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Show 1 THE FILM DRAMA VS. SPOKEN DRAMA W GEORGE BERNARD SHAW. 1 MM "Wliat the Films May Do to the j'j jtt Drama" was discoursed upon recently JK in the Metropolitan Magazine by Ma, George Bernard Shaw In part he ' vM said: "The art of the theater is far iljp more specialized, more limited, and Ijflj consequently more exacting art thau I h the art of the picture palace. In Eur-" I j( ,ope and America there must be hund- jf reds of talents available for the film ! Jill to every one that is available to the l stage; and it is the enlistment of iRI these talentu rather than in -the cx- j ploitation of established theatrical'-re R putations that the special opportunity" IJIIj of the cemepatograph lies. . . .The llJUl film drama will compete so successful- j ly with the spoken drama that it will Mm drive it to its highest ground, and ! HJl J mi in ..i- ,. close all paths to It except those in which its irue glory lies, that is, the path of high human utterance of great thoughts and great wit, of poesy and of prophecy. Or, as some of our more hopelessly prosaie critics cull it, the path of Talk " To further quote the great cynic, the picture theater Is bound to have a' disturbing effect on the spoken diama. There exist a great number of plays in which, though the plot is Ingenious and exciting, the dialogue dia-logue is , worthless and superfluous, and in which material for a half hour's entertainment has been spun into three acts or more. This is where the silent drama shines. The plot and the action is stripped of all verbiage. Wo see the emotions, the plots and the counterplots, and suspense and the climaxes in all their nakedness. There is little politeness about it; there Is little pleasure for polite parrying parry-ing or gesturing; there is the problem, its swift approach and its rapid solution. solu-tion. It is red meat for the long suf- Miin.'iumi miiiiiniii i Hramiinn i nji foring who. In search of entertainment, entertain-ment, have been obliged to sit through two hours of chatter In order to gain tho satisfaction of the solution. Right from the shoulder, with no digression, Is the best rule for photoplay classification. classi-fication. Those films that wander into tlve- highways and the byways deserve and get no modicum of praise Shaw has written witty plays: ho may not find it so easy to write actionable photoplays. Action and yet more action ac-tion action pressed down and running run-ning over. The sooner the distinguished distin-guished play-wright learns this essential essen-tial rule from his humblo brother, tho photoplaywrlght, tho sooner will he succeed In film dramatization. And he will have tho knowledge that his experience in learning to write the silent sil-ent drama will aid him materially when he returns to the spoken drama. He will give his audiences more action ac-tion and less words! |