David Belasco on Motion Pictures (1914) 🇺🇸
In an exclusive interview with the Moving Picture World the great master of visualization tells of his impressions and expectations — “you are at the dawn not at the zenith” — he will help in the work of filming — why he chose Lasky as his film interpreter.
by W. Stephen Bush.
If you, good reader, are still in doubt as to the world-conquering powers of the motion picture and if in defiant unbelief you ask for a “sign” it shall be given to you and here is the “sign”: Belasco is willing to intrust his plays to the screen.
Now this does not mean to imply that his plays are greater than all others; in these days the creations of the most gifted minds are absorbed and often made more glorious by the camera. Nor does the fact that Belasco loved the various embodiments of his art as much as a father loves his children in the flesh constitute anything like a revelation. The “sign” lies in this circumstance: Belasco has devoted all his life in the worship of art. The atmosphere of art is to him the breath of life. Had he not recognized the quality and power of art in the motion picture the great Belasco plays would have remained lost to the film for probably another generation.
Meaning of Belasco’s entry.
To appraise the significance of Belasco’s entry into the realm of the filmed drama it is well to emphasize the fact that Belasco’s art has always been eminently sane. His art is Shakespearian in its sanity. He sees life as it is and as most of us see it. He strives to portray it as it is: new at every turn, forever fascinating and forever mysterious. One test and one definition may be applied to all he ever did: He kept away from the impossible ideals of conventionalism and from all that bore even the trace of artificiality. Stereotyped molds were to him an abomination. With the unerring instinct of the true artist he eschewed the refined mediocrity of the Sardous and of the whole Victorian school. Nor did the other extreme ever lead him astray. He never conceived that the drama was the best medium for exploiting the secrets of the operating room or the mysteries of the higher pathology. He could discover no relationship between the higher surgery and dramatic art. In his judgment art can never have any pretext for exploring the sewers.
Between Zola and Sardou he found a middle course which. as I said before, was guided by the compass of sanity. Hence the enduring popularity of his works; hence the esteem in which the fairest critics in all the world, the American public, hold the name of Belasco.
In the theater bearing his name not far from New York’s “central roar” David Belasco. the greatest of American dramatic producers, is wearing a sweet crown of contentment, the reward of a life-long fidelity to high ideals. The offices in which the famous master of visualization spends his working hours, long hours and fertile ones, suggest anything but the average theatrical offices which take such vulgar pride in just being “busy.” The place breathes dignity and there is a marked absence of haste. Were it not for the undercurrent of activity which is all-pervading one might fancy one’s self in a quiet cloister, for the footfalls are easy, conversations are carried on in whispers, the lights are subdued and there is a harmony of colors. That the place is the loved abode of a lover of art is evidenced by the pictures found on every wall and partition. They and other works of art could have been selected by none but an artist with a strong dramatic instinct and an eye for pictorial effect.
Every inch an artist.
The master of this home of inspiration looked eminently fitted for the throne. In the very prime of his usefulness, with In- capacity for the enjoyment of his work undiminished, time passes most happily for Belasco. Modestly and without a trace of condescension he submits himself to the interviewer. A deep spiritual nature expresses itself in every look and every gesture of the man. Who said that the “assiduous study of an emasculates the intellect.” Belasco’s features are striking!)’ intellectual. That much of his personality would reveal itself to a crowd of ‘longshoremen and perhaps even to members of the junior vaudeville. The lips are mobile, perhaps a trifle ascetic, the nose betrays daring capacity and enterprise, the forehead is lofty. The hair white with tinges of gray is as thick as that of a football hero. Belasco’s personality no less than his plays reveals the character of the man. His voice is pitched in a soft but lively key; the cadence is pleasing, the utterance almost elocutionary in its distinctness.
“I shall never engage in the production of motion pictures on my own account,” he said, after brief introductions. “My other interests are too large, they take all my time, and I feel that I am dedicated to this work in the theater. I am a slave to this work, but my heart’s ease comes of a knowledge that I am doing this work to the best of my ability and in obedience to the highest inspirations. A few years ago I never thought that I would ever be associated directly or indirectly with any enterprise in motion pictures. I had a poor opinion of the motion picture then.”
‘What was your opinion?” I asked.
His first glimpse of the pictures
“I thought,” said Mr. Belasco, with still a faint tinge of protest in his voice, “that there was no useful appeal of any kind in the pictures. I thought their effect was bad. The spreading out of details of crime, the elaboration if highway robberies and hold-ups, the obscene portrayals, the exhibitions of slum-life, the cheap cowboy films were bound, I thought, to have a bad influence on our young men and women. I had offers from all sorts of men to let them film my plays. Some of these offers were generous to the point of extravagance I declined them all because it seemed to me that under the methods of production as I had seen them my play- might have suffered the fate of travesty. One of your best known directors hail been after me for a long time. I guess he had been trying for a year to get me to look at one of his picture- to convince me that there were possibilities which the cheap film could never reveal. Well. I resisted him as long as I could, and then I did look at one of hi- pictures and I must say that I saw things in a different light from that day forth. Perhaps I might say that this was the turning point in my attitude toward motion pictures. Well, this happened about two years ago, but on the whole I still continued indifferent. When I was abroad more recently the film plays that I saw in Italy increased my respect for the motion picture. When I saw ‘Quo Vadis’ I felt that the motion picture had put on seven league boots. In the meantime offers for the filming rig-fits of my plays kept coming and I began to consider the possibility of accepting one of the offers. I was very slow and deliberated for months before making a decision and when I made it I was guided by just one consideration: The likelihood of the most artistic and conscientious and liberal portrayal. I saw three or four of the Jesse L. Lasky productions besides many others, and I felt I should hesitate no longer. I gave the rights to Mr. Lasky and his company purely on the merits. They were indeed generous in the financial inducements offered but I am free to say that if the mere gain of money had been my object I might have made other arrangements. I feel that these men, young, ambitious and not afraid of new departures or of a generous outlay of money will do justice to my productions.”
