SCREEN WRITING
ONLY IN ITS INFANCY, SATS REX INGRAM.
None of the makers of modern day "movies," perhaps, has cruised a course moro stormy than' Rex Ingram, states .the "Christian Science Monitor." He it was who, in the early days of the careleas ciuema, saw set and scene and situation strangely and truly. For this, let it be noted, he was duly derided by the then conquerors of the cinema. To-day he says he is merely striving a3 far as ho sees; beyond that sight, he believes, lies the fair future of the films.
"It is not half so much a. question of how much progress has been made as of how much progress can be made. The old cinema was crude enough; v the new cinema is less crude. There will be tomorrows and to-morrows for the threading of light and shadow. Screen writing, and by that I mean writing directly for the screen, is in its infancy. No amount of caustic or casual conferences can better it. It is an almost unbudded art, and ouly time will temper it to genuine excellence. I know all the better, I am afraid, because in the old days'o'f Edison I used to write scenarios myself," he says.
Mr. Ingram came to the studios from Yale, where he had studied, among other things, sculpture under Leo' Lawrio Sculpturo helped the director see and stabilise his sets, and a knack for drawing lets him out in advance the characters of his drama.rto-bo as he sees them. An allied art is an immense help in tl le land of light and shadow.
110 regards Griffith as the greatest director, and numbers among his rivals the Germans Lubitsch and Buchowetsky And these three and, Ingram, let it be noted, alone may mass mobs, may move quick play1 of sword and sabre, set the scene for battle, and give uiito their milling masses that life that spells vera city in the films. Griffith, of late, has grown away from his crowds, Lubitsch has been idle over long, and Ingrain soon brings to the shimmering . screen the France of the Marseillaise in Rafael Sabatiui's romance, "Scaramouche."
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Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 61, 15 March 1924, Page 21
Word Count
359SCREEN WRITING Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 61, 15 March 1924, Page 21
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