DIRECTOR JOHN ROBERTSON SECURED EXCELLENT LIGHTING AND DERIVED WONDERFUL WORK FROM HIS CAST IN “SENTIMENTAL TOMMY”
How many pictures could be named in which just mass scene after mass scene appeared on the screen, containing no dramatic purpose, no interest aside from their sheer spectacular value (an interest that soon dies if not fostered with glimpses of the personal story), just mass scene after mass scene until the spectator begins to wonder what in thunder the whole thing means? It seems offhand that any number of such pictures could be named.
But if the director keeps his senses about him he never loses sight of the little things of the spectacle, they are as vitally important as the mass action itself.
It might be appropriate to mention the recent German pictures in this connection. The German picture director is noted for the production of spectacular features. In some respects he surpasses the American director, namely in the artistry of his big scenes and the effective manner in which he handles large numbers of people but on the other hand the German director has the fault of overlooking the personal story in his eagerness to get the spectacular effects.
This fact is particularly noticeable in German pictures when they first come to this country. Of course the pictures first have to pass through the hands of experts. The titles are translated and revised to fit the styles the American public has long since expressed itself satisfied with. But more important, much that the German director left in has to be cut out. Pictures made in Germany and shown here as five or six or seven reel features very often run eight or nine or ten reels when they first are imported here. And in these extra reels which the American cutters painlessly remove from here, there and everywhere in the long stretch of the film, are mob scenes used just because they are mob scenes. Mob scene follows mob scene, until each scene has no particular meaning, the mass effects grow tiresome and the spectator longs for a glimpse of the story forgotten so long ago by the director. The American cutter is able to eliminate much of these superfluous scenes but he can not give the intimate story the prominence that was denied it in the beginning by the German director.
Probably the reason why so many directors neglect this personal element in their spectacles is because of the fact that several years ago a big scene, that is a scene containing a few dozen or a few hundred people, was supposed to impress audiences with the fact that a lot of money had been spent on the picture and that therefore, because a lot of money was spent on it, it was a work of merit.
“Here,” a director used to say when he had doubt in the value of the story he was working on, “Give me a big ball room set and a hundred people in evening clothes and I'll give this picture real class.”
The argument sounds particularly false and unsound today as it was all the time. But the motion picture directors of today, a great many of them at least, still seem to think that a picture can be made good by throwing a lot of money away on lavish settings, and settings containing a lot of people, even though they fail to regard the personal element of the story in a serious light, even though they fail to make this element convincing and real.
Some of the biggest directors in the business have this idea, strange as it may seem. These fellows, believing themselves secure, take delight in poking fun at Mr. Griffith because he will stop a spectacular scene now and then to show a youngster playing with kittens. Mr. Griffith may have been inclined to pay too much attention to kittens and puppies at one time in his career but he was headed along on the right track and those who laughed at these scenes of his were then and there switched off to the wrong track.