The soul of the moving picture

by Walter Julius Bloem

It was not long, however, until the public that frequented the music halls and variety shows grew tired of the “cinematographic” disrobings and their attendant indecencies. What was to be done? Writers immediately set about creating backstairs tales of the worst conceivable type. There was but one slogan: Money! And the money was forthcoming. Technical science, which has really never, of relatively recent years, been without a keen nose for good business, came to the aid of the scenario “authors.” As a result of this, the presentation of the pictures soon acquired a stage of perfection which the most enthusiastic dreamer had never once anticipated. But of art, of culture, of an exquisitely visualized civilization—not a trace not even a premonition.

Then came the moving picture actor, that living embodiment in one person of idealism and materialism, in whose acting people began to have a sort of pre-conception of an entirely new method of giving visible and tangible expression to human feelings. The belief that a new art was in the making was still vague; one’s idea of it was still dim; but it was there. The “scholarly” world, whose unique privilege it always has been, is, and will be to denounce, decry, and damn the new so long as it has not been perfected and despite such evidences of unquestioned greatness as it may reveal, at once shrieked as from a single throat: “Surrogate!” It was in Italy that a certain poet with a world-wide reputation permitted his work to be placed on the screen. At this some began to be skittish, skeptical. And from afar off, as it were, came the first trumpet tones announcing a new art.

And thus the moving picture, attacked by the entire “cultured” world, went on its way, unimpeded by the objections that were raised against it, to the heights on which it at present rests. The scholar proved that there is one thing at least which he is not: a prophet, a seer, a herald of the new. To be a pioneer does not mean that one must cast slurs on that which has not yet found itself; it means much rather the ability to catch, by fair means and fanciful, the first distinct notes of remote clarity.

No one will be able to have great faith in the motion picture who is not at the same time able to seal his heart against the veritable flood of artistic disappointments—and who is not ready to pay his homage to the few great scattered events and episodes that have gone toward the effecting of the clarity of which we have spoken? If you say to me, “Nine-tenths of all moving pictures are bad,” I shall reply by saying that “One-tenth of all moving pictures is good.” If this repartee on our part is possible from the point of view of hard fact, then it certainly must be possible to squeeze out all the faulty fruit from this budding garden of the screen. It is, in truth, ridiculous to try to prove the worthlessness of the moving picture as a whole by selecting, with much conscientious care, the worst pictures and holding them up as typical—and abominable—“illustrations.” These “worst pictures” merely make us realize the not exactly crushing truth that the moving picture, like any other artistic tool or instrument, may be misused. If we wish to prove the enduring value of poetry, we do not cite Kotzebue or Conan Doyle. We can appreciate the value of the motion picture only by studying its best works.

It is easy to criticise; to nag is a sport in which all may indulge. But mistakes are necessary: they return without ceasing and lay in our lap first the foreboding, and then the real knowledge of those inner laws that go to make up the truth. And they do this however deeply buried the laws may be.

Technique stands at the service of civilization; it is the product of cold, calculating, judicial intellect. Art serves culture; it is the product of the warm, seeking soul. The moving picture wants to serve culture; it wants to speak to the soul, sprung though it itself is from cold technique.

When, at the close of the preceding century, its inventors projected the first “living” pictures on the canvas, they did not even faintly suspect the measure of development that was in store for the child of their mind. The film was not created for the benefit of culture. If in the meantime the visualization of human feelings has come to occupy the lion’s share of attention, it is merely a proof of the fact that the human soul has taken possession of the film in order, through it, to acquire new forms of expression for its feelings.

Who would have the audacity to contend that the number of arts was definitely decided upon centuries ago, and that new ones cannot be added to the already existing list? Who will deny that every art has sprung from some technical invention or other? Even music, the most beautiful flower of human culture, was impossible and unthinkable until men had invented sounding boards, vibrating strings, and similar devices. Whether the technical apparatus associated with a species of art, and making that art possible, be elaborate or simple, concerns art itself in no way. For it is entirely and altogether a question as to how large the space is which it offers the soul.

Fig. 1. Scene from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.