Films that Distort
It is easier to sympathize with the strictures passed by a correspondent of The Times on the films served up both to Dominion and Colonial audiences In different parts of the world than to decide what to do about it. At least two separate, though associated, points are in- volved. One is the effect on an Indian and Chinese audience, particularly the former, of the- erotic film, plentifully enriched with deshabille, which -is part of the daily pabulum in cinema theatres here and in. America. The other is the old complaintthat Britain is presented to millions of eyes that have never seen it and never will in the strange guises it assumes in the imagination. of Hollywood managers. Censorship can deal with the former evil, though censorship has other drawbacks of its 'own. But the demand for films that show as home really is, the varied face of England. and the broad range of its ordinary daily life, raises commercial questions no easier to answer than it is to explain why our cheap. newspapers are no better than they we: In either case the public, no doubt, :gets largely what. the public wants, though in-the case of the film the Australian or Indian public has hardly even the chance of wanting something better, because it has never seen it. The Empire Marketing Board dries good work with purely utilitarian and educational friths, but it is compelled to limit its field, the more so since its appropriation has* just been heavily cut. Misrepresentation-and its evil effects, it
seems, must continue.
a * *
Previous page
