THE CINEMA
THE NECESSITY FOR GOOD FILMS
WHEN those whose responsibility and business it is to make and sell films tell us, as they do daily, that it is madness to make good films unless they are such as will please tens of thousands of people, their judgment carries conviction. It is obvious that it costs so much to make any film, even a good one, that it would be madness to manufacture an article so expensive if so far removed from what the public demands that it remained eternally unmarketable, were that where the matter ended. Happily for the future of the cinema, there is " more to it " than that.
When the first films were made the public loved them. But were those same films put out to-day, no one could bear them. What has happened ? Continuous improvement and untiring experiments have gone on, imperceptibly of course. `!'hen a picture lasting an hour was first made, its maker was derided. When Mr. Goldwyn first suggested engaging Madame Bern- hardt at enormous expense to act in a film, he was considered mad. When the first German films came to us after the War people said that they were magnificent, but, of course, they would never pay. But that first hour-long film, that first entry of a person of eminence into the studio, those first "high- brow " Continental pictures have each of them in their turn changed the whole face of the film world.
It is true that the making of films is a business matter. But that is not all. The producing of plays is also business. But heaven be praised now and then men of courage give us plays—like The Cherry Orchard—which are anything but a sound commercial proposition. And they do so because they realize, as the rest of the world does dimly, that were it not for the exceptional plays, irrespective of their monetary value, were it not for the new blood they bring to the drama, the whole theatre would decay out of hand. It is the same with the cinema. Had Griffith never made Intolerance, or Seastrom Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness, had the Germans not given us The Last Laugh and Warning Shadows, or the Americans The Marriage Circle and Don Q, not only would the early growth of the cinema have visibly withered, but the very cinema public itself would have dwindled. There are many people who go to the cinema regularly, once or more a week. For six months they get only what they demand, which is what they will accept. The time comes when they suddenly feel stale, they stay away. There comes along an unusual picture, made by some bold madman who offers them something so strange that they feel inclined to heave a brick at it—something like caligari. But their interest is reawakened. And the pictures that follow the strange detestable glimmer of genius are brighter, or more realistic, or more fantastic, or just simply a little different. The public cares little about technique, but
it does want change. And it is on the commercially un- successful but original pictures that the very continuance of the cinema really depends.
Of course it is the films which are at once popular and different that do the most good, send the public flocking in greater numbers than ever into the picture-houses. For instance, films like Don Q, The Gold Rush and The Last Laugh are literally worth their weight in gold not only because in themselves they are excellent and profitable, but because men and women who have seen them will be willing to continue going to the cinema, in spite of a good deal of inferior stuff," in the confident expectation of seeing other pictures sooner or later as good as those three. But, going back further, the very existence of those three pictures depended on earlier experimental work, which was anything but so successful with the public. With all deference, those members of the film. trade who make a stand against non-commercial films and " high-brow " films on principle are standing in their own light.'
The health of the moving-picture concerns us all most closely ; it is a contemporary art, something new and very exciting with everything to anticipate. We in England hay& come lately to realize that we as a nation offer little enough! of a contribution to its welfare. In ten years we have not made a single surprising film. To-day we talk of increasing; the number of films we produce, but not one among us dare; demand an increase in quality which is far more important.' We have not the skill to make a film as entertaining as Don QP, nor indeed have we the money it seems, though one would have thought that one or two of our richer corporations, or more beneficent millionaires would have remedied that shame. But! what is worst of all, we have not even the ambition to make a film as good as Don Q, from an aesthetic point of view. Andl until we do desire to make a moving picture, however small? that shall be better, more novel and more exciting, than any- thing else that has yet been made, no doubt it is only just that' funds for the making of pictures shall continue to be hard! come by for us, that our pictures on the whole shall go on being dull. Indeed for our sins we deserve to have nothing in our picture-palaces but German comedies (which are ghastly) and American dramas about high society in the British Isles (which I are worse).
We are never for one moment likely to forget that it is money that makes the wheels of the entertainment world go I round. But we are apt to forget, and it is high time we re- membered, that a few drops of purely unmercantile aspiration are needed, too, if it is to run sweetly.
IRIS BARRY.
Previous page
