BOOKS
not inhere in the tender treatment of the deep. social antagonisms that divide
the classes, but in open, profound exposure of these chasms. And a bottom,
in their heart of hearts, Miss Bentley's people are all noble. Under the
swindler's mask, under the exploiter's cunning schemes, the liberal mind
brings back the comforting message: the heart is pure beneath.
Corrup-
tion is society's fault.
And the final scene of the book, when Tasker,
master swindler, convicted, standing in the dock awaiting sentence, catches
the tear-brimming eyes of Rosamund, and succumbs to the rosy dream of
the good respectable bourgeois he
might
have been, is such a debauch of
sentimentality, such a crudely idealized version of the-regeneration-that-
came-too-late that whatever merits
A ill odern Tragedy
possesses vanish
in this final bathos.
ALFRED HAVES
POTAMKIN'S LEGACY
THE EVES OF THE MOVIE,
hy Harry Alan Potamkin.
International
Pamphlets. International Publishers,
381
4th Ave., N.
Y. C. 10
cents.
Notwithstanding its discursiveness, due doubtless to the fact that
Potamkin died before he could complete and edit it for publication,
The
Eyes of the Movie
is the most important piece of film criticism published
in America.
It presents for the first time a complete perspective on the
cultural-propaganda content, the control and motivation of the bour-
geois film: "The movie is valuable (to the ruling class) as a merchandise
in itself, to sell other merchandise, as a vehicle for the 'national idea,'
and as an instrument of imperialist control." Within the necessarily limit-
ed scope of a pamphlet,
The Eyes of the Alovie
develops this well-put
summary into a broad sketch of the American film scene, indicating Holly-
wood's treatment of' the themes of Capital and Labor, the Negro, the Jew,
war, Soviet Russia, etc. The Heraclitan flow of the movie and the opiate
forgetfulness it inspires make it an extremely difficult medium to grasp
and analyse in the light of its effect upon society. Though potent, its ef-
fects are insinuating.
Hence, the scarcity of true film criticism.
(Count
the really good critics on your fingers: Moussinac, Belasz, Pudovkin,
Potamkin and perhaps one or two others.) And hence the importance of
Potamkin's scattered articles, and especially, this pamphlet, his most revolu-
tionary work.
Potamkin's analysis is penetrating and pithy:
"The movie is the
modern ritual, and though its invitation is benevolence-its 'entertain-
ment', its influence is 'propaganda'!" . ..
"The (only)
problem
that
may be faced is that of the restless agonies of the social register." ...
"(The) self-defense films (which) pretend to be social criticism ...
shift
the social guilt from society to the individual and from the individual to
nowhere." . ..
"The Soviet kino sets war directly within the society
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