THE BIRTH OF THE PERFECT FILM

Taranaki Daily News, 13 July 1935, Page 8 (Supplement)

THE BIRTH OF THE PERFECT FILM

NEED FOR “PASSIONATE” DIRECTION

Discussion with many directors has encouraged Donald Sutherland, film critic, in his opinion that the perfect film will be one that is bom of trouble.

He presents a few random examples in support. Rene Clair once spent an hour in describing the difficulties, financial and psychological, which had to. be surmounted before “Sous Les Toits came into being. Korda, Laughton and “Henry VIII” had no easy environment. If Ben Hecht and his partner had not fought the powers of Hollywood there would have been no “Crime Without Passion.” Hissing and ridicule preceded the birth of “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Four years passed before “Bengal Lancer” was complete. Behind any honest work of art, writes Sutherland—and still, after five years of film criticism, I look on films as an art — lurks, a quality of passionate creation. A clumsy phrase, but it will serve. The easily achieved seldom gives universal satisfaction.

There is such a thing as making a director’s job too soft for his comfort. Take the case of Victor Saville. When he chooses his own subject, he can make a grand film. Think of the solid work behind his “Good Companions.” The selection, the rejection, the concentra„tion •of a diffuse wordy novel within screen limitations. But when he is “allotted” to an “Iron Duke” which did not fire his imagination what happens? Empty majesty, “faultily faultless, icily null.”

And there is Hitchcock. “Hitch” sponsored “Murder,” “Blackmail,” “The Man Who Knew Too Much.” He was “engaged to direct” “Waltzes From Vienna.” Without passionate direction you cannot have a finished film. There are lots of British directors who might make a good film. Very few can choose the film they want to make. It is the urge that is so vital. Producers go on serving out yards of shoddy material coloured to suit stellar complexions. The stuff is handed to journeymen directors, and the producer wonders why the finished article looks so reach-me-down. Admitted the British scenario departments are the feeblest; in the whole British organisation; a passionate director knows his characters too well

to let them speak stilted, out-of-char-acter lines. The hireling accepts what he is offered—and uses it as an alibi when he senses a lukewarm atmosphere in critical circles after the premiere. Somehow or other those films which get themselves made in spite of the system, not because of it, matter most. We, as a nation, dislike enthusiasts. America is too easily led by them. That is why Hollywood fails, and succeeds, more gloriously than we do. She is young enough to “cock a snook” at “good form.” When the perfect film, the screen classic, is made, it will not come from a £15,000-a-year director amongst his technical experts, advisers and assistants. It will be made by fanatic who writes his own story and dialogue, who designs and builds his own sets and handles his own camera. He will spend all his money on the first four reels. He will bluff and bully his actors into working for an improbable percentage on problematical receipts. Half-way through the film his wife will elope and leave him with two children full of mumps. He will fall from the camera crane, break a wrist and develop neuritis—but that film will go on, because he must make it.

Could anyone have stopped Shakespeare half-way through “King Lear”? I do not think so. This distrust of enthusiasm holds us back. It gives Americans the advantage. True they take their losses, but they come back with a “Bengal Lancer.” Our producers call for original stories. When'they get one (and they are prone to confuse success with originality) they pass it on to the scenario department which neatly excises anything original and rewrites the chief part for some stage star. They deplore the scarcity of young directors and laugh at the suggestion, of trying a new lad. “What, trust a boy with £50,000! Not on your life.”

Film production is universally acknowledged to be a crazy business. . Excellent; why not be logical and give the fanatic his chance. Enthusiasm, fanaticism, genius, who shall mark out the boundary which separates them? The cinematic definition of genius might be lunacy sanctified by success.