Republic Pictures

“ Even the Government has not failed to recognise the power of the cinematograph. Some years ago Mr. Robert Paul applied to the War Office for permission to film scenes in a soldier’s life. The facilities were granted, and some first-class pictures were obtained. They proved immensely popular with the public, and were far more potent as a means of inducing enlistment with the colours than the most glowing word-pictures painted by glib, persuasive recruiting sergeants. ”

“ To hold that liberty of expression by means of motion pictures is guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, however, is not the end of our problem. It does not follow that the Constitution requires absolute freedom to exhibit every motion picture of every kind at all times and all places. ”

“ The leaders of the people, and of culture, scarcely know the photoplay exists. But in the remote villages the players mentioned in this work are as well known and as fairly understood in their general psychology as any candidates for president bearing political messages. There is many a babe in the proletariat not over four years old who has received more pictures into its eye than it has had words enter its ear. ”

“ It cannot be put out of view that the exhibition of moving pictures is a business, pure and simple, originated and conducted for profit, like other spectacles, not to be regarded, nor intended to be regarded by the Ohio Constitution, we think, as part of the press of the country, or as organs of public opinion. ”

“ People of State of New York, 1948, 333 U.S. 507, 510, 68 S.Ct. 665, 667, 92 L.Ed. 840:
'The line between the informing and the entertaining is too elusive for the protection of that basic right (a free press) . Everyone is familiar with instances of propaganda through fiction. What is one man's amusement, teaches another's doctrine.'
It is urged that motion pictures do not fall within the First Amendment's aegis because their production, distribution, and exhibition is a large-scale business conducted for private profit. We cannot agree. ”

“ National galleries of art are nothing against this truth. Once in a while the nation may rejoice over the purchase of a bad picture it can understand, but for the most part—what to it are all these strange pictures, with their disquieting colours and haunted faces? What recks the nation at large of its Bellini's or its Botticelli's? ”

“ In other words, as we have seen, the Constitution of Ohio is invoked, and an exhibition of films is assimilated to the freedom of speech, writing, and publication assured by that instrument, and for the abuse of which only is there responsibility, and, it is insisted, that as no law may be passed 'to restrain the liberty of speech or of the press,' no law may be passed to subject moving pictures to censorship before their exhibition. ”

“ But, we have not yet fairly got at the main obstacle which hinders the public from judging of pictures for themselves, and which, by a natural consequence, limits the influence of Art on the nation generally. ”

“ American photography is going to be the ruling note throughout the world unless others bestir themselves; indeed, the Photo-Secession (American) pictures have already captured the highest places in the esteem of the civilized world. Hardly an exhibition of first importance is anywhere held without a striking collection of American work, brought together and sent by Mr. Alfred Stieglitz. ”

“ It has become part of the life of the American people more essentially than we know it in England, though it has spread with a mushroom growth in English towns and villages. But in the United States the picture-palace and "The Silent Drama," as they call it, are more elaborately organized, and the motion pictures are produced with an amount of energy, imagination, and wealth which are far in excess of the similar efforts in England. A visit to the "movies" is the afternoon or evening recreation of every class and age of American citizenship. It is a democratic habit from which few escape. ”

“ Wherever the traveller goes, in France, he is reminded of this very honourable practice—the purchase by the Government of a certain number of "pictures of the year," which are presently distributed in the provinces. Governments succeed each other and bid for success by different devices; but the "patronage of art" is a plank, as we should say here, in every platform. The works of art are often ill-selected—there is an official taste which you immediately recognise—but the custom is essentially liberal, and a Government which should neglect it would be felt to be painfully common. ”

“ It is something more than a mere coincidence that the upheaval in the art world has paralleled the upheaval in the political world. The exhibitions of extreme modern pictures were first held in England just when extreme radical theories were gaining the ascendency. The International Exhibition{66} in America followed hot in the footsteps of the split in the Republican party and the triumph of the Democratic along lines so progressive as to seem almost socialistic. ”

“ It is simply that those men who make and distribute pictures have associated themselves to do jointly those things in which they are mutually but non-competitively interested, having as the chief purposes of such association two great objectives—and I quote verbatim from the formal articles of association, which have been filed in the office of the Secretary of State at Albany, N.Y.: “Establishing and maintaining the highest possible moral and artistic standards in motion picture production and developing the educational as well as the entertainment value of the motion picture.” ”

“ It is only necessary to add that the State should on no account seek to make a profit out of photography, and that all transactions between the Museum or any other public department and the nation, where money is concerned, should be conducted on the principle of affording the greatest possible public advantage at the smallest possible cost. ”

“ But a great gallery of art which rises hard by across the road would shame and silence any such assertion. Or, again, can it be denied that what encouragement to artists is afforded by the purchase of innumerable pictures, at all events, was never more liberally meted out to them than within our generation, and does not the crowding of exhibitions, of which the name is legion, evince abundantly the responsive attitude of the country, as far at least as one of the arts is concerned? Are not statues multiplying in our streets? ”

