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Page 41
The further we go into details, the more we might add such special
psychological demands which result from the fundamental principles of
the new art. But it would be misleading if we were also to raise demands
concerning a point which has often played the chief r�le in the
discussion, namely, the selection of suitable topics. Writers who have
the unlimited possibilities of trick pictures and film illusions in mind
have proclaimed that the fairy tale with its magic wonders ought to be
its chief domain, as no theater stage could enter into rivalry. How many
have enjoyed "Neptune's Daughter"--the mermaids in the surf and the
sudden change of the witch into the octopus on the shore and the joyful
play of the watersprites! How many have been bewitched by Princess
Nicotina when she trips from the little cigar box along the table! No
theater could dare to imitate such raptures of imagination. Other
writers have insisted on the superb chances for gorgeous processions and
the surging splendor of multitudes. We see thousands in Sherman's march
to the sea. How hopeless would be any attempt to imitate it on the
stage! When the toreador fights the bull and the crowds in the Spanish
arena enter into enthusiastic frenzy, who would compare it with those
painted people in the arena when the opera "Carmen" is sung. Again
others emphasize the opportunity for historical plays or especially for
plays with unusual scenic setting where the beauties of the tropics or
of the mountains, of the ocean or of the jungle, are brought into living
contact with the spectator. Biblical dramas with pictures of real
Palestine, classical plots with real Greece or Rome as a background,
have stirred millions all over the globe. Yet the majority of authors
claim that the true field for the photoplay is the practical life which
surrounds us, as no artistic means of literature or drama can render the
details of life with such convincing sincerity and with such realistic
power. These are the slums, not seen through the spectacles of a
litt�rateur or the fancy of an outsider but in their whole abhorrent
nakedness. These are the dark corners of the metropolis where crime is
hidden and where vice is growing rankly.
They all are right; and at the same time they all are wrong when they
praise one at the expense of another. Realistic and idealistic,
practical and romantic, historical and modern topics are fit material
for the art of the photoplay. Its world is as unlimited as that of
literature, and the same is true of the style of treatment. The
humorous, if it is true humor, the tragic, if it is true tragedy, the
gay and the solemn, the merry and the pathetic, the half-reel and the
five-reel play, all can fulfill the demands of the new art.
CHAPTER XI
THE FUNCTION OF THE PHOTOPLAY
Enthusiasts claim that in the United States ten million people daily are
attending picture houses. Sceptics believe that "only" two or three
millions form the daily attendance. But in any case "the movies" have
become the most popular entertainment of the country, nay, of the world,
and their influence is one of the strongest social energies of our time.
Signs indicate that this popularity and this influence are increasing
from day to day. What are the causes, and what are the effects of this
movement which was undreamed of only a short time ago?
The economists are certainly right when they see the chief reason for
this crowding of picture houses in the low price of admission. For five
or ten cents long hours of thrilling entertainment in the best seats of
the house: this is the magnet which must be more powerful than any
theater or concert. Yet the rush to the moving pictures is steadily
increasing, while the prices climb up. The dime became a quarter, and in
the last two seasons ambitious plays were given before audiences who
paid the full theater rates. The character of the audiences, too,
suggests that inexpensiveness alone cannot be decisive. Six years ago a
keen sociological observer characterized the patrons of the picture
palaces as "the lower middle class and the massive public, youths and
shopgirls between adolescence and maturity, small dealers, pedlars,
laborers, charwomen, besides the small quota of children." This would be
hardly a correct description today. This "lower middle class" has long
been joined by the upper middle class. To be sure, our observer of that
long forgotten past added meekly: "Then there emerges a superior person
or two like yourself attracted by mere curiosity and kept in his seat by
interest until the very end of the performance; this type sneers aloud
to proclaim its superiority and preserve its self-respect, but it never
leaves the theater until it must." Today you and I are seen there quite
often, and we find that our friends have been there, that they have
given up the sneering pose and talk about the new photoplay as a matter
of course.
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