The Cinema

"This is a word on the Egyptian cinema by Mr. Rushdi Kamil, which we have seen fit to publish for its usefulness."

During the last two years the film industry in Egypt has begun to expand to a degree that has astonished those who concern themselves with its affairs, since they know that the means of that industry are very limited. The studios are few, the actors are few as well, and artistic directors are a rare thing in Egypt. Yet despite these difficulties we have found the film companies appearing one after another. Every actor in Egypt has his film company, and every director likewise has his own company. We have seen the films fill the picture houses, until the government imposed on the owners of the foreign houses the obligation to show Egyptian films at a fixed, regular time. This expansion may be evidence of the flourishing of the film industry; it may be evidence of the flourishing of the art of acting as well. But we have noticed that it rests neither on mastery nor on quality, just as we have noticed that the motive for forming the companies was not to raise up the art of acting, but rather to profit from this lucrative trade. The competition among the companies has resulted in films being produced in such abundance that neither author nor director nor actor is allowed to perfect his art. So the screen stories have come out weak in story, in direction, and in acting alike.

The screen author in Egypt does not think of invention and innovation. And how could he, when he knows that Western literature is rich in stories, and that the Egyptian public has no thorough acquaintance with that literature? If the author raids a Western story, only a few will know of it. There may indeed be a double benefit in adaptation from Western literature: it entertains the public and educates it, and it profits the author and educates him as well. But our authors' raiding of Western stories is an aggression contrary, first, to right and to morals; and then, beyond that, it does more harm than good, for it gives the public distorted pictures of Western literature, and it distracts the author from perfecting his art when he stands in need of perfecting it. The author sees, on the one hand, that trifling with art and literature is a matter of no consequence, and, on the other, that it is easier than straining mind, imagination, and pen to create an original, fresh story that would raise his own standing, the standing of his art, and the standing of his public. I do not know how long this trifling will last, and when these authors will come to feel that art and the public have rights that must be respected and a dignity that must be observed. Is it not their duty in justice to look upon the cinema as a means of amusement, but at the same time an instrument for education and the reforming of taste? And the way to that is for art not to descend to the taste of the masses, but to raise the taste of the masses up to where it stands — or at least to meet it halfway. Is it not time for our authors to leave off producing stories of this sort: "Love Is Forbidden," "Tears of Love," "First Love," "Layla the Schoolgirl," "Layla, Daughter of the Poor," "Layla, Girl of the Countryside," "Layla in the Dark," "The Unknown Past," "The Return of the Caravan," and other such feeble stories, which aim at treating our social problems and miss the way to it? The author does not leave the spectator to draw the moral of the story from the events themselves; instead he delivers sermons to him through one of his characters. And sermons do no good when they are delivered as a sort of lesson or lecture on morals; souls recoil from them and minds grow weary of them.

Nor is the dialogue any better off than the story. The spectator suffers from the one as he suffers from the other — if we except the single successful film of this season, "The Lady's Plaything," by Mr. Naguib

al-Rihani. As for the other films, you find in the conversations that pass between their characters an artificiality that delivers you over to boredom — to say nothing of the many scenes in which the dialogue strays from the story itself, and the author treats you to a quantity of platitudes which he believes to be deep philosophy, when they are as far as can be from depth and from philosophy.

The director's share of error and shortcoming equals the author's, if it does not exceed it — especially when we observe that he performs the principal task in the film, from choosing the actors and guiding them, to choosing the exterior and interior settings, to supervising the lighting and the photography. He truly represents the essential element in the production of the film; but like his colleague the author, he trifles with the public and with art. You find no taste in the choice of furniture, and you feel no harmony in its arrangement; instead the rooms are crammed with this furniture until they look like great halls or auction rooms.

... And these lapses, if they indicate anything, indicate that the Egyptian director has not to this day mastered the task that falls upon him when he undertakes to direct a motion picture.

... And there is a strange phenomenon in Egyptian films which we have not seen in American or European films: hardly an Egyptian film exists that is free of dancing and singing. As though the Egyptian girl — whatever her social class — had no concern but to dance, and to dance to excess, or to sing, and to sing to excess: she sings in her room, she sings at public parties, she sings in the street if you like. These scenes may sometimes suit the run of the film and fit its events, but in many films we find them uneasy in their place and far out of position.

As for the actors who work in Egyptian films, they represent three classes with no connection among them. Of the first class are the singers who have no acquaintance with acting and no knowledge of it, but whose fame in song the directors prefer to exploit in order to give currency to their films. It is certain that the participation of a singer like Mr. Mohammed Abdel Wahab, or a songstress like Miss Umm Kulthum, in any film guarantees that film its success — but does it guarantee it artistic success? No; for these two singers do not possess the natural artistic gifts that would help them master the art of acting, even though they have taken part in several films.

Of the second class are the actors who practiced stage acting for long years and then preferred the cinema to the stage, for reasons some of which are artistic and many of which are material. Some of these have not distinguished between stage acting and screen acting, and have set about acting in the cinema in the same manner in which they act on the stage — and between the two kinds of acting there is a difference in the manner of performance. Some of them have grasped this, and have succeeded in the cinema as they succeeded on the stage; among these are Naguib al-Rihani and Bishara Wakim — though the first has acted in only a few films, which won the same admiration as those plays of his in which he acts with unequaled success.

As for the third class, it includes the "new faces." The choosing of these faces has not been done by the ideal method and the correct course, for in their choosing the directors have preferred handsomeness of countenance and elegance of appearance over native gifts — of which there is no small store in Egypt. Had the choice been made on that basis, the Egyptian cinema would have won many gifted persons, of the kind who raise the standing of the cinematic art.