while the men worked fifteen hours per day, were terrible enough, and left to ourselves we would quickly enough have asked Who is responsible We have to ask it, in any case, but we are not guided to, but rather led away, from the answer by the weak and irrelevant shots of bathing pools, yachts and race meetings.
The whole of the end, dealing with the mass meetings, the riots and the actual shooting of coolie prisoners (most of which was deleted when I saw it the second time because audiences do not like this sort of thing ") were enthralling and terrible. The coming of the British, French, Italian and Chinese armies to put dow^n the insurrection, and the starved, mute, desperate workers massing against them, truly a voice in the wilderness, presented more tersely and more poignantly
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perhaps than ever before the raw and awful problem of individual right.
K. M.
Geschlect Im Fesseln {Sex in Fetters)^ a Nero film, with Dieterle and Mary Johnson, is a serious contribution to the growing demand for prison reform. People forget that fifty years ago it was a common thing in England for seven-year- old children to be put in prison, but though the w^orld has made progress much remains to be done, and it appears to be the general reflection of educated opinion that the whole policy of tyranny and restriction combined with no re-educative methods must be scrapped in the interests of civilisation, as soon as possible. Another film showing this moment, also in Berlin, touches on the same problem. The Godless Girl, directed by C. M. de Mille. But although some of the brutality of a reformatory school is indicated, the real problem of punishment is left untouched. No suggestions for con- structive improvement are offered. It is quite different with the German film. There, again, many sides of the question are omitted. For in a decent system of medical and psycho- logical re-education, which is what the so-called criminal needs, the unbearable monotonv of days spent in a tiny room with companions of an anti-social type and without occupa- tion, the particular kind of repression dealt with in the film hardly could exist. Granting, however, that prisons will for some time to come remain as at present constituted, the film is a serious plea for consideration that the sex life of prisoners
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can no more be stamped out than can desire for food or sleep, and that, in fact, in view of their being many of them, strong and accustomed to violent physical exercise which is suddenly denied them, sex is going to become practically the entire object and outlet of their life.
The hero of the film commits manslaughter defending his wife and is sentenced to three years' imprisonment. The beginning is slow, but directly the prison itself is reached the film achieves a sensation of power and unrelenting tyranny which proves its purpose of serious consideration. At first the hero can think only of his wife. The days of monotony and no exercise except a routine hour in the prison yard begin to do their work. The prisoners toss in their beds. One boy makes a woman out of scraps of bread. An exaggerated svmbol. Days pass. The tension in their minds grows, until finally the one boy snatches at a revolver in a fit of temporary insanity and shoots himself. The corpse is dragged out, another prisoner brought in. Days go on.
The rare meetings permitted husband and wife in presence of a guard continue. At first the guard had almost to pull them apart. Now they are growing strange to each other w^ith new lives. Another man has fallen in love with the wife. But she is waiting with a calendar, scratching off days. Finally, however, in a fit of temporary madness, she falls into the man's arms, thinking him for that moment to be her husband.
In the prison the husband is gradually growing less un- happy. For a strong friendship has developed with the prisoner in the next bed. This other boy is new to the prison. He feels it in all its stark, unbearable intensity. One night
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both of them, unable to sleep, turn to each other. The wife is forgotten .
But the day comes when the husband is freed. He goes home, goes in and out of doors for the sake of knowing they open. But the wife has to tell him of her other friendship, and at the same moment the prisoner friend, released a few days before and who has been counting the days till the husband also was freed, comes in quite simply with flowers.
Husband and wife decide there is only one way out. They turn the gas on, while outside motors crowd up and down the streets, the wind blows, boys run, life continues.
This film was shown in a cinema packed with elderly Ger- man ladies of a sound and stolid type. They were interested, they discussed it as they came out. It is said that the film is most successful in the more conventional and reactionary parts of Germany. It is strange that a couple of hundred miles should make such an immense difference in outlook. Think what would happen to the Sunday Express if, as part of their daily duties, they had to review such a film ?
W. B.
The Hungarian Rhapsody.
Erich Pommer Production for Ufa, directed by
with Dita Parlo, Lil Dagover and Willy Fritz. Photo- graphy : Carl Hoffmann.
