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The Spike: or, Victoria College Review, June 1928

Why Not Common Sense?

Why Not Common Sense?

One might be slightly amused at C.Q.P.'s further attack on the cinema—amused that is, if one were not also more than slightly bored as his unintelligent strictures about what he seems to have very little critical knowledge. He gives us what to some might be interesting, but what to others are totally irrelevant, details concerning the parks at Hollywood, further details of a biographical nature concerning his own exploits as a film reviewer for the capitalist press, and finally more details still, considering the manner in which films are produced. This together with "such trifles as the merits or demerits" of the art of various cinema actors, together again with much talk about "ordinary little jades," "willing cuties," "waiters who use scent," "pie throwing comedians," "slap stick comedy," fallacious comparisons between the stage and the cinema—all this leads C.Q.P. to the foregone conclusion that the cinema is in no manner an art, and has no future but that of pantomimic comedy.

Now those who attack the cinema may be grouped, I think, into two main classes. First come the professional or amateur moralists, the general busibodies and those who feel that there must be some single cause responsible for present unrest and therefore fasten upon the movies as this cause. By this class the movies are condemned as the immoral, anti-social force in modern civilization. These people cover up their lack of knowledge of the cinema by loud talk and much dust throwing, but for all their sincerity—and we may grant them that at least—they are hopelessly misguided. Equally misguided, however, are the second class. This class consists of journalists, editors, popular orators, "arty" people. Either they make no attempt to understand the art of the cinema and therefore condemn it blindly, absurdly, blatantly, psittaciously, or else they attempt to make capital from the cinema by sensational write-up, smart copy, disquisitions on the morals of Hollywood, or polemics against a misunderstood art, quite confident page 27 that their sensation or their smartness or what not, will hide their ultimate prejudice and profound ignorance. C.Q.P., I believe, has his close affiliations with this second class. By careful selection of his facts, omitting-all those that are contrary to his own opinions, by dexterous manipulation of such facts, he is led on from one statement to another, until finally, like Little Jack Horner, he triumphantly produces his plum, and concludes that all this talk about the movies as art is absurdity. All of which might be amusing and clever, were it not, as I said before, a little unintelligent and therefore, boring.

I have neither the time nor would the editor allow me the space, to criticise C.Q.P. in any detail. Passing over that extraordinary comparison between the greatness of the German film "Variety" and Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" (I am sure that only misguided enthusiasts would imagine for a moment that an orchestra of saxophones is going to be the orchestra of the future)—a comparison which seems to me quite meaningless, C.Q.P. will probably not grudge me also my privy chuckle at the innocence and naivety of a critic who judges of the final worth of an art by misleading consideration of its genesis. C.Q.P. gives us elaborate details (date, year, number of feet of film used, all complete) of the filming of "The Wedding March," "Dulcy," "Ben Hut," "The King of Kings," etc., and then tells us that because art is allied with economy, therefore the film, which may be cut down from its first "shoot" of sixty-four reels to a final presentation of fourteen reels, is not art.

Surely, however. C.Q.P. realises that art is allied with economy only in the final presentation of a work of art; and that to condemn the cinema because of lack of economy, not in final presentation, but in its origin, is just as sublimely futile as it would be to condemn a presentation of Shakespeare's King Lear on the stage just because the cast had to be rearranged time and time again, or the play rehearsed innumerable times before the producer was satisfied; just as futile and illogical again as it would be to judge the literary work of Mr. George Moore or Joseph Conrad as not satisfying the canons of art, because it is, and was, their custom—so I understand—to write and re-write, alter and change, a piece of creative writing before perfection of form resulted. One could make endless comparisons, but the two I have given should be enough to convince C.Q.P. that if he wishes to use economy as one of his criteria for judging a work of art, let him at least apply it suitably and not fall into the ancient trap of confusing validity with origins.

