Films For Children

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1016, 5 July 1930, Page 25

Films For Children

FAILURE OF NEW SCHEME League Of Nations Convinced LAST month the League of Nations learned officially what proprietors of picture houses have known for a long time—that special films for children meet only disapproval from the youngsters themselves. The International Cinematographic Institute lias filed a lengthy report with the secretariat showing that there is little difference in this respect among the children of different countries. Furthermore, the report says that no one need be surprised at this because: “A film suited to children can only be produced by a psychologist, an artist and a producer working together.”

The report lists two chief causes for the almost universal failure of ihese films. The first is that children do not like them, because the educational factor is too obvious; the second, that adults who accompany children to the theatres do not like to attend children’s shows. The triple alliance needed for successful production is outlined by the institute in this fashion: “The psychologist should find out the child’s real and ’not theoretical tastes, which vary with age, social environment and habits. “The artist should realise that no audience has a keener sense of beauty than an audience of children, and harmonise the ideas of the psychologist. TEST OF FITNESS

“The producer should add his technical knowledge to the ideas of the other two.” The institute recognises several types of films as satisfactory to young fans. Historical, political and religious themes can be adapted to the intelligence of children and adventures or examples of courage and patriotism can be put up in nondramatic but appealing form. Classical stories and fables need to be adapted to suit modern tastes. If informative films are put out they should depict episodes from real life. As for modern drama, the test of fitness given is whether they are fit for children to act in as well as see. FRUITFUL EXPERIMENT Discussing the subject a London education expert writes: At present only haphazard experi-

meats are possible for most of us. For example, a short time back I showed a “Baby Patlie” film to a mixed group of about 30 graduates and 30 school children of 12 years of age. The showing of the film took four minutes, and none of the people watching it liad any idea that a paper of questions was to follow it, testing exactly what each one liad observed. The result was interesting. One graduate only scored more than 75 per cent, of marks, the rest gaining from 50 to 75 per cent. The most surprising result was that this lowest group included all those children who went to the cinema frequently. One ■)f the lowest boys was one who went to a cinema every night! The film I showed was not of the accustomed pattern. It represented the docks and quays of Rouen. According to all the traditions, crooks should have been slinking about the wharves, assaults and surprises should have taken place, and at least one corpse should have been in evidence. All these things would have been observed by the cinema frequenters—the cranes, the heaps of merchandise, the liners and barges wero not. Again, I found recently that numbers of children write of the Chinese as sinister, villainous men, waiting to spring upon unsuspecting passers and immure them in cellars. This is the familiar pattern of the American “dope” film, and it has imposed itself upon the minds of children living in towns whose only Chinese inhabitants are peaceful and industrious laundrymen, against whom no charge of violence has ever been brought. But the “pattern” imposes itself upon the child, in spite of all the evidence of actual experience.