Waving corn, summer, workers in the field, a good begin- ning, wonderfully photographed, but waving corn, that is Preobrashenskaja's discovery, and we remember The Peasant
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Women and give nothing to this scene of Hungarian Rhapsody. Interminable lengths of interminable scenes grind out and on, and on and out. Willy Fritz, stouter and moustached, Lil Dagover with her classic attributes of a Roman matron, willowing in doorways and white chiffon, and Dita Parlo, and Dita Parlo. Why? However, someone must have had a reason for choosing her, so let it go at that. How can anybody anyhow have had both Dita Parlo and such intolerable slowness in one film ? Scenes which legitimately might be given one minute drag on and on and on. It is not even a repertoire of Hungarian folk music with cinemato- graphic illustrations. Between our forty winks we miss nothing and w^ake to the same scene we went to sleep on. The Hungarian Rhapsody is about as rhapsodic as a wet Sunday afternoon in the country. Hoffmann does wonderful things with his camera. But miracles of photography could not have saved such clotted dullness.
All For a Woman {Loves of the Mighty)^ shortly to be seen at the Avenue Pavilion.
The above is the story of Danton's leadership and fall, his quarrels and enmity with Robespierre, St. Just and others. Danton, the outstanding figure of the French Revolution, captured the Tuileries, and under his leadership the old regime was put definitely to an end. A dictatorship of terror commenced. Danton formed in Paris a Revolution Tribunal, by means of which political and private opponents were simply
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got rid of. Misuse of this Tribunal by Robespierre, St. Just and Fouquier Tinville created such strong disgust in Danton that he withdrew from it and planned to form a Republic and end the Revolution. His indolence and neglect were the direct cause of his downfall. This, roughly, is the story of All For a Woman, which will shortly be seen at the Avenue Pavilion, and which is one of the great filrn classics which all should see, starring Emil Jannings as Danton, Werner Krauss as Robespierre, and Mady Delschaft. The picture v/as directed by Dimitri Buchowetzki, whose other productions include The Swan, Graustarky Crown of Life, Midnight Sun, Valencia, Othello, Peter the Great and Mad Love. The art director is Hans Dreier.
HOLLYWOOD NOTES
William J. Locke is the latest literary celebrity to be lured to Hollywood. He is here in response to the remunerative invitation of Joseph Schenck, President of United Artists, to write an original screen story for Norma Talmadge, who is Mr. Schenck's wife as well as his most profitable star. Locke's venture into the field of scenario writing will be watched with interest, in view of the failure or disappointment of so many of his fellow illustrious novelists who have come, and seen, but have not conquered Hollywood. In accordance with custom Mr. Locke, as a distinguished personage, was greeted at the station upon his arrival with music and flowers and a
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concourse of film celebrities and municipal dignitaries. Whatever the outcome of his stay, therefore, he will carry away with him the remembrance of a colorful welcome and the assurance that Hollywood recognized him as a man of achieve- ments and worthy of salutatory honor.
* * *
Electrical engineers at First National Studios are perfecting a television device for the especial use and convenience of studio executives. It consists of a telephone with a vision screen directly above it. The telephone works on the dial system, by which a film executive can automatically connect his office with any one of the stages and thus permit himself at any desired time to overlook the scenes that are being taken, without leaving his desk. An extension of this device will also permit the simultaneous screening of a film in the projec- tion room and the offices or homes of studio officials.
The value of the silver reclaimed from the developer tanks of the various Hollywood laboratories totals approximately eight and a half million dollars a year. This reclamation of the silver which enters into the sensitized coating of photo- graphic film constitutes a profitable by-product of picture making. Much of the precious metal thus recovered is sold to the United States mint at San Francisco and eventually enters mto the coinage of the country. Other large quantities are disposed of to silversmiths.
Austin Strong's Drums of Oude is being filmed at the Paramount Studio. The play is laid in the wilds of India, and its dramatic spectacle of a primitive tribe in conflict with a
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handful of settlers at a lonely jungle outpost will be brought to the screen with the realistic cries and noise of warfare in addition to complete audible dialog. The director is J. Roy Pomeroy, who devised the sound synchronization method used by the Lasky-Paramount Company and who directed their first talking picture, Interference, which has recently been released.
* * ♦
Cecil B. de Mille has started work on his first production for M-G-M, with which he recently allied himself following the reliquishment of his own studio organization. The pic- ture, under the title of Dynamite, concerns itself with ultra- modern society and marks de MilleVs return to the type of photodrama with which his name is uniquely associated. The
story is an original one, wTitten by Jeanie Macpherson.
* * *
Joseph von Sternberg is following his current production. The Docks of New York, with a talking picture, featuring Esther Ralston. Work on the new film. The Case of Lena Smith, started early in October, at the Paramount Studio.
The recent merger of the Warner Brothers and the First National film companies, with the Stanley Theatre Company as a subsidiary member of the amalgamation, represents a capital of two hundred million dollars and the control of three thousand cinemas. This not only constitutes one of the largest and most momentous combinations in the history of filmdom, but it also marks the first of the many changes and shifts in motion picture organization that may be looked for as a result of the advent of the phonofilm.
