The Wanganui Chronicle. MONDAY, MARCH 11, 1946 THE FUNCTION OF THE FILM

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 90, Issue 57, 11 March 1946, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. MONDAY, MARCH 11, 1946 THE FUNCTION OF THE FILM

THE function of the film is to amuse an audience. Can this be 1 regarded as the whole of its function? Is it to be used entirely as a medium for escape, like a thriller novel, or is it possible for a popular audience to be interested in more than amusement? The argument must all turn wholly on the meaning of the term “amusement.” It is possible so to limit the term amusement that it applies only to what is regarded as low comedy. The audience which gathers in the theatre does not desire to be lectured and it certainly resents being treated to a programme of propaganda. It would be' impossible, nevertheless, to run a year-round programme of comedy films. This proves that the audience, when it seeks amusement, wants more than funny cuts. TVhat then docs the theatre-going public want? If there was a cut-and-dried answer to be found to that question then the risk and the romance would be taken out of the amusement business. The audience of to-day is no guide to the audience of to-morrow. After a run of gaiety shows such as “The Gaiety Girl, “The Spring Chicken,” and the like, London turned to Arthur Melville’s melodramatic homespun in a series of plays. These commenced with “A Girl’s Crossroads,” altered in the next to “The Girl Who Took the Wrong Turning,” and went on in like strain with the same plot and the same environment and the same characters, the good girl in the bad city. London, which knew the plays for the cheap things that they were, lapped them up and enjoyed the consuming. It is small wonder that New Zealand should lap up a series of allegedly Irish plays by an actor calling himself Allan Doone, who was taken seriously here whereas in Dublin he ■would have been treated as too big a joke even to be laughed at. The recent success of “Major Barbara” and the popularity of such plays as “Mrs,. Miniver” make it clear that the theatre-going audience is not averse to seeing ideas worked out in play. To some the ideas which prompt the play are not perceived and the plot is no more than the working out of the principle o£ suspense. But that applies only to a section of the audience. There are others who are interested both in the play of personality, which is the main meat of a novel or a play, and in the ideas which those people entertain. There are few who are interested in the ideas alone. For the last-mentioned class the lecture room is their spiritual home.

Mr. J. L. Warner, of the fafnous Warner Brothers, was recently invited by General Eisenhower to visit Germany and the liberated areas of Europe. “I had the opportunity,” he writes, “to observe first-hand the problem of re-education which faces our occupation forces in Germany. Those people in Europe have no sense of values left, no standards and no faith, on which to build. A generation of extreme regimentation has left them almost incapable of working anything out for themselves. “No one connected with the motion pictures who has seen these things can allow himself to assume responsibility for a screen which portrays only a make-belief world. He will want to see tjje motion picture play its part in bringing the truth home to people. What does this mean in terms of future pictures? There will always be an adequate number of pictures which are purely entertainment. People need a few hours of escape and forgetfulness which they provide. But there will also be films on important themes having a sound basis of reality. There will be pictures which look at the war in retrospect. Perhaps they will turn out to be our most important war pictures. These trends foreshadow an American motion picture product which is more mature and more cultivated than ever before in our history.” Does this correctly foreshadow the film of the future? It would be all to the good if films that are more mature and more cultivated were to be produced and exhibited in greater numbers than they are now. But it is also comforting to have observed that good acting, coupled with good stories, does find a ready response to-day even in out-of-the-way places. The audience of the small town cinema does not differ in essentials from that in the cinema palace in a metropolis. The film, too, is moving beyond national barriers. It is capable of bringing home to the hearts of the people, and in some measure to their heads too, those facts and phases of life which are universal in appeal. It will be regrettable, indeed, if the world message which the films can speak if the producers will allow them to do so is marred by an unnecessary and illogical localness.. The world does stand in need of more universal reaction and motivation, and the film can do much to cultivate these. But it can do more, if others will learn from it.

How many theatres would be full if the same technique as is applied to the churches were to be applied to the cinemas? If the same actors appeared week in and week out in the films the theatres would be empty within a few weeks. Yet this welldemonstrated fact is lost to view by those who are supposed to be interested in promoting church attendance. The film may serve a very useful and helpful purpose, but the atmosphere in which it is shown and the absence of a personal follow-up such as is provided in a well-run parish gives to the Church a power which the film, for all its universality and the resources which it may command, can never possess. The function of the film must always be supplementary to those other organisations which must thrive if a community is to have a healthy life. As a supplementary force and especially as a force co-ordinated with others the film could and, it is to be hoped, will serve a very useful purpose in the future. It is gratifying that the statement of Mr. Warner indicates from the producer’s standpoint that the aligning of the film with more than pure and simple entertainment is something which the individual producer should not resist but, on the contrary, should embrace as an opportunity for the expansion of the film’s usefulness in the widest sense.