BRITISH FILMS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3756, 9 March 1926, Page 65

BRITISH FILMS.

GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE. THE SITUATION REVIEWED. (From Odh Own Coruesi'on' knt.) LONDON, January 7. The announcement that the Daily Express would produce a photo-play for the purpose of investigating the obstacles and difficulties of British producers has met with enthusiasm in film circles. The Kinematograph Weekly saye editorially in its current issue:' “If the Daily Express can show that there exists in this country one new director, capable, with reasonable finance, of producing a picture which will, on its merits, please the British public as much as the American films it usually gets, it will be doing a real service to the industry. It is certainly much more likely to assist than those newspapers which scream for a ‘quota’ of British films without knowing either what a quota is or what its inevitable and disastrous effects must be, unless it is accompanied by a vast improvement in the average entertainment value of British films/’

The sum allocated by the board of directors of the Express for the purpose of producing the filn is £50,000, which it is considered will enable the promoters of the scheme to draw on every artistic, and technical resource at the disposal of Great Britain. ivvery effort will be made to expedite the preliminary arrangements and reach the producing period at the earliest possible date. The journal is to describe in its columns from stage to stage the progress made and the difficulties encountered.

A special correspondent of The Times has been reviewing the situation of the industry in a series of articles. There are summed up editorially: “The form of assistance which the trad© will ask of a willing Government,” says the writer of the leading articles, “is still undecided. The proposal that British exhibitors should be compelled to accept a fixed proportion of British films was rejected with good reason by the exhibitors themselves, who were naturally unprepared to bind themselves to retail a product without assurance of its merit or, at, least of its power to please those who regularly attend picture theatres. There are some who still press for this ' quota ’ system, and it is possible that the proposals which emerge from the present consultations within the trade may incorporate it in a modified form. But it is at best an unimaginative way of attacking the existing difficulties, fo”, while t aims at guaranteeing here and now a limited and probably reluctant market for British goods, it does nothing t. assist them to obtain a share in that wider market in Europe and America, which is the key to the commercial position in e future. “ Every suggestion that is made either for raising the standard of the films or for improving the position of the British industry stands or falls by its probable effect upon the taste and the pockets of filmgeers and potential film-goers. They are the arbiters. A proposal which, if it were carried out, would alienate the present film public without attracting another, and perhaps more critical public in its place is a bad proposal. The suggested quota system falls, to its owu destruction, within this definition. It would do othing to assist British makers to establish that exceptional prestige which is necessary if they are to obtain a footing in the markets of the world. Prestige is the ay to the commercial problem, for the good reason that the films are fast emerging from a condition which in the past has justified, or at least excused, the dislike or indifference of educated people, and are drawing critical opinion towards themselves: “To any consideration of the effect which films have upon their spectators the same argument applies with even greater force. The remedy for existing evils lies not in .i stricter censorship, but in the gradual transference of a powerful imaginative instrument from the hands of others who would use it well—a transference which the quota system would do nothing to hasten, and might do much to retard. The films are 'aa art in its childhood.’ They are capable of great development, but not for good unless under the direction of artists. Their possibilities—educational, aesthetic, and scientific—are so many and at present so little understood, that there is eal need that they should be investigated, not only by men who are actively engaged in industrial practice, but by those who are able to take a more detached and, perhaps, a wider view. What peculiar powers have they to treat o? mental processes? To what uses right they be put by psychologists as an tid to their inquiries? Is their value to astronomers, mathematicians, natural historians, and geographers necessarily confined to elemenary demonstrations in the class room? Professional men will answer these and similar questions each in relation to the subject of which he himself has most knowledge. Perhaps, at any rate at first, they w ’ refuse to admit that the films can be of any particular service to them: perhaps, as they consider the subject, they will be led to revise their opinion. It is In any case of pome Importance that they should consider it, and that those who have formed a prejudice against film going should, even at inconvenience to themselves, bring their minds to bear on the many problems which the screen implies. This is an art in the making. It has an incalculable influence on children. If the art and the Influence do not fulfil their promise, the responsibility rests upon those who are too indifferent to establish an effective critical demand that it be fulfilled.”