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Panchromatic make-up for colored actors is one of the latest problems to be solved by screen technicians. The problem was recently presented for the first time in connection with the picture Hallelujah, now being filmed at the Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer studio. Based upon an original story by King Vidor, and directed by him, this talking photodrama is laid against a background of primitive Negro life in the South and presents an all-Negro cast of players.
P>om a scenario prepared by himself, William C. de Mille is phonofilmiiig Barrie's Half an Hour, with H. B. Warner and Ruth Chaterton enacting the leading roles. Meeting the newly-created requirements of phonofilm production, de Mille is carefully rehearsing all of his scenes in advance of taking. Since the abandonment of his brother Cecil's personal organi- zation, with which he was identified, William has been associated with the Lasky-Paramount Company as a producer- director, and his forthcoming Half an Hotir will be released under their banner.
* * *
Fanny Hurst's Lummox, which created a stir in the book world a few years ago, is now to be screened by United Artists under the direction of Herbert Brenon. Those who recall the episodic, morbid, unenlivened story with its martyr character of the unloved and unlovely serving woman will await with interest its belated screen translation.
William Fox is backing his faith in Movietone and talking pictures in general with an investment of ten million dollars in the building of an auxiliary studio at Westwood, a few miles
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seaward of Hollywood. This studio, to be devoted wholly to
phonofilms, occupies a space of forty acres and includes
among its many buildings four concrete sound-proof stages,
each 225 x 125 feet in dimension.
* * *
Preparations are under way at First National studios for an elaborate screen production of Max Reinhardt's The Miracle, The film rights to this celebrated morality play were secured a short time ago, after more than two years of controversy and competitive bidding on the part of several Hollywood film companies. It is estimated that the filming of the play, in- cluding its photophone musical accompaniment, will involve an outlay of some two million dollars.
C. H.
Mention must be made of the interesting experiment of Pierre Ramelot, who founded a few months ago Le Club de L'Ecran, where twice a month hitherto unseen non-commer- cial films are shown or old classics are revived. A public debate is held after the projection. Young directors who experience difficulty in getting their work shown can enquire of the Club de L'Ecran in Paris, who will be glad to aid them and to consider the presentation of their films.
The death of Maurice Stiller has been a genuine loss to the whole cinema world. This great Swedish director, pioneer of the artistic film, did more for the screen than people will ever realise. When others were despising the lowly medium.
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when it was given over exclusively to vulgarity akin to that of the penny novelette, Stiller was forming his new conception of a great art, developing its potentialities, seeing far into the future. He was a great artist, working with profound care and intensity. His intensity may have been in part respon- sible for his early demise. Europe and America will mourn him, and the cinema will miss him, for the real leaders of screen progress are few and far between and can ill-afford to be lost.
Those who have admired his works, from faithful followers to the general public, should now be given a revival of his films. Recently we had Gosta Berling in London. But surely it would be of real help as well as of interest to all students to see now a complete revival of his works. It would be a fascinating record of development and change. It would be a tribute to Stiller, and a monument to his greatness. Perhaps it will be done?
* * #
Japanese Director Tours European Studios.
J. Singe Sudzuky, director of the Bantsuma-Tachibana Universal Motion Picture Studio of Japan, three stills from whose films are reproduced in our illustrated supplement of this issue, having directed ceaselessly for six years, is only now taking his first vacation. Having, in the six years, made as many as thirty films, this vacation is very much in the nature of a busman's holiday as he is at present studying European production methods in Germany and plans to visit France and England, and afterwards Hollywood.
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Mr. Sudzuky is perhaps the youngest director in Japan, certainly the youngest to have thirty films to his credit, many of which are purely in the realm of experiment. He has much of the greatest interest to tell of Japan and Japanese production methods, and we will have much pleasure in giving a full account of his interesting disclosures in our January issue, together with further photographs of great fascination and beauty from Japanese productions, kindly given to Close Up by Mr. Sudzuky.
FILMS TO SEE Selected at Random from Current Releases. First Choice (A). Second Choice (B). Third Choice (C). Russian.
Bed and Sofa (Trois dans un Sous-Sol). Sud film release. Ludmila Semenova, W. Fogel and Nicolei Bataloff. Directed by Alexander Room. Masterpiece of tragic psychology. (A)
End of St. Petersburg, The. Meschrabpom-Russ produc- tion. Derussa release. Direction : W. Pudowkin. ]\Iss. : Natan Zarchi. Photography : Anatoli] Golownia. Sets : Koslov^'ski. Played by Baranowskaja, W. Oblensky as Lebedeff. J. Tschuwileff and Tschistiakoff. (A)
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Forty-First, The. Meschrabpom-Russ film, Derussa release. Direction : Protasanov.
