"ARE MOVIES ART?"

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2848, 12 August 1916, Page 11

"ARE MOVIES ART?"

CENSORSHIP AND PROPRIETY

WHAT PICTURES SHOULD OUR

CHILDREN SEE

(By "Sylvius.")

■ "Are movies art?" asks the Springfield (U.S.A.) "Journal," and answers its own question: "Movies are not art, but they have a fair chance of'bcconu ing art if tho silly consorsliip under which they now operate is relaxed, or, hotter, abolished. With the national board of censorship thore is small quarrel, becauso this is a Frankenstein engineered by tlie movie men themselves, and tliey havo only to say tho word to abolish it." Thereafter tho paper sets to roundly abusing tho idea of censorship, and quotes instances whero certain good films have been censored altogether by certain States. Everyone will -agree that an unreasonable and bigoted censorship of films is tho last thing to bo desired,' but this does not present the whole case. Personally, I do not think that a reasonable censorship would act as a cheek to tho artistic development of pictures, and it is absolutely certain that were there no form of censorship anywhere in th? world some very queer pictures would be turned out. It is all very well lor managers to say that the public is the best censor —they may be tempted, to say that because thej know that a percentage of tho public—in New as anywhere else—havo no great objection to that which is risque. The "movies ' were the first to exploit the all but .naked female figure, to no artistic end, and from the "movies" the idea occurred to revue managers that "it seomed to go" with 1 the public, and people returning from Paris, London, and New York relato their impressions of shows the like of which -would havo shocked bur grandparents, and we ourselves witness with equanimity, border, ing on indifference, girls pirouetting round the stage in extremely scanty attire. If tho pursuit of that kind ol thing is regarded as art in Springfield, U.S.A., then the sooner an iconoclastic censorship is adopted the. better. Now that the Government has pledged itself to the establishment of. a film censorship, it will be interesting to observe . how it works. Thanks to 'judicious selectors, we have had little to complain of in the ; past.. Here and there tho bordei'-line of decency may have been crossed, and vulgarity is ever with us. Tho most important work before oui censors is to decide, tho. relationship between tho "movies" and our children. At present these little ones m their most impressionable years art permitted to see anything that come! along. That should not bo. These perferrid love scenes in some plioto-plays—what tho effect of such scones aro on tho questioning child mind who can toll? The unanswerable queries they put, overy parent knows. And seeing such scenes week after week, they nijist conclude that the behaviour of tho people on the_ screen is quite normal, quite proper—just ordinary. I have actually seen children playing at "pictures" and enacting an intimate lovo scene, such as one sees from timo to timo on the screen. The Americans are clever people, but their moral standard, I hope, differs from ours, and on that standard rests the superstructure of many a picture that should not bo seen by children under fifteen, years of age. How are the censors going to deal with this problem? That, of course, is only one of the little matters for consideration on the part of tho parties who may be called on to act as censors a little later on. There aro all sorts and conditions of pictures—very beautiful scenic views of river, road, niouiitain, and city, and a splendid" lot of clean, virile dramas and healthy comedies, a wido range of industrial, educative, and war pictures, plenty of freak and fake films, grave and ga.y, but; what will exercise the censors and test their discretionary powers will bo to mark tho border line —not so easy as one might think.