For several weeks now I have agonized over writing about the above topic.\u00a0 It is not that I didn\u2019t know what to say, but how to say it.\u00a0 Then, by chance, I came across a film critic that was unfamiliar to me who happened to say the very things I wanted to say, but far more eloquently.\u00a0 The piece he wrote began by proclaiming that \u201ccinema, as a fine art, in every country of the world, presents a picture of absolute bankruptcy <\/i>(italics my own).\u201d\u00a0 And as for Europe, their \u201cfilm industries continue uninterruptedly with their programs of popular drivel and their desperate duplications of Hollywood, the European cinema as a creative force in Western civilization is utterly and hopelessly dead.\u201d\u00a0 However, it was for the American film industry that this critic reserved the most venom.\u00a0 After quoting a colleague who had uttered in disdain that \u201cin the past five years\u2026not a single picture of the highest order of importance had been produced in the United States,\u201d he flatly stated that \u201cno conceivable mental gymnastics can lead one to imagine that a film art worthy of the name exists here today.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Our very perceptive critic unequivocally attributed this sorry state of affairs to \u201cthe failure of the American film people to apprehend the real powers, capacities and resources of the cinema, beyond those necessary to a standardized, straightforward narrative technique.\u201d\u00a0 However, he did not hesitate to give \u201cthe devil his due,\u201d stating that \u201cTaken for what it is, the American entertainment film stands as the best of its kind in the world\u2026.The Hollywood movie is immeasurably superior to its many imitations throughout the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alright, enough of this charade!\u00a0 You probably have guessed that these observations were not made recently.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Perhaps, twenty years ago.\u00a0 Or maybe thirty?\u00a0 Wrong.\u00a0 It was actually written 77 years ago–1936!\u00a0 \u00a0The name of the critic was Seymour Stern, and the title of his essay was \u201cThe Bankruptcy of Cinema as Art\u201d.<\/p>\n
Besides being a critic, Seymour Stern had worked closely with D.W. Griffith during the latter\u2019s most productive years.\u00a0 You can certainly understand Stern\u2019s dismay in seeing how, with the advent of sound, with its cumbersome and unwieldy equipment, cinema was being taken back to the Stone Age.\u00a0 And as for the mass importation by Hollywood of actors, playwrights and directors from the Broadway stage, who had no background at all in film, this must have been equally distressing.\u00a0 Remember, Stern worked with Griffith when this celebrated film pioneer was innovating on almost a daily basis.\u00a0 \u00a0But it is not so much because of Stern\u2019s acerbic assessment on the cinema of his day\u2014which could very well be applied to the cinema of today– that I call your attention to him, but rather for his intriguing proposals for breathing new life into what he saw as a bankrupt institution.<\/p>\n
Stern offered a five point program of what he considered to be radical innovations (for 1936, that is).\u00a0 They are as follows:<\/p>\n
What is most interesting about Stern\u2019s \u201cradical\u201d proposals is that all of them have been tried or exit today in some form or another not only in the United States, but other countries as well.\u00a0 America has many comprehensive film production and film studies programs at prestigious universities throughout the country; these are in addition to the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, which is partly government funded.\u00a0 And during the 1960\u2019s and 1970\u2019s most major cities had movie theaters (called \u201cart houses\u201d) that exhibited worthy films from around the world, and usually in the format of retrospectives.\u00a0 Furthermore, film societies have always existed in the United States, but not to the extent they are to be found in other countries.\u00a0 As for government subsidies for independent film production, they have never been substantial in the United States, but they have been extensively used in most other countries\u2014to mixed results.\u00a0 On Stern\u2019s last point, although government censorship has virtually disappeared in the United States, self-censorship still exists, primarily in the obtaining of \u201cratings\u201d for exhibition purposes (e.g., \u201dR\u201d; \u201cPG,\u201d etc.).\u00a0 For those of you not familiar with the American motion picture ratings system, these ratings specify who can view certain films, not whether they can be exhibited, similar to what exists in most other countries today.<\/p>\n
Utopian as his proposals may have sounded for his time, Stern understood that they in themselves were no panacea; for without people with the extraordinary talent to realize them, they were essentially useless.\u00a0 He cautioned: \u201cOne Intolerance<\/i> (Griffith\u2019s 1916 monumental film) is worth all the \u201cgood\u201d films Hollywood has ever made.\u201d\u00a0 For Stern, the only remedy for what ailed the movie industry was a creative<\/i> remedy.\u00a0 And he concluded by saying, \u201cWhen this idea [i.e. the creative<\/i> remedy] is fully understood by those who wish to \u201crevolutionize\u201d the movie in this country, a real revolution will be possible, then, and not before then, will the cinema become the glory, instead of the pointless joke, of American civilization.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
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For several weeks now I have agonized over writing about the above topic.\u00a0 It is not that I didn\u2019t know what to say, but how to say it.\u00a0 Then, by chance, I came across a film critic that was unfamiliar … Continue reading