“ But, with this omitted, critical judgment is safer in the hands of a person of broad culture, who knows nothing of the tools of painting and sculpture, than when wielded by a half-educated student of art with his development all on one side. Ruskin warns us of young critics.
As a short cut, the camera fills a place for the many who feel pictures and wish to create them, but at small cost of time and effort. A little art school for the public has the small black box become, into which persons have been looking searchingly and thoughtfully for the past dozen years. ”

“ The power of the new influences which have been brought to bear on the middle-class mind, with respect to Art, may be sufficiently seen in the great rise in the price of pictures which has taken place (principally during the last twenty years) owing to the interest occasioned by national exhibitions, coupled with facilities of carriage, stimulating the activity of dealers, and the collateral discovery by mercantile men that pictures are not a bad investment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Such an individualized determination cannot be guided by reasonably fixed and certain standards. Accordingly, neither States nor moving picture makers can possibly know in advance, with any fair degree of certainty, what can or cannot be done in the field of movie making and exhibiting. ”

“ And to get them we need these two things: inside the industry, the higher standards and leadership that can only come in with intelligent capital; and outside the industry, the support and encouragement of such good pictures as are already made. We of the motion-picture industry who stand for more intelligent pictures can only provide them if you on 68the outside, in addition to criticising in no uncertain terms the stupid films that offend you, will take the trouble to hunt up, and go to see, and boost, the photoplays that are good enough to merit your interest. ”

“ Once the picture has been constructed, prepared with subjects and sub-titles, and has been submitted to the Board of Censorship, it must be extensively advertised, circulated amongst exchanges throughout the kingdom, and the commands of the public exhibitors awaited. All these complicated processes have emanated from the regular daily demand of the people for entertainment, not necessarily enlightenment. The manufacturers know the percentage of film subjects demanded, whether tragic, thrilling, artistic, humorous, or educational. ”

“ Are moving pictures within the principle, as it is contended they are? They, indeed, may be mediums of thought, but so are many things. So is the theater, the circus, and all other shows and spectacles, and their performances may be thus brought by the like reasoning under the same immunity from repression or supervision as the public press,-made the same agencies of civil liberty. ”

“ Both as a form of entertainment and as an educational force the motion picture now merits consideration in the front rank of the world’s activities. Conservative estimates state that twelve million persons attend the picture theaters of the United States every day. Were figures available for Europe they could not add any to the amazement of those who remember that the motion picture’s strides to its present popularity have been taken in a period of less than twenty years. ”

“ The old ways of doing were being revolutionized day by day with the introduction of the close-up, switchback,95 light effects, and screen acting that could be recognized as a portrayal of human conduct. Exhibitors soon began clamoring for A. B. pictures, not only for the U. S. A. but for foreign countries as well; and as Mr. Griffith had a commission on every foot of film sold, it was an easy matter for us to judge our ever-increasing popularity. ”

“ Photography, the prime visual recorder of human events, preserves memories, emotion, and sentiment for virtually all Americans. It is an established and growing art form which communicates the beauty and diversity of America as well as the vitality of its culture and its people. ”

“ It is the same with regard to our pictures. Let us be frank—the National Gallery is a national disgrace. Of course, as far as the number of pictures is concerned, we cannot yet boast of being upon an equality with some of the continental nations, but we possess many pictures by the hands of the old masters which are of the very highest merit. Our national collection is small, but in the main it is good. There is not in it, even comparatively speaking, anything like the same amount of inferior pictures as may be seen, for example, in the great gallery of the Louvre. ”

“ And these well-meant efforts have resulted in the creation of pictures which have no other purpose than to hang in exhibitions, to win medals, and to be purchased by the government and hung in those more permanent exhibitions which we call museums. For this purpose it is not necessary that a picture should have great beauty or great sincerity. It is necessary that it should be large in order to attract attention and sufficiently well drawn and executed to seem to deserve recognition. ”

“ I have my own doubts as to what the picture is intended to represent, a bullfight or a Japanese allegory, but I want this legislature to make an appropriation to purchase. Of course, the subject of the picture should have been in the state historical line, but it's too late to have the paint scraped off and changed. The state won't miss the money and the picture can be stowed away in a lumber-room where it won't annoy any one. Now, here's the point to work on, leaving art to look after itself—the chap that painted the picture is the grandson of Lucien Briscoe. ”

“ Yet the combination of the rehearsed scenes and the views of the real and disastrous conflagration made a picture that drew record-breaking houses to every theatre where it was exhibited.
Again, whether or not the producing concern releases a weekly or semi-weekly current-events reel, every company at times makes use of portions of such pictures, either made by themselves or procured from other firms. In the same way, educational pictures of every kind are made use of—certain parts of them, that [Pg 274] is—to provide fitting and convincing atmosphere for original stories. ”

“ One could go about in the White House and study the portraits of the presidents, but where is the portrait of the people? The portrait of the people comes in little bits to the president like a puzzle picture. Each man brings in his little crooked piece, jig-sawed out from Iowa, South Dakota, Oklahoma or Aroostook County, Maine. This picture or vision of a nation, this wilderness of pieces, can be seen every day when one goes in, lying in heaps on the floor of the White House.
A literature is the expression on the face of a nation. A literature is the eyes of a great people looking at one. ”