THE TALKING PICTURES

Taranaki Daily News, 28 September 1929, Page 26 (Supplement)

THE TALKING PICTURES

HOW FAR WILL THEY EXTEND?

(By

J.B.)

Lately there has been an opportunity to surmise exactly how far the influence of the talking pictures will extend, Marvellous as they are, it is not likely that, as some of the English critics at first declared, they will supplant the best plays of the legitimate stage.

The play, for its success, depends upon illusion. The theatre, for example, is darkened primarily so that'' the attention of the people will not be distracted bv.the sights around them. There is nowhere else to look except at the stage. Even if it is a bad play, unless you can sleep, you mnst look at it. The darkening of the theatre is merely the despotic act of producers to heighten the illusion of their plays. But with talking pictures it seems that the sense of illusion can never be quite complete because the mind of the watcher knows that the people on the screen are not real people. The mind knows that, in spite of their voices, they are merely figures. There is, however, no complaint against the talking films. One. does miss the people who used to read the captions. „ ■/' Further wonders are promised: the correct perspective on the screen so that figures will stand out in real life; pictures in natural colours, the television process, the’ talking film in one’s own home instead of the camera. ' ... Picture a widower, rich, youngish and besieged by flattering advances from attractive women. On the point per : haps of feeding, he goes to his diningroom, turns out the lights, touches a switch and watches a picture of his late

wife flicker on a white wall. And the film will be a talking film. This is almost a sinister' influence. The serious question is whither arc xve woing,’whence will we arrive? Two sides of life are clearly defined: the mechanical or purely physical and the side of the mind, the purely spiritual. The physical side has reached its peak in this year of grace 1929, when , the species, man is producing aeroplanes, television, wireless', and talking pictures. The peak of the spiritual side was neared about 400 B.C. when the species produced Socrates. The very peak was reached exactly one thousand tv\o hundred and ninety-nine years ago. . Meanwhile the “march of progress continues. Every year there is something fresh, something unthought of. We live in a world of gramophones, radio, motor-cars, aeroplanes and submarines; and now there is even a wonderful little invention for taking the lid off tins of blacking without' smudging one’s fingers. Aye; we are living in°a wonderful ago.