RF Annual Report - 1935 - The Rockefeller Foundation

THE HUMANITIES 275
for use during the period ending June 30, 1938,
toward the establishment of a motion picture
department. This sum will be used to develop a
library of films for showing on loan by non-profit
organizations throughout the United States. The
project isexpected to become self-supporting by
the end of three years.
Although the motion picture is a cultural resource
of great importance to the mass of the
population, little has been done to arouse a critical
and selective attitude toward the film. The
situation is very much as though no novels were
available to the public except the current year's
output, or as though few paintings were ever exhibited
save those executed within the previous
twelve months. Many who can trace the development
of modern art and drama in the works of
their creators are ignorant of the work of the
great motion picture directors of the past; yet
the films which these and other men have made
have had an immeasurable influence on the life
and thought of a wide public. This new and living
form of expression is such a young art that it can
be studied from its beginnings. "Primitives"
among moving pictures are only forty years old.
Yet these early films are very hard to obtain and
are in danger of being lost or destroyed, in spite
of a genuine public interest in their preservation
and exhibition.
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