In all his strictures against the cinema, C.Q.P. does not as yet seem to have realised that the practice of comparing the stage with the cinema to the disadvantage of one art or the other is a more or less fruitless proceedure. For in the first place, the stage has such advantages as the impress of the personality of the actors, intensity and confinement of action, colour and what is in fact a difference, not an advantage, the stage has the spoken word. But on the other hand, the cinema gives vivid visual imagery, increased intimacy, an infinite variety of scences, endless angles of vision and of focuses, it brings out the enormous dramatic significance of natural objects—and thus Desdemona's handkerchief becomes a protagonist, not a mere piece of stage property—and finally, space and time as limitations and conventions are banished, they become real factors in building up an artistic unity. One might say perhaps that whereas to go to the movies is to purchase a dream, to go to the theatre is to buy an experience. Between the ex page 28 perience and the dream there lies a vast difference. That is why, as I say, it is ultimately and inherently unfair to both the stage and the cinema to compare the two, and from such comparison to talk contemptuously of the "silent drama"; and it is as idle to insist in the manner of C.Q.P. that the cinema is inferior to the stage artistically, as idle since the difference is one of medium, as it is to claim that Tchekov is a greater artist than Van Gogh, Hardy greater than Sargeant. Beethoven greater than Rembrandt. Inartistic films there may be, but what about "White Cargo," "The Ringer," Fuller's Vaudeville, and productions of that kind?

If C.Q.P. wishes to know something of the art of the cinema, I might direct his attention to the recent Studio publication—Films of the Year—or to the cinema criticism in the London Observer, The New York Nation, Drawing and Design, or the London Spectator. In case he is not familiar with such criticism—and his own imperfect pseudo-criticism makes such a possibility seem likely—perhaps he will forgive my impertinence if I point out to him some of its most important premises.

I think it may be said that in general terms, life, both spiritual and physical life, is movement, and conversely, movement is life. Now the cinema is the only art that can preserve this movement in its expression. In doing this, it suffers of course in a greater or less degree from certain difficulties—but what art has not its inherent disadvantages? In the new art there are two co-ordinate functions. The one function is to tell a story well, the other to connect the story by a flow of images. Since its invention thirty years ago the cinema has been preoccupied over much with dramatic fleshpots. Now, however, it is being realized that just as it is foolish to presume that all poetry should be narrative, all music, programme music—and the cinema is nearer to these arts than to the stage—so is it foolish to imagine that the whole of the cinema is be und up with its dramatic function. The film must place its images so as to create a train of thought. This may be set free by telling a story. But just as, for example, the art of the ballet, besides its dramatic quality, presents us with an harmonious succession of moments of free motion be und into a total configuration or design, so likewise must the cinema, in its ultimate art, present us with the beauty of images shifting from pattern to pattern all the time in harmony of relation to a total rhythmical design.

Some films there are, such as the film "Faust," which are almost wholly the development of theme; other films, for instance, 'Beau Geste," are purely straight out, photographic representations of action. But, I would suggest, that film reaches nearest to the pinnacles of art which combines the development of both theme and story in one balanced design. Further, I think it not in the least absurd to say that in the cinema—if comparisons are needed—there is an art like music, flowing and rhythmical, but which contains within itself at once sculpture in motion, painting in motion, and, often, architecture in motion.

In conclusion then, I might state that while agreeing in part with the utterances of C.Q.P.'s prophet, O. N, Gillespie, I certainly think the latter presents in no possible manner a final summary of the influence and art of the cinema. I think, moreover, that it is utterly ridiculous to even attempt to maintain that the sole domain of the film is "pie throwing" comedy. I would suggest finally that though C.Q.P. is dissatisfied with the films shown in Wellington, nevertheless, he should read—and study—some of the newer criticism of the best German, Russian, American and other Continental films now being produced, but rarely being page 29 screened in New Zealand. Should he do so, he might not in future make his present facile sacrifice of critical truth at the altar of journalistic smartness. And opposed to the words of O. N. Gillespie I would be content to place this vision of that great French critic, Elie Faure, when he writes of the movies as becoming in future "the art of the crowd, the powerful centre of communion in which new symphonic forms will be born in the tumult of passion and utilized for fine and elevating aesthetic ends." Is it not time for C.Q.P. to apply to the movies some of that commonsense of which, like all sciolists, he makes such great parade?

—E.B.

[We think that C.Q.P. and E.B. have bothhad sufficient opportunity to place before readers of the "Spike" the merits and demerits of the cinema. . We ourselves do not profess the capacity to judge the issue, preferring to abide by the pragmatic test, and wait for another twenty-five years before giving our opinion. Meanwhile the controversy is definitely closed.—Ed.]