CHESTERTON AND THE MOVIES

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 154, 25 March 1922, Page 3

CHESTERTON AND THE MOVIES

A WHIMSICAL ADDRESS

Ah'. Hilaire. Belloc and Mr. G. KCliesterton recently entertained an audience with their views on the kinema and other things! “What. the pitehc ought to like,” was the title of Air. Chesterton’s address, and Mr. Belloc, in the chair, had a preliminary gambol, anxious, as ho mit it. to get out the beehive in his bonnet—namely, the use of the kinema in the teaching of history. . , ■ • Urging the use of the kinema in teaching history. Air. Belloc said ths average educated man or woman tra® bb'nd, deaf, and dumb on historv. He left school at 18 knowing nothing of historv excont that there had been a Roman Empire and that a j man calVd 'U r illiam the Conqueror had fought the Battle of Hastings. But one had no idea, of what the past was like If as an illustration of teaching historv bv the kinema they took, for example, the nngcnnt of the Spanish niarria"e at Winchester, they would get some idea of what the Spanish wonarchv was at that time, and thev would thus pee that nations I VO' up and down. Tho teaching of history was teaching bv pictures. One ends bv saving. ftB one always says ot all human afteirs. that the thing will be done, but it will be done bndly Air. Chesterton confessed himself a recent convert to the l-’nemn h’s conversalion being due to finding that Governments wanted +o abolish it because it was immoral. It was far more wholesome that tho voung should see vivid th : n."B I’ko burglary, which required certain definite virtues like courage and fidelity, than to see pure undiluted viite in politics and commerce with no redeeming virtue at all. < Newspapers could not deal with certain things as the film could on account of the chaotic condition of the law of libel. Novels gave facts about fictitious people, as newspapers gave fictions about real peonte. *’uong recent novels that miftht be filmed were “The Town of Crooked Ways” and “The Black Ciivte.” It was a fallacy, however, +o fi’m simh a novel as ‘Wanity Fair.” Thackeray's method being antagonistic at _ everv noint to the process of tho kinema. 'Becky Sharp” on the film was an ordinary stage adventuress. Ho was devoted to the stage adventuress, but he Hked her to be called Louise La Atelliere. The kinema would make a mistake in going in for literature instead of lifo. Tho notion of putting Shaw’s “Pygmalion” on th" film was like the Vniius of Milo orchestrated, or the “Moonl : ght Sonata” in bronze. He had a horrible fear that some subtle, profound piece of self-analysis like Newman’s “Apologia” ■ would be nut on, with a gigantic portrait of Cardins! Newman, his face undergoing various changes indicating various stages of religious conviction.