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.it is surely clear to us that a leader in this revolution is
thecinema itself.
Yet a literary critic, looking at the prospects of the cinemain
all their brightness, might presume to utter one word of
warning. The revolution in taste of which I have spoken is avery
notable event in our culture and no doubt it is a happyevent. But I
think we should be aware of an aspect of thisevent that is not
happy: with the new acceptance of highand advanced art has come a
new imperturbability to art.
We might say that because nothing can shock our taste,nothing
disquiets our minds. In the public rooms of theHilton Hotel in New
York, the walls are hung with excellentpaintings by very
distinguished contemporary artists, themembers of every brilliant
extreme school of our time. Manyof these works are, as I read them,
profoundly subversive,
and admirable as such. The cultural level of the guests ofthe
Hilton Hotel may be described as being that of peoplewho choose to
be the guests of the Hilton Hotel. To thesepeople the pictures
offer no shock, no affront. They areaccepted as part of the decor,
as a very charming, pleasing,flattering part of the decor, to which
no meaning need beattached.
I am not so naive as to think that when cinema aspires tobe a
great art, its aspirations are wholly defined by thequalities of
great literature. It is also a graphic and plasticart, and to a
greater degree than the stage drama. But it is
also a literary art, it is also an art whose substance is
themoral life of man. And the literary arts, I think, transcendthe
bounds of what we call taste. That which we identify asgreatness in
literature may indeed be associated with charmand pleasure, but it
is chiefly associated with what isperturbing, even with what is
distressing. It is associatedwith moral discovery, and to that
rough and troublingenterprise it has willingly sacrificed charm of
surface, evensymmetry of form. My fear for the cinema is that, as
it movesahead in its new freedom which the revolution in taste
maybe providing, it will give us works of great brilliance
andoriginality which will flatter our tastes and our
wonderfullyenlightened new prejudices, works that will not trouble
usin the least.
As I say this, I should make it plain that I do not speak
fromthe height of any great satisfaction with literature as it
nowexists. Some years ago we cam to the end of a great classicepoch
of literature, the epoch of Joyce, Lawrence, Proust,
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, , ,our minds with the newness of what they had to say and
theway they said it. However much we try to convince ourselvesof
the contrary, no one has followed in their pathat leastfor the time
being.
The essential quality of literary greatness, telling thetruth
about life, is in abeyance. Perhaps that sadcircumstance will make
it easier, not harder, for film to
achieve now its own greatness, if that is what it wants.
