FILM ART’S GROWTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 December 1931, Page 2

FILM ART’S GROWTH

INTERESTING SPEECHES. LONDON, October 21. How the art of the film has developed from the Wild West picture of the pioneer days to the elaborate production at present demanded, was traced by Mr Anthony Asquith, the producer, who was last evening the guest of the Author’s Club. Other speakers dwelt upon the evil influence which certain films must have on Eastern minds, prejudicing them against the white man and low-; ering the prestige of the white woman. Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, the chairman, in proposing the toast of the guest of tile evening, said that films presented themselves in three aspects—the national, as an industry; the commercial, as an entertainment; and the aesthetic, as a branch of th-3 dramatic art.

From they had heard of the work of their guest, they might feel sure that he would approach the national and commercial aspects by the path of the aesthetic. (Cheers). That seemed the right method of approach. Mr Anthony Asquith said it was very natural that the older and more respectable muses should be inclined to regard the cinema as a vulgar upstart, the mere offspring of the novelette and the magic lantern. When films were first made it was enough that the pictures moved. The mere sight of a man eating an applepie filled audiences with a kind of ecstasy. In a sense they were right, because pictorial movement was the life-blood of the cinema.

An early type of film was that of the "Wild West.” The villain was usually a man with a small black moustache, and there were sometimes minor villains as “fist powder” for the hero, (Laughter). When the hero was “beating up” or “bumping off” the villain, the heroine was usually too sensitive to take a useful part, and the film closed with the hero folding her to his manly breast against a rising or a setting sun. (Laughter). Many films of great merit were made out of that simple and naive material. After a time people began to feel that they wanted to be more intimate with the characters if they were to take an interest in their fate. The first step was taken by D, W. Griffith, who invented the “close up.” The Germans afterwards saw th:t there were other means of conveying the emotions to the audience than by the human face. When the Germans wanted to show fear they made the whole picture frightening. The who>e story was, in one instance, made ■-) appear as if.it were being enacted •inside a madman’s brain. The es sence of that method was to take the expression of emotion out of the hands of the actor and put it into those of the designer of the decor or camera man. That method had its limitations.

MR CHAPLIN’S METHODS. . . / The next step was taken when Charlie Chaplin produced a film called “A Woman of Paris.” His method was to piece together a series of segments of life, none of which was of any particular significance in itself.

While films acquiring this kind of ability they were all the same losing touch with their essential life force, which was movement. Russian film directors found they could use movement to convey action, emotion, and state of mind. Their method was to build up by small sections, each one in itself meaningless, but each bearing a rhythmical relationship to the others.

Supposing a girl luyl murdered a man with a carving knife and it was desired to convey to the audience her state of mind. Griffith would have taken a close, up of the girl. The Germans would take a close up at some steep and distorting angle, and the image of the knife would be used. Chaplin, if they could imagine’him dealing with such a subject, would not show the body, but only the way the girl had to walk around it, how the door would not open because of the body, or the upset cup of tea with a little drip from it. The Russian directors might show the girl’s face and the knife alternately, the two pictures getting quicker and quicker. While these things were happening to the silent film, suddenly the Warner Brothers seemed to discover that though the cinema might be beautiful she certainly was dumb, and they endowed her with a voice. The first results were disastrous, and it seemed as if the cinema as an art was killed. The sexless foghorn sounds which camo alike .from the lips of sugar baby and sugar daddy one could have forgiven, but the cinema was paralysed; it became hide-bound and exceedingly garrulous. One great difference between the film and the play was that in the former the angle of vision of the spectator could be changed at a moment’s notice. ‘

At present there were moments when it seemed as if we ■were going to complete the film cycle and return to music, in the talking films love scenes were sometimes greeted . with hoots, but with the silent films spectators would endure kisses for hours. THE SHEIK PICTURES.

Major L. A. M. Jones spoke of the deplorable effect on British prestige exercised by certain films in our Eastern dependencies. The white woman “sex-appealing” on the screen might tickle our Western palates pleasantly enough, but the white woman “sex-appealing” on the screen to an Oriental audience was an unpleasant sight. Actresses in bedroom scenes, clad in semi-transparent night-gear, or taking a bath, were not calculated to inspire Indians with respect for English ladies.

Tho Sheik class of film was gener* ally the glorification of some surely abnormal white woman’s crazy pa> sion for an Eastern chieftain —as portrayed by a youthful European atalete who resembled the genuine article about as much as a rabbit resembled a Bengal tiger. What was the effect upon an illiterate Eastern audience when it was regaled by the spectacle of an Oriental caveman humbling the pride of a white girl? Mr Robert Stokes told of the anxiety displayed by the French authorities lest the films shown in the dependencies should lower the prestige of French women.