The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-09-08
FLA S HE'S
CLOSE-UPS
. By LENS


Several months ago witnessed the
rare sight Of large audience sitting
enrapt and stirred throughout the
screening of a film The print was
over-contrasty, scratched, spotty, and
futtered in the protector now and
then to make steady attention hell
ishly painful. But there they sat,
conquered heart and brain as they
had never been before by a film
1t was Pudovkin's cinematic tran
scription of Gorki's famous novel,
Mother" they were seeing A
perfect print of this same masterpiece
will be projected in various cities on
Ed. Royce's tour for the Daily
Worker.
Bravo! John S. Cohen, Jr. :.
He simply refuses to be kidded by
Sinclair's stiu-born nnonstrosity,
Thunder Over Mexico" and says
so for all to hear in the New York
Sun :. Did you read the long
paragraph sent out by Lessers out
fit in last Sundays New York
Times? :. Lies, 50 per cent =.
ISLANDERS, rs per cent u. Impu-
dence, 10 per cent Empty
Boosting, Is per cent. -.
A medico writes to the Times COM
planning bitterly about the distor-
tions and improbabilities contained
in the film, 1.-THE Girl in 419" .
Hollywood works on the theory that
if the audience will watch a cows
tail become shaving set and chair
manicure its limbs in a Mickey Mouse
cartoon, then certainly it will fall for
the idea that doctors are kind to
their patients, that gangsters love to
go to art galleries, and head surgeons
in hospitals invariably answer am
bulance calls. It's a cock-eyed
theory, though. Step into your
neigi1borhood movie house any day in
the week and you'll discover the
source of the sleeping sickness cpl
demic that's been puzzling the coun-
try for some time. i. The audience
falls for that stuff, you say? Yes
asleep!.
what would you do if all the re-
strictions of which you complain
were removed and freedom given you
to create as you p1ease?" I asked Rene
Clair, famous French director, some
three years ago. I'D go back to my
poetry" he replied with world
weary yawn. j.. Yesterday I learned
he was on his road back"
Jacques Feyder, another French di-
rector recently back from Hollywood,
says he will not photograph stage
plays until the day when I will be
compelled to work for living" -.
Tt has become fashionable among Eu-
ropean bourgeois film intellectuals to
repeat: THE cinema is dead"
Differing from Hollywood. therefore
only insofar as they admit the truth
:. What would our own directors
be doing today without the bagful oil
New Deal" tricks to keep them
af1oat? -.
Paul k: The bourgeois film has
, thus far failed dismally to find q
solution for the structural integra-
ton of sound, sight. music and the
spoken word into the film. This is
not something that can be done with
out an understanding of the laws that
govern the construction of film from
its component strips or pieces
(montage).
One can sometimes inproYise on
the piano without knowing the first
thing about musical science, but the
limitations are obvious. Hollywood
has for many years been playing on
the gigantic piano" of the film with
out having ever taken the trouble to
study notes" Now and then there
have been a few tolerable strains,
but the rule has been an ear-splitting
cacaphony. ,-
The introduction of sound has COM
pletely bewildered and confused the
Hollywood director who has been
forced to retreat to the haven Of the
photographed stage play Now there
is setting in an even more reaction
airy tendency, that of a return to a
revamped silent film, the first sample
of which is being peddled under the
"Narratage" label This is a clear
and final admission of the failure to
solve the problems as demanded by
the introduction of word and sound.
Need I dwell on why this is being
hailed as "a revolutionary advance?
Definite, though faint, indications
of an early solution of the problem
of sound sight orchestration are to be
seen only in Soviet films like Golden
Mountains" "Alone," and one or two
others. 1t is bound to come from the
Soviet Union where there is simply
no retraclng ones steps once a prob
lem is faced. It's solution there is only
a question Of time. In Hollywood ar
tistic reaction keeps pace with de-
moralization and theological bank
ruptcy, and to expect great art to
flourish on such soil is simply a fail
ure to sec the relentless process of
decay which is characteristic of all
L.. t. .~l T. IL.