CHAPTER VII
Theme, Treatment and the Censor
MORALS AND ETHICS; CRIME; NATIONAL BOARD OF CENSORSHIP; TASTE; INSPIRATION AND INFLUENCE.
WHAT shall we write about, and how shall we write it?
Here the playwright must pause and look his fellow men, his friends, his parents, his children, his wife, and his conscience square in the eye. They are one and all his intimate audience. They will be influenced by his product, be pleased or offended in its production, and thru it see his heart with all its strength and weakness laid bare.
Broadly, our theme shall be Life—Life in all its aspects: the gorgeous and the threadbare; the noble and the sordid; the happy and the sorrowful; the righteous and the sinful; the healthy and the ailing; the youthful and the aged; the strong and the weak. But it must be the life that we know—not necessarily thru experience, but possibly thru study, observation or intuition.
Choice of theme is a matter requiring, chiefly, a respectful observance of the general popular demand and the particular needs of the studios, unless you are genius enough to initiate and lead the popular tastes. But the subject of treatment is one requiring a far more delicate exercise of judgment. Any conceivable theme may be spoiled by an indiscreet or injudicious viewpoint.
The playwright conveys powerful personalities to his characters, but remains passively impersonal himself. He immovably records truth, never interposing himself, his opinions or his bias. His characters pursue their own lives; they are neither automatons nor marionettes; they live according to their individual natures and have provokingly free wills.
The photoplaywright has but to remain on the side of right and justice, good citizenship and decency. He communicates nothing thru the symbols of his play that he would hesitate, refrain or be ashamed of telling those nearest, dearest and most sacred to him. Public audiences are daily made up of millions of people, who are highly impressionable, of tender age and of simple susceptibilities. Providing our play is effective, it contains a very positive influence, that means either a rise or a fall in moral values in every community wherein it is exhibited. The playwright must be the figure of justice that shows no mercy to the wrongdoer; the sword of retribution he carries in one hand, in the other he holds the scales of just rewards. There simply must be a moral ending.
It is more essential that the villain be vanquished, than punished. Our story is not vengeance, but is usually concerned with the victory of the good element—or hero—and the incidental adventures of circumventing the villain and misfortune. Stories in which the good element is overcome by the bad, thus placing a premium on the bad, are unmoral. Stories or plays showing the delights to be gained from illicit pleasures or pursuits, followed or not by adequate punishment or retribution, are immoral.