NO MORE TALKIES?

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 19 August 1933, Page 4

NO MORE TALKIES?

FILMS OF THE FUTURE Although the film plays such an important part in the life of the community, the number of really intelligent boohs on the cinematic art is deplorably few. There was, however, recently published in Germany an exhaustive and profound exposition of the subject entitled :: Film Als Kurist,” by one of its leading critics, Herr Rudolf Arnhcim.

One of the most controversial of Herr Arnheim’s opinions is that the talkies form no part of film art. He believes that the talkie does not differ aesthetically from the theatre in any way except in the fact that the theatre provides colour and plasticity, and that it gives the real happenings. From the standpoint of talkie, plain, uncolourcd reproductions of happenings are not in any sense advantageous. The use of coloured film constitutes, he believes, a real danger to the development of film art, but is of advantage in talkies. Another of his views that may provoke contradiction is that the plot of the film, whatever its genre, does not particularly matter. What is essential is to observe how any individual picture or individual scone is mounted, photographed, acted, and cut. Ilis quotation from the views of M. Solsky, the director of the Moscow Sovkino, is in this connection particularly appropriate. “The talkie has no future. We have no intention of producing talkies hero nor of introducing speech into films. In Russia, talkies have practically no advocates. On the ' other hand, sound film not only has a great future, but it signifies a revolution of film and of act altogether/’