The moving picture is scarcely twenty-five years old. Born of a matchless technical invention, it demands to-day, with the unrelieved arrogance of the proverbial upstart, complete recognition in the society of the arts There, in the company of the established arts, it finds illustrious companions each of whom looks back upon a proud tradition of hundreds and hundreds of years. The old arts, however, are reluctant about admitting the moving picture to their family. And, truth to tell, the film is bound to admit that its nursery was not as it should have been; for filthy hands taught it to walk.

No man of intelligence refused to pay due honor, indeed to express his vigorous admiration for, the invention of the moving picture and the talking machine. The moment, however, that these two creations of technical science asked to be regarded as means to a new and real art, this honor and this admiration were at once driven from the field by a frigid rejection. The masses, to be sure, sicklied over in no way with a pale cast of thought, conducted themselves differently: they forsook Olympus then and there and rushed with jubilant hearts into the temples of the new “art.”

The film had arrived. The scholar refused to recognize it; he closed his doors against it. It was impossible, however, for him to prevent its spread over the entire earth. Owing to the very fact, that intellect could at first not be persuaded to take a sympathetic interest in the film, the film went on its way and became, quite naturally, the tool of ignorance if not of imbecility. To its initial champions any such concept as cultured civilization was unknown. Their sole objective was to transform the novel device into jingling guineas, and to do it as quickly as possible.

It was not long, however, until the public that frequented the music halls and variety shows grew tired of the “cinematographic” disrobings and their attendant indecencies. What was to be done? Writers immediately set about creating backstairs tales of the worst conceivable type. There was but one slogan: Money! And the money was forthcoming. Technical science, which has really never, of relatively recent years, been without a keen nose for good business, came to the aid of the scenario “authors.” As a result of this, the presentation of the pictures soon acquired a stage of perfection which the most enthusiastic dreamer had never once anticipated. But of art, of culture, of an exquisitely visualized civilization—not a trace not even a premonition.

Then came the moving picture actor, that living embodiment in one person of idealism and materialism, in whose acting people began to have a sort of pre-conception of an entirely new method of giving visible and tangible expression to human feelings. The belief that a new art was in the making was still vague; one’s idea of it was still dim; but it was there. The “scholarly” world, whose unique privilege it always has been, is, and will be to denounce, decry, and damn the new so long as it has not been perfected and despite such evidences of unquestioned greatness as it may reveal, at once shrieked as from a single throat: “Surrogate!” It was in Italy that a certain poet with a world-wide reputation permitted his work to be placed on the screen. At this some began to be skittish, skeptical. And from afar off, as it were, came the first trumpet tones announcing a new art.

And thus the moving picture, attacked by the entire “cultured” world, went on its way, unimpeded by the objections that were raised against it, to the heights on which it at present rests. The scholar proved that there is one thing at least which he is not: a prophet, a seer, a herald of the new. To be a pioneer does not mean that one must cast slurs on that which has not yet found itself; it means much rather the ability to catch, by fair means and fanciful, the first distinct notes of remote clarity.

No one will be able to have great faith in the motion picture who is not at the same time able to seal his heart against the veritable flood of artistic disappointments—and who is not ready to pay his homage to the few great scattered events and episodes that have gone toward the effecting of the clarity of which we have spoken? If you say to me, “Nine-tenths of all moving pictures are bad,” I shall reply by saying that “One-tenth of all moving pictures is good.” If this repartee on our part is possible from the point of view of hard fact, then it certainly must be possible to squeeze out all the faulty fruit from this budding garden of the screen. It is, in truth, ridiculous to try to prove the worthlessness of the moving picture as a whole by selecting, with much conscientious care, the worst pictures and holding them up as typical—and abominable—“illustrations.” These “worst pictures” merely make us realize the not exactly crushing truth that the moving picture, like any other artistic tool or instrument, may be misused. If we wish to prove the enduring value of poetry, we do not cite Kotzebue or Conan Doyle. We can appreciate the value of the motion picture only by studying its best works.

It is easy to criticise; to nag is a sport in which all may indulge. But mistakes are necessary: they return without ceasing and lay in our lap first the foreboding, and then the real knowledge of those inner laws that go to make up the truth. And they do this however deeply buried the laws may be.

