Heraclitus: or, the future of films

Study by Edmund Betts on the development and future of film as art. The author also considers the relation of music, television and human speech to film and the impact of films on politics and education. In the chapter on the future of film, Betts expresses the opinion that 'Personally, I am convinced that films should be seen and not heard. The business of the film is to depict action, not to reproduce sound ... The film of a hundred years hence, if it is true to itself, will still be silent, but it will be saying more than ever.' (p. 86-88). A printed footnote has been inserted in the book at this point: 'Since the above was written speaking films have been launched as a commercial proposition, as the general pattern of the film of the future. As a matter of fact, their acceptance marks the most spectacular act of self-destruction that has yet come out of Hollywood, and violates the film's proper function at its source. The soul of the film - its eloquent and vital silence - is destroyed. The film now returns to the circus whence it came, among the freaks and the fat ladies.']

Part of the Bill Douglas and Peter Jewell Collection