Survey of World Cinema.pdf

SURVEY OF WORLD CINEMA

THE FILM TILL NOW A SURVEY OF WORLD CINEMA"

PREFACE

It was with some misgivings that I decided to let this book

be republished, although it had been often requested. When

it was written in 1929, I had had about twelve months'

practical work of film-making, having spent an excessive

amount of my childhood and schooldays in cinemas. The

first draft manuscript was about three times its published

length, and perhaps the main thing in its favour was that it

showed an enthusiasm for films. It also set down with

fair accuracy a large amount of factual information not

easily found elsewhere. It came about like this.

In 1928 I was employed first as an e outside man * (which

meant hiring furniture and properties) and later as an

assistant in the art-department in the biggest British film

studio of the time. My youthful impetuosity led me to

criticise the lack of creative opportunities in the studio

where I worked, and within a few days I was out on the

street with nothing in my pocket 1 Many may now forget

that 1929 saw the almost complete shut-down of British

studios because of Hollywood's revolutionary change-over

to the sound film. So, thwarted in my wish to be associated

with making films I turned to the next best thing writing

about them. Mr. Jonathan Cape gave me the opportunity,

for which I have always been grateful. Eighteen months

later The Film Till Now appeared, to be received in general

by a friendly Press with the exception of the Trade's own

papers.

Naively I believed that its theories and facts would unlock

the studio doors again to me. The opposite took place. I

found employment still harder to get, until luckily I met

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SURVEY OF WORLD CINEMA

Mr. John Grierson. He asked me to join his little unit

at the Empire Marketing Board, where I worked for six

months learning the rudiments of the documentary film

method.

1 Film Weekly, November 12, 1928.

PREFACE

Since then I have been occupied mainly in making films

and helping others to make them. There has been little

time for writing books. The Film Till Now should, of

course, have been wholly re-written; but I wonder if it

would have been fair to alter points of view held nearly

twenty years ago? Finally it was decided to let the main

body of the original text be reprinted as it stood, making

only minor changes required for accuracy. Tempting as

it was in places to modify an opinion, or add a new point

of view, it has not been done. This is especially the case

in regard to the Soviet chapter and with the early formative

years of the American cinema. Prophecies about the

dialogue film, largely disproved though they have been

subsequently, must stand. I ask the reader's indulgence.

I have, however, been unable to resist adding a number of

new footnotes where I felt they were justified. Knowing

that perhaps the most used section of the book has been

the Appendix of Production Units of some Outstanding

Films, this list has been revised, expanded and brought

up-to-date. The same has been done for the Glossary of

Technical Terms and the Book List The volume has "also

been re-illustrated. Most of the stills are from well-known

and important films but occasionally, as with Lady Killer

or Be Big, one has been included because it represents

a trend in film subjects or styles rather than the film from

which it is taken.

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SURVEY OF WORLD CINEMA

To bring the survey as a whole up to 1948, I sought the

help of my old friend in America, Mr. Richard Griffith,

knowing that his approach to films is very close to mine,

He was almost the first correspondent I had after the

publication of the book in America in 1930, second only

to the late Eric Knight, perhaps one of the best film critics

we have ever had. Mr. Griffith now holds the important

post of Executive-Director at the National Board of

Review of Motion Pictures in New York. He is also

Assistant Director of the Museum of Modern Art

Film Library in the same city. He has thus a wide

experience in film viewing both past and present It should

I. LES SEPT CHATEAUX DE DIABLE, directed by ZECCA. [French, 1907]

2. CRIPPLE CREEK BARROOM, by EDISON. [American, 1898]

3. L'HIPPOCAMPE, directed by JEAN PAINLEV& [French, 1934]

4. THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, directed by WILLIAM CAMERON

MENZIES.

[British, 1935]

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PREFACE

be added that, from a practical point of view, he contributed

to the making of certain wartime documentaries and cine-

magazines for the U.S., Army, notably to the famous Why

We Fight series under the supervision of Frank Capra.

Griffith's additional section to this new edition, Part Three :

The Film Since Then, to which he has written his own

Introduction, carries m}' full support of his critical judge

ment and I take this opportunity of formally thanking him

for his contribution. It should be remembered that he is

writing from an American point of view. I must share

occasional responsibility, however, where films have not

been available to him, mainly in the non-American chapters,

and where I have been fortunate enough to visit certain

European countries since the war. Finally it should be

added that he is writing briefly ; to have surveyed the past

eighteen years of films in detail would have meant a vast

new book in itself.

A new edition, as the reader will have noted, permits

an author to indulge in the luxury of a new Preface.

Films recollected in memory, says Richard Griffith, are

apt to be biased by nostalgia. How right he is ! When I

was fortunate enough to spend some months at the Film

Library in New York in 1937 and *38, I found that out

only too well. On the other hand seeing old films again

brings pleasant surprises; things you never saw and

certainly implications which you were too inexperienced

to observe. In general, however, films of the past usually

live in our mind as being better than they really were,

especially fiction films. Memory adds values to them that

were never there. Yet, divorcing technique from view

point, one realises now how much one missed by not

understanding fully a director's aim at the time, or not

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SURVEY OF WORLD CINEMA

knowing the conditions under which a film was made, or

the purpose indeed for which the film was made at all.

That is why I greatly welcomed last year Dr. Siegfried

Kracauer's book From Caligari to Hitler because it gave

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PREFACE

a social, political and economic background to the early

German cinema that no one else to my knowledge had tried

to do. I wish that other writers (or perhaps Dr. Kracauer

himself?) could do the same thing for the films of other

countries ; Griffith, I fancy, has done It briefly for the later

American cinema in this new edition, and Mr. Lewis

Jacobs also came near to this approach. 1

Since the manuscript of this book was first written, I

have at least found out that the more you become Involved

in making films the less you know about them. Sometimes

I have sat in a cutting-room with film draped round the

walls and overflowing the bins and realised just how little

one does know about the infinite possibilities of this

wonderful medium, with its magic property of joining

image to image and mixing sound with sound. Certainly

I would not again have the audacity to try and write a sur

vey of the world's cinema now that I know not only how

difficult it is to make a film but how much more difficult it

is to find the economic conditions in which you can use

the medium with honesty and sincerity. It is always tragic

to me that a film-director must spend some three-quarters

of his time negotiating the ways and means to make the

film he wants to make and only a quarter in actually making

the film itself. To the director with something he thinks

it important to say the means of production are so hard

to come by that much creative time is spent in merely

getting access to the expensive materials of film

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