New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1921-07-17
censorship Of
Films Means
Prohibition
Samuel Coldwyn Believes
the American Producer
Will Be Extinguis b e d

by SdIQQCl \1Ol0Wyn
II were to be asked TO define con-
cisely what censorship Of motion pic
tnrcs means to-day to the industry, I
should reply Censorship is the prohibi-
ton Of motion pictures, and nothing
else"
However, thorc Is an important am
piifcatiou that should want to mako
to that statement. The element Of time
is the important element in the censor
ship controversy to-day, although 1t Is
generally neglected. At any other time
might not say that censorship implies
prohibition. But censorship to-day hits
out at time when. through world con-
ditions, blow Of tho mailed fist Of pro.
hbition would xii! where yesterday or
tomorrow it would only hurt.
Ny reason FOR sSying that rests on
two real facts-one Of them artistic, the
other economio-the first, the aspira-
ticns of tho cinema; tho second, present
rates Of exchange.
Art Must Go
Forward With Life
1t is an axiom that an art which Is
not capable Of progress cannot survive,
since GIL art is reflex Of life-~a quail
ity tIat has changed, in the course Of
tins. from tbs ape to Shakespeare. The
expect to go forward with life. 1t has
shown In the brief period of its dura-
ton that it is capable Of both evolution
and revolution-and those are the two
phases which distinguish the history of
genuine art. Now, however, 1t is to be
made to stand still-with club. Life,
intent on its journey, may adopt and
discard all sorts Of garments and philos-
ophies in its experiments looking toward
perfection, but the motion picture must
remain the motion picture, and not as
it is to-day, and not as 1t might be in
the future, but as it would be with re-
spect to the moral and aesthetic opinions
of small religious sect of the middle
seventeenth century.
Such a condition would be danger
Gus to the progress of the screen at
undertaken to show that it is doubly
dangerous at this particular time.
believe that, partly because Of the
strides which the shadow world has
with the spectacular to being con-
cerned with the human, and partly
because present rates Of exchange
rake it far cheaper for European coun-
tries to produce spectacles than for
America. And censorship will inevita-
bly, drive American producers back to
the spectacular-and there we are!
Where are we?
There is school of metaphysicians
which holds that in life there is
neither good nor evil. Unfortunately,
most of us cannot sublimate our con-
ceptions to that extent, and the result
is that life appears to US to be a
struggle between good and evil. The
great tragedies and many Of. the great
comedies have been based on that
struggle. The moment you touch life,
YOU touch good and evil negation and
affirmation, and you find that these
qualities are not distinct in separate
human beings, but curiously inter-
mingled. You can no more make a
genuine contribution to our knowledge
OF life by picturing it as all sunshine
and roses than you can by picturing II
SIS all darkness and thorns. That, too
is automatic.
Screen an Authentic
Interpretation of Life
The spectacle is not comedy OF
drama. 1t is, in fact the substitution
cs atmosphere for those effects. 1t il
patent TO any one who has been fol
lowing the recent development of NOV
ing pictures that they have been turn
ing from the substitute to the authen
tic. The successful spectacle will
ALWAYS have a place on the screen, be
cause such a spectacle is worth Will
and enjoyable; but if the screen i
allowed to follow the logical lines o
it's development, the spectacle will
naturally fall into the equivalent OF 1T
position on the stage, ana the dram
of human interest prevail as whole.
Censorship, however, is not con
cerned with art or human qualities.
is not always concerned with the strug
gle between good and evil. Its missio
is naturally to deny that there is sue
a struggle and to effect, in the end, a
artificial, superficial and, plainly speak
ing, lying reproduction of life. 1t be
gins we'll intentioned, but if min
concerns itself solely with impurities
in the course of time it will see in,
purities where non-censors see onl
truth, and even beauty.
In other words, the censor is not tn
enemy of indecency-he is the frien
of falsity. One of our pictures. 9Th
Penalty" from the book by Gouverneu
Morris, was recently denounced by on
reformer because its leading characte
was villain. Are there no villains |
life? If all of our pictures were base
on villainy we ought to be censored, lie
it be understood, and IL all our picture
were based on heroics l think we ais
should be censored.
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