FUNCTION OF FILMS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 324, 7 September 1945, Page 5

FUNCTION OF FILMS

Sir,-Bruce Mason, in a letter on "Function of Films,’ makes some rather dogmatic statements. First he takes Mr. Goldwyn to task for saying: "A picture’s first function is to entertain"-~ yet himself goes on to say that without entertainment, no audience, no profit! And in that order! Certainly Sam Goldwyn did not put it that way-but a film must entertain to be profitable-there-fore entertainment must be its first function.

Further, I do not agree that "what. ever is truly and artistically rendered through any medium must of its nature be entertaining." I think that "amusement or diversion" is a far better definition of entertainment and I don’t think one must necessarily be educated and entertained simultaneously. For instance, it is understandable that one might be amused and/or diverted by, say, the Marx Brothers, -- but never educated. Again, the "true and artistic" rendering of some famous composer’s masterpiece by a good orchestra may be an education to a fellow composer, able to appraise the technical excellence of such a rendering-yet the average appreciator of what is so loosely and in my opinion often wrongly called "Good music," may derive amusement or diversion from the same rendering-and even get education to some extent. Yet another will get nothing but a headache. No, sir-I feel sure, that the ordinary "bloke" who, having seen a film — or listened in, and who is subsequently glad he did so-in short, who enjoyed him-self-has been entertained in the fullest sense of the word. Education does not enter into it.

JACK

SHERIE

(Mt. Maunganui).