Will aid in work of filming.
“Do not expect to take an active part in the filming work, Mr. Belasco?”
“Well, I will be glad to render any help that it may be thought I am capable of rendering. I will expect to be present at rehearsals whenever possible, and look over scenarios. I think that will about sum up my connection, if I were to attempt more it might have to be at the expense of my work in the theater. I could not divide my time. To me nothing can ever take the place of the speaking stage, nothing to me can supplant the charm and the dramatic efficacy of sound. Let me say here that I think this attempt to accompany pictures with imitations of sounds or of human voices is inartistic, unconvincing and unreal. The future of your art surely does not point in that direction.
What Belasco thinks of the talking pictures.
Adding an echo to a shadow makes the entertainment artificial and mechanical. The pictures must speak for themselves, yes, that is just what they must do. The effort to make pictures talk or sing is merely a bid for cheap novelty. Let them be honest and show the pictures as pictures; the other way is incorrect and foolish. When I flash a tableau on the stage I do not have a mob shouting out what the tableau is supposed to mean. Words at such moments are both superfluous and ridiculous.”
The dawn not the zenith.
“My friend,” continued Belasco, with an evident sense of relief at having spoken his mind and having gratified his sense of the truly artistic “your art is at its dawn, not at the zenith. I verily believe that in the near future we will witness marvels of pictures such as no one is dreaming of now. There will be an unequalled perfection of detail and the educational incident will be more of a factor than ever. What revelations what sources of pleasure were such places as The Tower and Westminster Abbey to me. Association brings the past to life but nothing can give us such realism in association as the motion picture. On the stage we must give you a bit of painted canvas for Niagara Falls or the Nile, you show us the real thing. The world is your stage. These considerations and my abiding faith in the Lasky people have induced me to give my plays to the screen and to help when necessary is doing them justice on the films.
Belasco’s Expectations.
“Let me say through you that the main feature of my agreement with Mr. Lasky and his company is their promise to put my plays on the him in a manner benefiting their success and reputation. Nothing can be done without a free expenditure of money. In my own experience as a producer I have discovered this one fact: The public is quick to respond to liberality. When the public learn that you think the best is just good enough for them they will pass their money in through the little opening in the ticket office and pay a generous interest on your investment. This thing of trying to get something for five dollars that cannot be got properly for less than ten is foolish. The cheap, little pictures of the Dick Turpin variety, the crude and tawdry attempts at portraying life, the painful efforts at comedy, the sickening unreality of life are or have been poisoning the soil and robbing it of its flowers, they have destroyed poetry and the sense of art, the soul and imagination of the young and have handicapped them in their mental and moral growth. Every superior work means time and lots of money. There must never be any hesitation in employing the best talent, wherever it can be gotten and whatever it may cost. I know the resources and I know the ambition of Mr. Lasky and the other young men with him. They have told me that I am privileged to cancel all arrangements if upon their filming of my first production I find that they have stinted. I may annul everything if they do not come up to my expectations. I have no doubt, however, on that score. They do know what I expect, they know that I will be critical. They have promised to stage “The Darling of the Gods” in Japan and to embalm in enduring films the missions and the mission life of California now passing rapidly into history. My plays will give them their opportunities. I am, I assure you, very earnest and very anxious about this and I want to see them at the top of the ladder.”
The spell of the motion picture is working on Belasco. It is a subtle spell as we all know and in the end it always proves irresistible. I think, after he has seen his first play upon the screen, the greatest living visualizer, the adept in the art to make others see what he sees and as he sees it, will be heard from in a second eulogy of motion pictures and there will be no more hesitation nor qualification.
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Jesse Lasky and David Belasco
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New York’s official badge of superiority.
Foremost among the cities of North America because of its industrial and commercial activities, New York is to win even greater prestige than it now enjoys through systematic advertising of its enviable position.
At a dinner given by the Members Council of the Merchants’ Association of New York Tuesday evening, May 26, the adoption of an official emblem or insignia was announced. It is the intention of the association that merchants and manufacturers who ship goods from New York to all parts of the country shall attach to each package shipped a reproduction of the official emblem in the form of a paster, stencil, or tag in order that the immense volume of merchandise which goes out annually from the city may advertise New York’s supremacy as a commercial center all over the world.
The emblem, which is reproduced with this article, was determined upon after a prize competition in which more than 250 designs were submitted. It is the combination of ideas submitted by David B. Hills, of Brooklyn, who won the first prize of $150, and Raphael Beck, of Buffalo, who was awarded the second prize of $50.
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Stanley twist back from Australia.
Stanley H. Twist has reached Los Angeles en route from Australia. After two weeks’ sojourn among friends and acquaintances, he will go to New York via Chicago, stopping over in the windy city to complete certain details now under way. Propositions have been made him for formation of a feature film manufacturing company along new and up-to-date lines, which will utilize certain patent rights, now granted and ready for operation. His New York address will be care Inter-Ocean Sales Co., 110 West 40th Street, New York City. Mr. Twist returns with feature films of value, which have been manufactured in Australia. Also contracts for exploitation of pictures in that country. Mr. Twist left New York in the latter part of 1913 to take the position of general manager of the Australasian Film Company at Sydney.
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“A Fixture.”
Jackson, Ky., May 23, 1914.
Moving Picture World, New York.
My Dear Friends: —
You have grown to a fixture in many a small time house like our own. We can’t run without you.
Sincerely,
J. E. Stivers, Manager “Hipp” Theater.
Collection: Moving Picture World, June 1914