tionable, as well as he who thinks they are educating
the masses, is not of the opinion that the moving pictures are doing these
things because they show moving objects on a screen, but because of the
character of what is photographed for such exhibition.

Thoughts on the movies, therefore, must be rather thoughts on things that
are currently shown us by means of the movies; thoughts also on some of
the things that we might see and do not. I have compared the screen above
to a proscenium arch and a show window, but both of these are selective:
the screen is as broad as the world. It is especially adapted to show
realities; through it one may see the coast of Dalmatia as viewed from a
steamer, the habits of animals in the African jungle, or the play of
emotion on the faces of an audience at a ball game in Philadelphia. I am
pleased to see that more and more of these interesting realities are shown
daily in the movie theatres. There has been a determined effort to make
them unpopular by calling them "educational," but they seem likely to
outlive it. One is educated, of course, by everything that he sees or
does, but why rub it in? The boy who thoroughly likes to go sailing will
get more out of it than he who goes because he thinks it will be "an
educational experience." As one who goes to the movies I confess that I
enjoy its realities. Probably they educate me, and I take that with due
meekness. Some of these realities I enjoy because they are unfamiliar,
like the boiling of the lava lake in the Hawaiian craters and the changing
crowds in the streets of Manila; some because they are familiar, like a
college foot-ball game or the movement of vessels in the North River at
New York.

I like the realities, too, in the dramatic performances that still occupy
and probably will continue to occupy, most of the time at a movie theatre.
Here I come into conflict with the producer. Like every other adapter he
can not cut loose from the old when he essays the new. We no longer wear
swords, but we still carry the buttons for the sword belt, and it is only
recently that semi-tropic Americans gave up the dress of north-temperate
Europe. So the movie producer can not forget the theatre. Now the theatre
has some advantages that the movie can never attain--notably the use of
speech. The movie, on the other hand, has unlimited freedom of scene and
the use of real backgrounds. We do not object to a certain amount of what
we call "staginess"