ART AND THE CINEMA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17230, 22 December 1923, Page 1 (Supplement)

ART AND THE CINEMA.

THE MILLIONAIRE’S OPPORTUNITY

One of the most curious facts of modern life is that rich men are generally so unoriginal and unimaginative in their methods of spending money (writes Sidney Dark in “John o’ London’s AA'eekly ”). There are so many useful things, so many humorous things, so many grotesque things that rich men might do, and they do none of them. They are the slaves of convention. Established charities, yachts most of tliem loathe, horses which few of them understand, party funds, the financing of musical comedies (usually a euphemism for certain loss) —what else does tradition dictate? Indeed, through sheer poverty of ideas, many millicr.aire.s are forced to save, often stuffing a very wilderness of stockings with the enthusiasm with which a French peasant laboriously fills or partly /ills his one well-darned pair. The odd consequence is that useful and intelligent spending by a rich man moves us to admiration, and. this admiration is the greater when a man devotes his time and money to the possibly unremunerative improvement of an industry which, unreformed, has made his fortune. CHARLIE CHAPLIN’S VENTURE. It is for this reason that the whole world is interested in the latest enterprise of Charlie Chaplin (it would as ridiculous to write “ Air Chaplin” as it would be to write ‘‘Air Shakespeare ”). Charlie Chaplin is a great mime, a highly gifted and individual comic artist, and it is proof of his artistic enthusiasm that he is now busy with the production of films, the first of which has recently been produced in New York, in which he sets out to tell a dramatic story without the irritating interruptions of sub-titles and “ closeups.” The artistic possibilities of the cinema are yet to be discovered. It is possible that sooner or later some really valuable imaginative use will be made of the moving picture. Composers are now writing music for the pianola which could not be played by human hands on the piano. The artist is exploiting a mechanical invention and th© same thing may happen with the cinema. WEAKNESS OF ADAPTATIONS. Until now, one of the few artistic achievements of the film play has been the provision of an immense public for half a dozen great actors. Alost of the plays are adaptations, and no novel and no stage play has ever been filmed without losing nearly all its distinction.

It is better to know nothing of a great story than to know it emasculated and robbed of its beauty. From this point of view the cinema is at present too often the enemy of culture, and for those of us who believe that the widening of the area of appreciation of the fine things in literature, drama and art is one of the greatest needs of our time, one Old Vic in a city is worth a legion of picture theatres. In criticising the film versions of novels and plays it is only fair to remember that the dramatisations of novels for the regular stage are almost always the pale shadows of the originals. A satisfactory stage play must be conceived and written for the theatre. Similarly, the artistic film play, if it is ever written, must be conceived and w ritten for the films. There may be many ways in which the artist of the future will. use the film, but already in such films as “ The Birth of a Nation,” Mr Griffith has demonstrated the cinema’s supremacy in the representation of dramatic historical episodes. This particular film w r as marred by the introduction of a pathetic love interest, the incidental admission, that the public, for whicli the cinema caters is the public that joys in the novelette; but Mr Griffith proved that the past can be made actual to the present by the moving picture far more effectively than by any other medium. Without its other artistic possibilities, yet to be discovered, there is already enough opportunity for the millionaire who loves his fellows. The travel film lias made the “ back-of-beyond ” real to the stay-at-homes. The educational value of the natural history films needs no emphasis, and it is certain that when we get the schools of which Mr Wells dreams a cinema will be part of their equipment. But the films will be costly to manufacture, and there will be little chance of large immediate profits. Charlie Chaplin, at whose amazing antics generations yet Tinhorn will assuredly laugh like anything, should enlist an army of plutocrats to make an the cinema an entirely beneficent institution. Charles Weslews question, “• Why should the Devil have all the best tunes ?” suggests the modem inquiry, “ Why should silly stories monopolise the most modern and most popular instrument of distribution ? 9y The answer is because the silly story offers a quick profit, but the philanthropic millionaire would not bother about that.