Even the most prejudiced opponent of the moving pictures will admit that
they are becoming more intellectually respectable. Crude farce and
melodrama are being replaced by versions of classic plays and novels;
literature is elevating the motion picture. And Mr. Rex Beach believes
that the motion picture is benefiting literature.
This author of widely read novels had been talking to me about the
departments of literature--the novel, the short story, and the rest--and
among them he named the moving picture. I asked him if he believed that
moving pictures were dangerous for novelists, leading them to fill their
books with action, with a view to the profits of cinematographic
reproduction. He said:
"Well, authors are human beings, of course. They like to make money and
to have their work reach as large an audience as possible. I suppose
that the great majority of them keep their eyes on the screen, because
they know how profitable the moving picture is and because they want
their work seen by more people than would read their novels."
"Do you think that this harms their work?" I asked.
"It might if the novelists overdid it," he answered. "It would harm
their work if they became nothing but scenario writers. But so far the
result has been good.
"The tendency of the moving picture has been to make authors visualize
more clearly than ever before their characters and scenes that they are
writing about. Their work has become more realistic. I do not mean
realistic in the sense in which this word is used of some French
writers; I do not mean erotic or morbid. I mean actual, convincing,
clearly visualized.
"Literature has elevated the moving picture, keeping it out, to a great
extent, of melodrama and slap-stick comedy. And in return, the moving
picture has done a service to fiction, making the authors give more
attention to exact visualization."
"Has American fiction been lacking in visualization?" I asked.
"No," said Mr. Beach. "American novelists visualize more clearly to-day
than they did four or five years ago, before the moving picture had
become so important, but they always were strong in visualization. This
sort of realism is America's chief contribution to fiction."
"Then you believe that there is a distinctively American literature?" I
asked. "You do not agree with the critic who said that American
literature was 'a condition of English literature'?"
"I do not agree with him," Mr. Beach replied. "American writers use the
English language, so I suppose that what they write belongs to English
literature. But there is a distinctively American literature; Americans
talk in their own manner, think in their own manner, and handle business
propositions in their own manner, and naturally they write in their own
manner. American literature is different from other kinds of literature
just as American business methods are different from those of Europe.
"Fiction written in America must necessarily be tinged with American
thought and American action. I have no patience with people who say
that America has no literature. They say that nothing we are writing
to-day will live. Well, what if that is true? It's true not only of
literature, but of everything else.
"Our roads won't last forever; they're built in a hurry to be used in a
hurry. But they're better roads to drive and motor over than those old
Roman roads of Europe. Our office-buildings won't last as long as the
Pyramids, but they're better for business purposes.
"Personally, I've never been enthusiastic over things that have no
virtues but age and ugliness. I'd rather have a good, strong,
serviceable piece of Grand Rapids furniture than any ramshackle,
moth-eaten antique."
"But don't you think," I asked, "that the permanence of a book's appeal
is a proof of its greatness?"
"I don't see how we can tell anything definite about the permanence of
the appeal of books written in our time. And I don't mean by literature
writings that necessarily endure through the ages. I believe that
literature is the expression of the mind, the sentiment, the
intellectual attitude of the people who live at the time it is written.
I admit that our literature is ephemeral--like everything else about
us--but I believe that it is good."
Mr. Rex Beach was not pacing his floor nervously; he was crossing the
room with the practical intention of procuring a cigarette.
Nevertheless, his firm tread lent emphasis to his remarks.
"There is a sort of literary snobbery," he said, "noticeable among
people who condemn contemporaneous literature just because it is
contemporaneous. The strongest proof that there is something good in the
literature of the day is that it reaches a great audience. There must be
something in it or people wouldn't read it.
"The people are the final judges; it is to them that authors must
appeal. Take any big question of public importance--after it has been
discussed by politicians and newspapers, it is the people who at last
decide it.
"A man may have devoted his life to some tremendous achievement, and
have left it as a monument to his fame. But it is to public opinion that
we must look for the verdict on the value of his life's work.
"Take Carnegie, for example; when he dies, you bet people will have his
number! His ideas are a tremendous menace, and the people who believe
as he does about peace will find themselves generally execrated one of
these days.
"It may seem to you that this has nothing to do with literature. But it
has a good deal to do with it. I know that many things have been said
about the effect on literature of the war. But I want to say that the
war will have, I hope, one admirable effect on American writers--it will
make them stir up the American conscience to a sense of the necessity
for national defensive preparation. The writers must educate the people
in world politics and show them the necessity for defensive action.
Americans have a sort of mental inertia in regard to public questions,
and the writers must overcome this inertia.
"The writers must stir up the politicians and the people. There's been a
whole lot of mush written about peace. There always will be war. We
can't reform the world.
"The pacifists say that it is useless to arm because war cannot be
prevented by armaments. The obvious answer to that is that neither can
the failure to arm prevent war. And the verdict after the war will be
better if we are prepared for it. The writers must call our attention to
the folly of leaving ourselves open to attack.
"It's hard to reach the conscience of the American people on any big
issue. We are too independent, too indifferent, too ready to slump back.
That's one of the penalties of democracy, I suppose; the national sense
of patriotism becomes atrophied. It needs some whaling-big jolt to wake
it up. Every American writer can help to do this.
"The trouble is that we have too many men with feminine minds, too many
of these delicate fellows with handkerchiefs up their sleeves. I can't
imagine any women with ideas more feminine than those of Bryan--could
any woman evolve anything more feminine than his peace-at-any-price
idea?"
Mr. Beach smiled. "I suppose I should not be talking about world
politics," he said. "There are so many men who have specialized in that
subject and are therefore competent to talk about it. I am only a
specialist in writing."
"Do you think," I asked, "that writers should be specialists in writing?
Some people believe that the best fiction, for example, is produced by
men who do some other work for a living."
"I certainly believe that a writer should devote himself to writing,"
said Mr. Beach. "This is an age of specialization, and literature is no
exception to the general rule. Literature is like everything else--you
must specialize in it to be successful."
"This has not always been the case, has it?" I asked. "Has literature
been produced by people who made writing only an avocation?"
"Surely," said Mr. Beach. "It is only within the last few years that
writers have been able to write for a living and make enough to keep the
fringe off their cuffs."