MOVIE RENAISSANCE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16987, 10 March 1923, Page 7 (Supplement)

MOVIE RENAISSANCE.

CARL LAEMMLE’S PREDICTION. The non-age of the motion picture art is over, according to Carl Laemuile,

president of Universal Pictures. Mr Laemmle predicts that the kinema industry will, within the next twelve months, emerge from its period of evolution and. take its place as a fully matured art.

11 Motion picture art is to-day undergoing the same transformation as the arts of literature, painting and music during the great Renaissance in and about the fifteenth century in Europe. For years the kinema has been floundering in a wilderness of experiment, growing and ripening. To-day it stands on the times hold of a- new birth. “ The causes of the awakening are fundamental and parallel those of the Renaissance in Europe—the recovery of irdividuality and the refusal to follow more formulae. Recently the motion picture art has been a colossus without a pedestal. Producers, stars and directors have been lost in a mad riot of imitation. Where one has led others have followed blindly. If one company made a costume picture, a dozen others rushed to do likewise, and employees have followed their masters. “ A reaction to this condition was inevitable, and the motion pictures today stand on the threshold of a new era. Producers are breaking away from the beaten paths and striking out into new ; and virgin fields. Stars have ceased j imitation and directors are giving expression to their individual art. I “ The cut and dried films of recent years are passe, and the new motion | picture will be a thing not of mere mechanics but based on the study of human nature itself aud portraying life ! and character with a definite trend toi w ards realism