Mechanics of the Brain. Scientific film made by W. Pudowkin and Professor Pavlov. (A)
Moscow that Laughs and ]Veeps. Meschrabpom-Russ, released by Derussa. Direction : Barnett. Anna Sten, J. Kowal-Samborski, W. Fogel. Delightful new aspects of comedy possibility. (B)
Mother, The. Meschrabpom-Russ. From the story by Maxim Gorki. Direction: W. Pudowkin. The mother: W. Baranowskaja. The father : Leinstjakoff. The son : Nicolei Bataloff. (A)
Peasant Women of Riazanj {Das Dorf der Sunde). Sovkino film, Derussa release. Directed by Olga Preobrashenskaja. R. Pushnaja as Anna, E. Zessarskaja as Wassilissa, O. Narbekowa as the mistress, E. Fastrebitski as Wassily. (A)
Pits {Die Fallgruben des Lehens), sl new film by A. Room. Meschrabpom-Russ Film. (B)
Son, The. Sovkino film. Derussa release. Direction :
E. Tscherwjakov. Anna Sten, Gennadij Mitschurin. (B)
Ten Days that Shook the World {Oktober). Sovkino film, released by Prometheus Film A.G. Direction : S. M. Eisen- stein. One of the strongest films ever made. Cameraman : Tisse. Assistant : G. Alexandroff. (A)
Tivo Days. Wufku Film. Directed by George Stabavoj.
F. E. Samytschkowski in a marvellous role. S. A. ]\linin as his son. (A)
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Yellow Pass, The. Meschrabpom-Russ. Released by Derussa. Direction : F. Ozep. Anna Sten, J. Kowal- Samborski, \A\ Fogel. (B)
Zvenigora. Wufku. Direction : Dobschenko. Nikolas Xademsky in remarkable character role. (B)
German.
Crisis (Abwege). Erda Film, released by Deutsche- Universal. Direction : G. W. Pabst. Brigitte Helm, Jack Trevor, Herta v. Walter, Gustav Diesel, Fritz Odemar. (B)
City Symphony (Berlin).. By Walter Ruttman. A day in Berlin with neither actors nor sets. Photographv by Carl Freund. (B)
Looping the Loop. Arthur Robison production for Ufa. }^lss. : Arthur Robison and Robert Liebmann. Photo- graphy : Carl Hoffmann. Sets by Robert Herlth and Walter R-ohrig. In the cast: Werner Krauss, Jenny Jugo and Warwick Ward. (C)
Loves of Jeanne Ney , Ufa. Direction : G. W. Pabst. Mss. : Leonhardt. Photography : F. A. Wagner. Edith Jehanne, Brigitte Helm, Uno Henning, Fritz Rasp, A. E. Licho, Vladimir Sokoloff. (A)
Marquis d'Eon, Emelka Film, directed by Carl Grune, with superb photography by F. A. Wagner. Liane Haid mistakenly cast as the Marquis. (C)
Master of Xiirnberg. Phoebus Film. Direction: Ludwig Berger. Maria Solveg. Gustav Frohlich. (C)
F
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Out of the Mist, ^ Defu Production. Direction : Fritz Wendhausen. Madv Christians, Werner Fuetterer, Madimir Sokoloff. (C)
Refuge. Henny Porten-Frolich Production for Ufa, starring' Henny Porten with Franz Lederer. Gaumont release in England. (C)
The Spy, Ufa. Fritz Lang Production. Mss. : Thea von Harbou. Photography : F. A. Wagner. Willv Fritz, Lupu Pick, Gerda Maurus, Lien Devers, R. Klein-Rogge. (C)
Sex in Fetters, Xero Film, with Wm. Dieterle and Mary Johnson. (R)
Shanghai, Document of, Volksverband fiir Filmkunst. Directed by Lienhard, cut by A. Mctor Blum and titled by Franz Hollering. (B)
Tragedy of the Street, Pantomim Film. Direction : Bruno Rahn. Photography : Guido Seeber. Asta Nielsen in wonderful role. Oscar Homolka, Hilda Jennings, W. Pittschaw. (B)
Teji Mark Xote, Adventures of. Fox-Europa Production. Direction : Viertel. Werner Fuetterer, Anna Meiller, Imogen Robertson, Walter F^'rank. (C)
Frenxh.
