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Page 43
Those may have been exceptional cases only when grave crimes have been
traced directly back to the impulses from unwholesome photoplays, but no
psychologist can determine exactly how much the general spirit of
righteousness, of honesty, of sexual cleanliness and modesty, may be
weakened by the unbridled influence of plays of low moral standard. All
countries seem to have been awakened to this social danger. The time
when unsavory French comedies poisoned youth lies behind us. A strong
reaction has set in and the leading companies among the photoplay
producers fight everywhere in the first rank for suppression of the
unclean. Some companies even welcome censorship provided that it is
high-minded and liberal and does not confuse artistic freedom with moral
licentiousness. Most, to be sure, seem doubtful whether the new
movement toward Federal censorship is in harmony with American ideas on
the freedom of public expression.
But while the sources of danger cannot be overlooked, the social
reformer ought to focus his interest still more on the tremendous
influences for good which may be exerted by the moving pictures. The
fact that millions are daily under the spell of the performances on the
screen is established. The high degree of their suggestibility during
those hours in the dark house may be taken for granted. Hence any
wholesome influence emanating from the photoplay must have an
incomparable power for the remolding and upbuilding of the national
soul. From this point of view the boundary lines between the photoplay
and the merely instructive moving pictures with the news of the day or
the magazine articles on the screen become effaced. The intellectual,
the moral, the social, and the esthetic culture of the community may be
served by all of them. Leading educators have joined in endorsing the
foundation of a Universal Culture Lyceum. The plan is to make and
circulate moving pictures for the education of the youth of the land,
picture studies in science, history, religion, literature, geography,
biography, art, architecture, social science, economics and industry.
From this Lyceum "schools, churches and colleges will be furnished with
motion pictures giving the latest results and activities in every sphere
capable of being pictured."
But, however much may be achieved by such conscious efforts toward
education, the far larger contribution must be made by the regular
picture houses which the public seeks without being conscious of the
educational significance. The teaching of the moving pictures must not
be forced on a more or less indifferent audience, but ought to be
absorbed by those who seek entertainment and enjoyment from the films
and are ready to make their little economic sacrifice.
The purely intellectual part of this uplift is the easiest. Not only the
news pictures and the scientific demonstrations but also the photoplays
can lead young and old to ever new regions of knowledge. The curiosity
and the imagination of the spectators will follow gladly. Yet even in
the intellectual sphere the dangers must not be overlooked. They are not
positive. It is not as in the moral sphere where the healthy moral
impulse is checked by the sight of crimes which stir up antisocial
desires. The danger is not that the pictures open insight into facts
which ought not to be known. It is not the dangerous knowledge which
must be avoided, but it is the trivializing influence of a steady
contact with things which are not worth knowing. The larger part of the
film literature of today is certainly harmful in this sense. The
intellectual background of most photoplays is insipid. By telling the
plot without the subtle motivation which the spoken word of the drama
may bring, not only do the characters lose color but all the scenes and
situations are simplified to a degree which adjusts them to a
thoughtless public and soon becomes intolerable to an intellectually
trained spectator.
They force on the cultivated mind that feeling which musical persons
experience in the musical comedies of the day. We hear the melodies
constantly with the feeling of having heard them ever so often before.
This lack of originality and inspiration is not necessary; it does not
lie in the art form. Offenbach and Strauss and others have written
musical comedies which are classical. Neither does it lie in the form
of the photoplay that the story must be told in that insipid, flat,
uninspired fashion. Nor is it necessary in order to reach the millions.
To appeal to the intelligence does not mean to presuppose college
education. Moreover the differentiation has already begun. Just as the
plays of Shaw or Ibsen address a different audience from that reached by
the "Old Homestead" or "Ben Hur," we have already photoplays adapted to
different types, and there is not the slightest reason to connect with
the art of the screen an intellectual flabbiness. It would be no gain
for intellectual culture if all the reasoning were confined to the
so-called instructive pictures and the photoplays were served without
any intellectual salt. On the contrary, the appeal of those strictly
educational lessons may be less deep than the producers hope, because
the untrained minds, especially of youth and of the uneducated
audiences, have considerable difficulty in following the rapid flight of
events when they occur in unfamiliar surroundings. The child grasps very
little in seeing the happenings in a factory. The psychological and
economic lesson may be rather wasted because the power of observation
is not sufficiently developed and the assimilation proceeds too slowly.
But it is quite different when a human interest stands behind it and
connects the events in the photoplay.
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