Hence we must acknowledge
it as a fair approach to the plastic work of art. In the same way the
chromo print gives the essentials of the oil painting. Everywhere the
technical process has secured a reproduction of the work of art which
sounds or looks almost like the work of the great artist, and only the
technique of the moving pictures, which so clearly tries to reproduce
the theater performance, stands so utterly far behind the art of the
actor. Is not an esthetic judgment of rejection demanded by good taste
and sober criticism? We may tolerate the photoplay because, by the
inexpensive technical method which allows an unlimited multiplication of
the performances, it brings at least a shadow of the theater to the
masses who cannot afford to see real actors. But the cultivated mind
might better enjoy plaster of Paris casts and chromo prints and
graphophone music than the moving pictures with their complete failure
to give us the essentials of the real stage.
We have heard this message, or if it was not expressed in clear words it
surely lingered for a long while in the minds of all those who had a
serious relation to art. It probably still prevails today among many,
even if they appreciate the more ambitious efforts of the
photoplaywrights in the most recent years. The philanthropic pleasure in
the furnishing of cheap entertainment and the recognition that a certain
advance has recently been made seem to alleviate the esthetic situation,
but the core of public opinion remains the same; the moving pictures are
no real art.
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