Chapeau de Faille d'ltalie {Italian Straiv Hat). Albatross Film. Directed by Rene Clair. Featuring Olga Tschekowa. (B)
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En Rade, Xeotilm. Direction : Alberto Cavalcanti. (B)
Passion de Jeanne d'Arc. Carl Dreyer's great film, with Falconetti and Sylvain. (B)
Rien que les Heures. Xeofilm. Direction : Alberto Cavalcanti. (B)
Therese Raquin. First National. Direction : Jacques Feyder. (C)
Verdun, Leon Poirier's epic of the War. (B)
Voyage an ('on go. Xeofilm. Record by Marc Allegret of his journey with Andre Gide to the Congo.
American.
Camera Man, The. The newest Buster Keaton, and one of the best to date. Supporting are ^>Iarceline Day, Harold Goodwin and Sidney Bracy. (A)
Chicago. Pathe de Mille. With Phyllis Haver and \'ictor \"arconi. (C)
Docks of Xew York. Paramount. Directed by Josef von Sternberg. George Bancroft, Baclanova, Bettv Compson. (C)
Dragnet, The. Paramount. Deft Underworld touches. George Bancroft, Wm. Powell. Laurels to Evelyn Brent. (C)
Godless Girl, The. C. B. de ]\Iille Production, with Lina Basquette and Charles Duryea. Excellent and strong begin- ning dwindles into broad melodrama. (C)
King of Kings. Producers Distributing. Directed by C. B. de ^lille. (B)
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Manhattan Cocktail. New Dorothy Arzner Film, with charming comedy work by LiUan Tashman. (B)
Man Who Laughs, The. Universal. Direction : Paul Leni. Conrad Veidt, Mary Philbin, Baclanova. (C)
First Kiss, The. Fay Wray and Gary Cooper. (C)
Speedy. Paramount. A really good Harold Lloyd comedy. (C)
Stella Polaris. Fox. Fine film of northern hunting. (B)
Student Prince, The. Lubitsch Film, with Norma Shearer and Ramon Novarro. (B)
Sunrise. Fox. Direction : F. W. Murnau. George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor and Margaret Livingston. (C)
Underworld. Paramount. Directed by Josef von Stern- berg. George Bancroft, Evelyn Brent and Clive Brook. (B)
White Shadows in the South Seas. New Monte Blue Film for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. (B)
^BOOK REVIEWS
The immediate reaction to opening This Film Business, by R. P. Messel, Benn, 12/6, is to w^onder for what kind of reader such a book was designed? Actually it is an entertainmg and individual record of a "fan's''' likes and dislikes in films, but it is priced too highly for its public at twelve and sixpence. If it is intended as a guide to current cinemato- graphy it is a failure, as all the important events of the past years are omitted. ,
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Anyone, may write an account of some historical event in which he has happened to share. These diaries, reportings, letters, odd notes, may have enormous value for a later genera- tion. But a historian must know his subject, even the angles of it of which he does not personally approve, and where his material is not at his elbow, he must be prepared to travel afield in search of it.
In a history of the cinema it is impossible to ignore the recent work of Russia, Germany and France. A portion of a chapter, it is true, Mr. Messel devotes to PotemkiUy but he gives the impression that this film is the only one that Eisen- stein has produced, and even states that there are only two examples extant of the truthful film, Potemkin arid The Emden. But what of Ten Days, The End of St. Petersburg, Strike, etc ? They are well known to the trade press, and Mr. Messel could have obtained particulars by ringing up any good trade paper. None of the other Russian directors are mentioned, not even Pudowkin, yet, even if Russian films are not yet available in England, they are shown freely and successfully in the commercial cinemas abroad.
Coming to Germany, we are given an interesting summary of Secrets of the Soul, but the name of the director, G. W. Pabst, is omitted. This is rather like describing the natural hisiory of an island on a chart but omitting the island's name.
There is much excellent comment on Metropolis, but no mention of its been having so cut as hardly to be coherent in England.
There is no comment on modern German developments, though many of their new films have been shown in London, notably Jeanne Ney, Berlin, Out of the Mist, The Spy, etc.
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France is scarcely mentioned, except that it has produced no War film, but Verdun has been given plenty of publicity in the trade press for months. There is no criticism of Caval- canti or of Rene Clair; of Epstein or Delluc.
Mr. Alessel is at his best when analysing the better known American films, such as Greed or The Big Parade, He points out, truly, that it was the pacifism inherent in American War pictures that made them popular with English soldiers but unpopular with some sections of the Press. He has an im- mense enthusiasm for films, and as an expression of his own preferences the book makes entertaining reading. But it is not in any way a history of the cinema : in fact, it seems so out of date that one wonders whether the manuscript has not been held up from publication for some reason for a couple of years and never revised. Film societies who are installing a library, however, will find it a pleasant book to add to their shelves when funds permit.