Technique stands at the service of civilization; it is the product of cold, calculating, judicial intellect. Art serves culture; it is the product of the warm, seeking soul. The moving picture wants to serve culture; it wants to speak to the soul, sprung though it itself is from cold technique.

When, at the close of the preceding century, its inventors projected the first “living” pictures on the canvas, they did not even faintly suspect the measure of development that was in store for the child of their mind. The film was not created for the benefit of culture. If in the meantime the visualization of human feelings has come to occupy the lion’s share of attention, it is merely a proof of the fact that the human soul has taken possession of the film in order, through it, to acquire new forms of expression for its feelings.

Who would have the audacity to contend that the number of arts was definitely decided upon centuries ago, and that new ones cannot be added to the already existing list? Who will deny that every art has sprung from some technical invention or other? Even music, the most beautiful flower of human culture, was impossible and unthinkable until men had invented sounding boards, vibrating strings, and similar devices. Whether the technical apparatus associated with a species of art, and making that art possible, be elaborate or simple, concerns art itself in no way. For it is entirely and altogether a question as to how large the space is which it offers the soul.

Long before the moving picture was a reality, there was an art of dumb, mute, moving bodies which achieved its ends through crude and, viewed from the present point of view, distinctly laughable method of procedure. I have reference to the pantomime. We see that such forms as the Pantomime has thus far employed, such devices as it has thus far called to its aid, have by no means exhausted its artistic possibilities. The mimic action, or incident, was laid at such a great distance from the spectator that the finer values of the enterprise failed of their real significance; they could not, in truth, be applied. The pantomimic actor—even much more so than is the case with the actor on the stage of the spoken drama when he is obliged to depend upon gestures for his effects—saw himself forced into an excess of pathos with which it was quite impossible for his soul to keep pace. We felt such acting was affected; we dubbed it “hollow, theatrical pathos.”

In order to make its mimic expression more refined, which means more artistic, pantomime called music to its aid, and music is an art of feeling. It thereby ceased to be real pantomime (that is, a pan or an “all” affair), especially in connection with the accompanying song, the canticum. In other words, the hitherto existing forms of pantomime have proved to be inadequate and unsatisfactory as agents of transmission between the contents of the art they are supposed to represent and the spectators who are supposed to enjoy the representation.

Then came the film. Anything that had previously been lost in the distance, anything in the way of tender emotions and delicate feelings that the spacious room of the theatre had swallowed up, is now caught up by the lens of the film. A symphony of humanity can be made to vibrate in the play of a nervous hand, a chaos of opposing forces can be visualized with an equally small display of effort. What art had ever before been able to do justice to the animated and “living” hand? What other phase of art had been able to catch, hold, and delineate the twitching corners of the mouth?

It was not until the film had been brought to its present state of perfection that there came forth from the pantomime this new and exalted art, the art of expressing feelings through gesticulation. The inexpressible, the unspeakable, that regarding which even poetry itself can do no more than merely touch or indicate, has been taken up by the film and made a reality in the sphere of art. Even years ago, the great German actor Bassermann played, in the moving picture, a scene in which the transition from unmarred joy to unrelieved grief was expressed in his well-nigh immovable face. Where was such an accomplishment possible before the invention of the film? On the legitimate stage? In the pantomime?

The exploitation of the much-abused Grossaufnahme (enlarged photograph or close-up) is, of course, perfectly justified when it is a question of portraying intensified feelings, provided the exposure be taken with becoming caution. But it has meaning—that is, it is to be applied then and only then when feelings are to be expressed which, in actual life, are revealed gently. The close-up is out of place in caricatures and facial distortions; it is intended solely for the more tender emotions; gruff or even indifferent feelings cannot be reproduced with its aid.

It is a matter of congratulation that the tendency in recent years, not merely in Europe but also in America, has been away from the old method of breaking up each individual scene into a half dozen close-ups. There is, moreover, a certain definite standard with regard to this kind of pictures beyond which it is impossible to go with impunity. When, for example, a single head or face is detached from its pictural connection and made to fill the entire surface of the canvas, the effect is disagreeable, the impression unsympathetic.

