The Film and the Public [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION To write a new book on the film is not easy. Both too much and too little have been written about it already. The film can no longer masquerade as immature; there is a glamorous grey on the adolescent temples. It is certainly old enough to feel jealous of the public's interest in television. What kind of book ought one to write as an introduction to the film in the nineteen-fifties ? A dozen years ago there were scarcely a dozen books on the subject which really mattered. Now that the specialists have moved in and have begun their surveys of the holes and corners in the history and technicalities of cinematography, it is clear that we have reached a new phase in the development of true criticism of the film. The serious historians are still very few in number, but they have begun to publish the results of their research on an international scale. Writers on films can no longer get by with hazy generalizations which act as convenient padding between the marshalling of a few obvious facts. It has become a hard and responsible task, as well as a fascinating and enjoyable one, to understand fully the art and technique of the films and the problems that beset their production and exhibition within an industrial framework. The relationship of the film to television has also to be considered, and the changes which the new systems of wide-screen and three-dimensional projection will introduce to the technique of film-making. This book, like its predecessor Film which I wrote originally for the Pelican Series ten years ago in 1944, is an introduction to the whole subject intended for people who have already come to feel the fascination of the film, not only as a great form of art but also as a great medium of popular entertainment. The first and second parts (which together make up about half of its length) attempt to show how rapidly and effectively the film-makers discovered the great 13