* * *
Der Sichtbare Mann, by Bela Balazs. Wilhelm Knapp, Halle Saale. ]^Iuhlweg 19, Germany.
The author confines himself from the first lines of his work to the advanced possibilities of the cinema : a popular art which merits the attention of every intellectual equally with other art forms — music, painting, sculpture, etc.
If the cinema has hitherto been the blissful paradise of the naive, it has now developed sufficientlv to give the most subtle delight.
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The film does not express life imperfectly, for if the spoken word is excluded, the externalisation of feelings shows itself luminously in gesture and mime, simple expressions of the spirit, which the author considers, in their perfection, as con- stituting the final step in the development of culture.
Gesture and mime transmit a universal idea, understood equally by all ; thus the cinema is the first international lan- guage.
The poets of the film are the director and the actors, for the poetic substance is here enclosed in expression and the means employed to obtain it. The theatre itself is valuable essen- tially for the pieces it plays, and without belittling in any way the importance of its " roles " and the talent of its actors, one realises always that they are not, like those of the cinema, endowed with such free initiative nor such a wide possibility of enriching by personal achievement the value of the action. Remains the cameraman, the eye through which we must see, who composes the play of light and shadows. This last is somewhat the painter of the screen.
A good film is not narration and does not have to explain itself, for it is at once means and end, cause and effect. As the masterpiece of a sculptor or painter, it is not valuable for any special feature, but yields a visual impression which is its individual characteristic.
It is in the " literary " films that the images are jostled in serried ranks to faithfully illustrate the text ; these are trans- lations, not creations, for an artistic film should be composed solely of purely visual material.
The soul of the film is its atmosphere. This atmosphere is primarily conveyed by the play of the actors, and it is not so
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much what their action consists of as the manner in which it is conducted which matters and brings warmth and life to the film.
The screen actor should be above all a character and if one is surprised now and then to see almost exclusively beautiful faces on the screen, it is that physiognomony is part of the very technique of films, and beauty, in the words of Kant, is the symbol of good.
The close-up is the art of accentuation of the film. Here the objects do not play the part of decoration, but create a thought, a train of definite ideas. Thus machines have be- come the symbol of a civilisation heedless of the murders it provokes.
Animals brmg to the screen the most completely successful realism ; children are almost as agreeable to see for the same reason.
Rhythm, which is the art of giving nuance to the movement of images, is to the film what style is to the writer.
Time perspective, the passing of hours, is assured by the rhythm of the scene, the space into which it fits, its clearness. The more the intermediate scenes, interspaced in main action, are separated from the circumstances evoked, from the scene chosen, the more illusion one has of the lapse of time. The length of a scene does not offer only rhythmic possibility but permits equally the creation of a special state of mind in the spectator.
It is necessary to give to each image its space of time. One metre too much induces ennui ; one too liltle is likely to take away the portent of a whole scene.
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The text of a film need not be perfect. Its effect depends much more on its place between image and image than on its literary value.
The color film ! It would not give anything and would take much from the artistic possibilities of the cinema. Color is too positive, the objects would be too heavy. The neuter greys of present photography are infinitely more delicate.
Chaplin incarnates the dreamer, the unadapted. He is the poor fool who opposes to civilisation, to sentimental complica- tions, to formulas and formal beings, his primitively intelli- gent and spontaneous instinct. Chaplin is the poet of the humble, of things which one neglects.
AsTA Nielsen plays with her soul almost exclusively. Her eyes are remarkably expressive, shine with love, desire, bitter- ness, with equal delicacy. Asta Nielsen disdains the direct methods of sex appeal ; her body remains virtuously hidden ; her face alone is the tablet whereon is written the thousand intimate thoughts which, turn by turn, traverse her mind.
The above random translations will succeed partly in giving* the clue to this witty and wise book which is recommended warmly to all who are able to read in German. There is a kind of Nietschean terseness of philosophy which has the Nietschean gift of making self-evident facts evident for the first time. It collects the most helpful summaries, and has compartments, filed, ticketed and indexed for all its orderly thoughts.
. * « ^
CLOSE LP
Ten Days That Shook the World.
By John Reed. ^Modern Books Limited, 26, Bedford Row, London. Price, Two Shillings.