Thus we see that the pantomimic possibilities are fulfilled, through the aid of the motion picture, up to that very point beyond which these possibilities no longer exist. The significance of this is manifest: it is only with the aid of the motion picture that the very possibilities in the way of the animated, or moving, body can be visualized and exhausted. This in turn proves that the film was necessary—that as a novel and perfect form of expression of the human soul it is to be reckoned as an art of the arts, and among the other arts, without hesitation or mental reservation. The gramophone is also a technical invention; but we shall never be able to list it among the arts because it was not necessary as an aid to music. All that it does is to carry what it receives farther along and in an unchanged condition, just like the waves of the radio station. The gramophone does not bestow a deeper possibility of expression on the sound it reproduces. The motion picture is a qualitative gain for art; the gramophone is merely a quantitative gain.

But, the people say, the film has its weak points: It is colorless; it shows a flat surface and not a well-rounded fullness; it is mute. I detect at once two disadvantages and one advantage.

I am aware of the weakness that arises from the fact that the film reproduces flat surfaces. Life itself is rich and round, bodies move about in pliable fullness, there are such things as propinquity and remoteness; some things are near, others afar off. The film brings out all of this only in an imperfect way; indeed to a certain degree these concepts and realities are distorted by the film. There was a desire to transform this defect into an advantage, and the shadow picture, as well as the etched and colored film, was the result. Each was rather attractive, neat, even winsome; but in the framework of our art they were altogether without real significance. For the strongest impression of the motion picture is and remains the play of real human beings; and we cannot expand or contract our moving picture people just before they begin to play, and just so that they may have the right “size.” Let us rather be content with longing for the inventor who will present us with the plastic film.

I appreciate the weakness that arises from the colorlessness of the film. Life itself is rich and variegated; it shines forth in colors of a thousand hues. The flowers are beautiful; the blush on the cheek of a lovely young woman is filled with magic charm. We can indeed at this stage only seriously regret that this diverting play of colors has thus far not been a gift out after which the film may reach. The film as we know it is without color.

But Heaven forbid that we should become unmindful of the austere fact that all arts have their weak points alongside of their strong ones. How we should like to hear the angels on the Altar of Ghent sing! How we should like to see the aurora of Michael Angelo broaden out the glorious body! The truth is, however, that the motion picture, even in its present imperfect state, gives us an abundance, indeed enough, of pleasurable sensations. For does it not depict the play of beautiful bodies, the wonders of the storm-tossed sea, of the wind-swept plain? Does it not show us the flying clouds and foaming waves? It does; and we can consequently endure, for the time being, its colorlessness and its imperfections with regard to space, especially since there is well-founded reason to believe that sooner or later the inventor will come forth and eliminate both of these defects.

I am aware of one advantage. The film is mute where life itself is rich and resounding. One would fancy then at first blush that this were a disgraceful weakness on the part of the film, one that must be removed at once if the film is to survive. We, however, detect a distinct advantage in the muteness of the film. Every art must have a basic and fundamental soil, so to speak, in which its particular species of flowers flourish. Poetry has the spoken word, painting has color, music has sounds, the plastic arts the rigid body. It is in these that each seeks and enjoys its originality—and originality is the sole ground on which art of any sort justifies its continued existence. Therefore, grant to the motion picture its mute play of moving bodies, for if you are unwilling to do this, you will doom the film to become merely a hackneyed, parrot-like imitation of the regular stage. But man is so constituted that he makes those inventions which he can make and not others, regardless always as to whether these inventions are beneficial to human kind or not; regardless as to whether they are of a beneficent or a malevolent nature. This proposition must be accepted, or it is impossible to account for the invention of the cannon. And so, in all probability quite soon, the speaking and resounding film will challenge the mute film to the arena. The outcome of the ensuing struggle is hard to predict. It is altogether probable that the film public will suddenly be brought to realize that the silent, speechless motion picture gives it more stimulation and more pleasure than the speaking film, for the latter will have nothing original about it. And it remains a solemn fact that the public always wants to see something original; it wants to be conducted straight to the visionary land of a colorful fancy where such adventures as men have never seen literally grow on the trees before them.

