But this traditional idea has become utterly
untrue. _The art of the photoplay has developed so many new features of
its own, features which have not even any similarity to the technique of
the stage that the question arises: is it not really a new art which
long since left behind the mere film reproduction of the theater and
which ought to be acknowledged in its own esthetic independence?_ This
right to independent recognition has so far been ignored. Practically
everybody who judged the photoplays from the esthetic point of view
remained at the old comparison between the film and the graphophone. The
photoplay is still something which simply imitates the true art of the
drama on the stage. May it not be, on the contrary, that it does not
imitate or replace anything, but is in itself an art as different from
that of the theater as the painter's art is different from that of the
sculptor? And may it not be high time, in the interest of theory and of
practice, to examine the esthetic conditions which would give
independent rights to the new art? If this is really the situation, it
must be a truly fascinating problem, as it would give the chance to
watch the art in its first unfolding. A new esthetic cocoon is broken;
where will the butterfly's wings carry him?
We have at last reached the real problem of this little book.
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