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MARCH 8, 1948 97 | MOVIES The New Realism 'Bhy a necenr issue of the New York Times Drama section, Bosley Crow- ther, observing the rise of the “docu- mentary style” in this season’s pictures, regrets that it is being used almost entirely to tell crime stories. “Why,” he asks, “don’t we have more normal pictures—more happy pictures—in which the locales and settings. are as real as the city streets, the courts, the penitentiaries and the crime-detection laboratories in thése hard-boiled? The answer, I think, can be found _ by making a distinction between artis- tic growth and technical advance. Film documentation, which developed from the propaganda needs of the recent war, is a camera, technique that strives -for,.verisimilitude rather than reality. What ‘it. conveys may be completely false, and when you believe it you do so, not through any intellectual per- suasion, but from the ancient fallacy that you cannot deny the evidence of your own eyes. Fresh air. Applied to entertainment films, however, the style works an im- mediate benefit. It dictates a more straightforward use of the camera; it urges the director to discover the photographic possibilities of actual places, and these turn out to be more satisfactory backgrounds than the pasteboard elaborations of the studios. The move to quit the sound stage and step out into the street, in turn, de- mands a simpler and at the same time more subtly authenticated performance - from the actors. The broad, eye-catch- ing tricks of lazy characterization won't get by in the sunshine. What the documentary approach is accomplishing, in short, is to return the movies to the days when the only tool the picture makers had was a box set on a tripod; before there was a gadget to compensate for every short- coming of craftsmanship. In this style “A dramatic and incisive por- trayal of the problems of race One of. the MOst UN elations in America. With : e ° FEPC on the agenda of Con- : § usual books in the field gress, it becomes one of the. 9% most discussed and informa- : of race relations. tive books of the day.” —*LOVIS WIRTH, President, | . Amer. Council on Race Relations A LL : “An admirable book. It is rare to find the story,of an experi- a ment in government told so : beautifully, with such rich flavor, such historical perspec- _ tive and such refreshing realism.” —Prof. R. M. MaclVER, Dept. of Sociology, Columbia Univ. The Racial Crisis in American Life A REYNAL & HITCHCOCK BOOK At all bookstores + $3.50 By Malcolm Ross HARCOURT, BRACE cece aia AND COMPANY ‘TENNESSEE WILLIAMS! A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE THE BIGGEST. DRAMATIC HIT ON BROADWAY THIS SEASON. AT. ANY BOOKSTORE — $205— ANEW DIRECTIONS BOOK Buy More U.S. Savings Bonds