Let us wait then and see how the world receives the speaking film. If it accepts it, one of the most beautiful, and one of the most recent, messengers of peace known to the human family will have been lost. For the film speaks to-day the silent language of the emotions, that language which is understood by all peoples and races wherever they may live; it speaks the reconciliatory language of the human heart. We have all seen and felt Americans, Germans, Frenchmen, Jews, Chinese, and even Negroes play in the motion picture. They all spoke with the voice of brotherhood, and no one hated them.

The speechless silence of the film, however, is not altogether tolerable. The most taciturn of men speak a word at times, and the film dare not create the impression of total unnaturalness. The film is not pure pantomime. Misguided and obsessed theorists try every now and then to project a pantomime film on the screen, and every now and then these creations enjoy a measure of approbation on the part of the critical public. The characters of these scenarios are doomed men and women whose lips have been sealed. Their playing is often ungraceful and tortured, for there are not a few instances in human fate, as this is delineated on the screen, in which something must be said which cannot be said through the exclusive means of gestures. The subject matter of these pantomimic films has, without exception, been exceedingly primitive thus far. A marked case of such a film was the German picture entitled Scherben which, nota-bene, has also been shown in America. There is nothing left for the spectator to do other than to long in vain for at least a scrap of text which may serve to transform the unnaturalness of it all into a true picture.

It has been felt, indeed, everywhere that the film dare not be wholly speechless. Words there must be. There dare not, at the same time, be anything even approaching a perfect lack of consideration for the art that is being indulged in: we dare not forget that the prime feature of the film is its silence. We are willing to put up with colorlessness and an altogether inadequate depiction of space and perspective, but we become indignant when living and life-sized human beings converse with each other for a long while and in absolute silence. Again and again, and even in the best of motion pictures, we see the “soundless conversation.” It is a mad conception that was unknown until the moving picture was invented. People speak with each other, often in regular word duels, and we have only the vaguest idea as to what they are saying. To be a spectator at such a performance is to receive instruction that leads on to the hazy suspension of reason and to the merciless softening of the mind. With art, or with the “participation of the creative fancy of the spectator” it has nothing whatever to do. No text, and be it endless, can remove the impression that such a procedure is an anomaly.

It is still more dangerous to have people sing in the film. To see such a sweet flower of the human family as Mary Pickford, dressed in white and sitting at a concert piano, is to be sure a rare pleasure; at the sight of her, the eye gladly forgets the impatience of the ear. But there are films in which a tenor sings a wordy song that, in itself, is “linked sweetness long drawn out.” His breast heaves, his mouth opens like a barn door, all in the silence of the tomb! In such instances many a tried and valiant actor has played an involuntary Chapliniad.

Strangely enough, instrumental music often has a quite pleasing effect in the motion picture. The reason for this is not far to seek: the accompanying music and the picture are blended into a unity; between them there is perfect harmony. That this harmony exists, however, is a matter of pure accident. Fearful, on the other hand, is the result when a living singer takes his place in the orchestra and accompanies the picture with a song. When the hero up in the film opens his mouth, the artist down among the musicians opens his too, and song comes forth.

All of these are trifles which a skilful producer can easily avoid. Between silence and loquaciousness lies a spacious domain which offers the capable film artist abundant room for an easy and agreeable portrayal of his subject matter. This having been accomplished, no one feels that there is anything anomalous about the picture, or the art that makes its production possible. No one will feel a desire for a speaking film, for the silence that is in the main obligatory has been interrupted and toned down by the interjection of occasional lines of text. All in all, the film as it has been developed thus far, is a new revelation of the artistic world-soul: it delineates feelings through gestures; emotions are set forth with the aid of gesticulation. For this reason alone, the film in its present form is a new art.

Is the photograph which makes the film possible also an art? No, it is not; and will not be an art. But the operator is an artist. His tool is the lifeless material, just as marble is the tool of the sculptor. And he animates his picture, he gives it life, by means of the most delicate lights and shades, through the introduction and application of the tenderest of moods.

Let us rejoice that the human mind has been enabled, thanks to the motion picture, to hew out a way for itself into lands that have hitherto been unknown—a way that leads us off the beaten track on which the glare and hardness of everyday life become at times unendurable, a way that leads us into the dreamy twilight of poetry, into the realm of romance. How necessary the film, as an art, has become if we are to escape with judicious frequency the drab dullness of the workaday world is known to everyone who is sufficiently familiar with it to feel that its loss would be lamentable.