Special issue: the cinema
Special issue: the cinema
The study of the film as a means to human understanding is not a mere intellectual exercise. It is part of a continuing study we have all got to make in our search for harmony in a tortured world. The power of the film to entertain and to distract, to move to action, to hatred and contempt, to compassion and respect, is eyerywhere agreed. That is probably why film is more written about than written, and why the film more than any of the other creative arts is subjected to a merciless scrutiny.
To say that the film has the power to interpret life and help to create a harmonious world is not to suggest that it should in any way depart from its duty to entertain. But it is to suggest again that in the search for themes it is possible for a greater number of writers and producers and directors and players in a greater number of countries to lift their eyes above the frontiers which divide mankind and from whatever vision they command help to create a design for life instead of a passion or an excuse for death or oblivion. Themes may be gay or sombre, flippant or serious, but it is the spirit which inspires them as well as the creative spark they bear witness to, that matters most.
The responsibility of the film is not greater than the responsibility of press or radio. But it shares with television a power to dramatize beyond the others and an opportunity to play a leading part in creating a possible and credible world.
The frontiers which divide mankind are not only, and not even mainly, the national or political frontiers. They are frontiers of the mind and the spirit which spring from limitations of training and experience, differences of memory and tradition and belief and taste, and the wilful or accidental exploitation of these limitations and differences for sinister ends. That is why so many are studying now the implications of the film for children as well as for men and women. Our generation may be hopeless, but none of us will agree that our children are, and for them especially we seek the hope that they may not suffer again the obscene horrors of the last decades. Whether the films are made by men and women in Mexico or the Argentine, in the United States or the United Kingdom, France or Italy or Poland or Denmark, in Egypt or India or Indonesia or Japan, they all have a common duty to the world's children and an opportunity greater than ever before to discharge it because of the vast challenge it presents.
This is not to say that it is or can be an easy duty to discharge. There are taboos of many sorts which make it difficult to express the faith that one has in man. Screenwriters especially are bitterly aware of this. There are forces which profit from a shattered world and which at every opportunity fetter the creative spirit. There are problems of finance and facilities and markets. There is still a vast job of research and interpretation before the duty can be done. But it is in the faith that it can be done and that it is possible for men and women to grow and develop together in creative fields of expression and research that this issue of the Courrier is founded.