" Here is a book I should like to see published in millions of copies and translated into all languages " wrote Lenin in a short introduction to what is perhaps the most significant book on the Revolution in Russia that has been or will be written. Ten Days That Shook the World is, of course, the foundation of Eisenstein's tilm of the same name, and in its way is just as compelling, just as monumental as the film that goes one better than Potemkin " !
Mr. Reed's extraordinary grip of the minutest details in connection with the rising and domination of the Bolsheviki is actually nothing short of marvellous. Nobody w^ho has followed the turbulent rebirth of this gigantic country will be so equipped with knowledge or reason but he will not be able to learn much from these pages. Instructive reading? Say rather enthralling, for Mr. Reed, whose death took place some years ago in Russia, had a broadness of view, a quality, as it were, of spiritual understanding, which pervades the book in verv much the same wav that spiritual understanding pervades the work of the best Russian film directors. As a result of this we are given not onlv facts, not only a chronicle, but a wealth of suggestion and nuance which lends atmos- phere, gives light and dark and cloud and rain and wind to the gaunt, moonlike crags of bare fact. We feel the revolu- tion surging toward us like a storm. Graphic descriptions of tempestuous meetings, of attempts to fight it out to
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adjust ; all the flux and fury of a people smashing awav old fetters. Philosophies and agony, moralisings, inspiration and frenzy., culminating in the overthrow of the Provisional Government and the victory of the Soviet Workers and Military Revolutionary Committee.
" Winter was coming on — the terrible Russian winter. I heard business men speak of it so : ' Winter was always Russia's best friend. Perhaps now it will rid us of Revolu- tion.' On the freezing front miserable armies continued to starve and die without enthusiasm. The railways were breaking down, food lessening, factories closing. The desperate masses cried out that the bourgeoisie was sabotaging the life of the people, causing defeat on the Front."
. . . I have personally met officers on the Northern Front Avho frankly preferred military disaster to co-operation with the Soldiers' Committees. . . I know^ of coal mines near Kharkov which were fired and flooded by their owners, of textile factories at Moscow whose engineers put the machinery out of order when they left, of railroad officials caught by the workers in the act of crippling locomotives. . ." This was the prelude to the big November Revolution following the June uprisings. Life still went on as before, cinemas, theatres, shops, all were open. " Young ladies from the provinces came up to the capital to learn French and cultivate their voices. . . The daughter of a friend of mine came home one afternoon in hysterics because the woman street-car con- ductor had called her ' Comrade !' "
" Think of the poorly-clad people standing on the iron- white streets of Petrograd whole days in the Russian winter !
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I have listened in the bread-lines, hearing the bitter, acrid note of discontent which from time to time burst up through the miraculous good nature of the Russian crowd. . ."
Conditions were daily more chaotic. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were deserting the front and beginning to move in vast, aimless tides over the face of the land. . . Immense strikes and lock-outs convulsed Moscow, Odessa and the coal mines of the Don. Transport was paralvsed ; the army was starving, and in the big cities there was no bread."-
Russia was in a ferment. Kerensky himself came twice, to plead passionately for national unity, once bursting into tears at the end. . . On the night of October 30th, Trotzky branded the assertions of the bourgeois press that the Soviet contemplated armed insurrection as 'an attempt of the reactionaries to discredit and wreck the Congress of Soviets. . .'" Feverish days when nobody knew what would happen next, when everybody knew something must happen, and happen quickly. Lenin wrote : " Either we must abandon our slogan ' All power to the Soviets ' or else we must make an insurrection. There is no middle course." Tuesday morning, November 6th, a placard signed Military Revolutionary Committee attached to the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies" warned of counter- revolutionary movements. " Citizens," it added, We call upon you to maintain complete quiet and self-possession. The cause of order and Revolution is in strong hands."
The city was nervous, starting at every sharp sound. But still no sign from the Bolsheviki ; the soldiers stayed in the
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barracks, the workmen in the factories. . . We went to a moving picture show near the Kazan Cathedral — a bloody Italian film of passion and intrigue."
November 7th. " We w^ent into the Hotel France for dinner, and right in the middle of soup the waiter, very pale in the face, came up and insisted that we move to the main dining-room at the back of the house, because they were going to put out the lights in the cafe. ' There will be much shoot- ing,' he said."
" Pickets of a dozen soldiers with fixed bayonets lounged at the street crossings, red-faced old men in rich fur coats shook their fists at them, smartly dressed women screamed epithets; the soldiers argued feebly with embarrassed grins. . ."
More ferment, more soldiers, meetings, cheering, menace. " Trotzky standing up w^ith a pale, cruel face, letting out his rich voice in cool contempt, ' All these so-called Socialist compromisers, these frightened Alensheviki, Socialist Revo- lutionaries, Bund — let them go! They are just so much refuse which will be swept away in the garbage-heap of history.' " On the night of the 7th, " the city w^as quiet — probably never so quiet in its history; on that night not a single hold-up occurred, not a single robbery."
