CHAPLIN ON FILMS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 19 October 1937, Page 8

CHAPLIN ON FILMS

LOW AESTHETIC LEVEL LONDON, 10th October. The chief fault of the cinema to-day, in the opinion of Charles Chaplin, is its low aesthetic level. In a preface to “Movies for the Million,” by Gilbert Seldes (published by Batsforcl), Chaplin says that the movie industry has, artistically, many obstacles to overcome. Films are burdened, he says, by a specially imposed censorship, which denies the right to dwell on many issues of the day. “Under normal conditions of censorship,” he says, “a film play with the boy-meets-girl theme has quite a task in competing for realism with a film news-weekly, with its assassination of a king, a tragic accident to a Zeppelin, or the graphic accomplishments of Lindbergh. “To-day, in this kaleidoscopic turmoil of fast and furious events when cause and effect are bringing to light a more realistic view of human affairs, a film play must ignore vital issues and deal only with such subject matter as a child would read in a rhyming-book.”