" It w^as exactly 5.17 a.m. when Krylenko, staggering with fatigue, climbed to the tribune with a telegram in his hand. ' The Twelfth Army sends greetings to the Congress of Soviets.' A Military Revolutionary Committee had taken over command of the Northern Front. General Tchermissov had recognised the Committee — Commissar of the Provisional Government Voitinskv had resio;ned !"
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We are swept on the crest of titanic events. Mr. Reed maintains an extraordinary literary coolness. Where other writers would liave thrown coherence to the winds in excite- ment and personal feeling, he has always remained the recorder — the camera, so to speak, showing us all the rush of events, itself securely planted, evenly cranked. His analvsis of Lenin is interesting. A strange, popular leader — a leader purely by virtue of intellect; colourless, humourless, uncom- promising and detached, without picturesque idiosyncrasies — but with the power of explaining profound ideas in simple terms, of analysing a concrete situation."
" We shall offer," says Lenin, " peace to the peoples of all the belligerent countries upon the basis of the Soviet terms — no annexations, no indemnities, and the right of self- determination of peoples."
We who were left behind made for the Tsarskoye Selo station. L^p the Xevsky, as we passed. Red Guards were marching, all armed, some with bayonets, some without. The early twilight of winter was falling. Heads up, thev tramped in the chill mud, irregular lines of four, without music, with- out drums. A red tiag crudely lettered in gold, ' Peace ! Land!' floated over them. They were very young. The expression on their faces was that of men who know they are going to die. . . Half fearful, half contemptuous, the crowds on the sidewalk watched them pass, in hateful silence. . ."
So to the flight of Kerensky " alone, ' disguised in the uniform of a sailor ' ", to the " Conquest of Power " and the historic Peasants' Congress, and to the proud, victorious words of Trotzky, " A new humanity will be born of this war. . . In this hall we swear to workers of all lands to remain
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at our revolutionary post. If we are broken, then it will be in defending- our flag. . ."
Those who cannot see Ten Days can read it, and judge for themselves the great qualities of the book and the colossal achievement of the Russian cinema.
Ten "Days that Shook^the World
by JOHN REED 2/- paper, post free 2/3
A vivid pen-picture of the November revolution in Russia as witnessed by that brilliant young American journalist and author, the late John Reed.
On this book is based the Russian film of the same title lo Tage die die Welt Erschiitterten directed by Eisenstein for Sovkino in 1927, stills of which appeared in the June and July issues of Close Up.
More than being 'the book of the film' however, it may be described as the key to all Russian films, for it enables the reader to grasp the powerful influences that inspire these dynamic masterpieces of the screen, and, in addition, all modern Russian literature.
Copies may he obtained at all booksellers or from the publishers —
MODERN BOOKS LTD.
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From the story by Moliere. " He who sins in secret does not sin at all." Directed by F. W. Mumau. Photographed by Carl Freund. Featuring Emil Jannings, Werner Krauss and Lil Dagover.
ALL FOR A WOMAN
A story of the French Revolution. An epitome of what has been characterised as "the most dramatic hour of history. Directed by Dimitri Buchowetski. Featuring Emil Jannings, and
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KEAN
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Order in Time for Qhristmas
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hy BRYHER, author of Civilians, West, Development, Two Selves, etc., etc.
An invaluable book coming at a time when the Russian film is paramount in the interest and attention of all film students and followers. Keen analysis and discussion. Highly informative, and copiously illustrated. An earnest and profound contribution which will go far to clear up many misunderstand- ings in relation to the Soviet cinema and its methods. Price 6 shillings.
A dynamic survey of the world of the cinema, seen " through a yellow glass " — a method employed to judge the photographic colour values of your scene. The judgment is accurate, immediate and incredibly revealing. Here is a complete mine of information not only for the student, the professional, and the amateur, but' facts which everybody wants to know. From the tech- nicalities of lenses and photography, to the generahties of how to ** get into the movies," there is something for everyone to learn, and everyone to chuckle over. Price 7s. Qd.
Why not give both or either of these books for Christmas gifts ? They can be sent by us direct in special gift boxes to any address at 14s. bd. for the twoy or at the above prices respectively^ plus 6d, postage. Greeting cards can be en-
bv OSWELL BLAKESTON.
closed by arrangement.
Order from POOL direct in London or Switzerland or from any of booksellers stocking CLOSE UP.
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