Billboards and Minor Movie Actors Like Zasu Pitts, Marie Dressler Represent True American Culture, Thinks Wilder

"American culture of this age, in the eyes of future generations, will be the folk arts, such as posters, billboards, and movies," said Thornton Wilder, well-known author, to a CRIMSON reporter, yesterday. "Apparently a cultural aristocracy of some 50,000 people, which feeds itself on the echoes of European education, is dictating our literature and arts, but as in past ages it will undoubtedly be the contributions of the large mass of the people which survive.

"Because of our industrial development," Mr. Wilder continued, "our culture will naturally be different. Let's examine the movies. Of course, the big stars such as Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford are just figureheads; they do not express real people in any sense of the word. it is in minor starts, such as Zasu Pitts, Guy Kibbee, and Marie Dressler, when she is tened down, that you find American types expressed. As a comparison, you may remember that Hogarth was considered a minor artist when he was actually painting.

"We have evolved an entirely new form of art with the poster and bill-board. Although they are bitterly criticized, they really do express the American spirit. In these contributions we have struck upon something original which on country has over yet attempted. Today we either don't realize what we are accomplishing, or are ashamed to admit it.

"Our literary future naturally lies with the cultural, aristocracy so I am unwilling to make any very definite predictions about it. This field is so obviously shut to all but a few people that its development does not parallel that of a nation as well as the folk arts. Our best hopes for the future he among the folk arts according to my mind. Of course you can claim that I am a middle-westerner and therefore, haven't an aesthetic, mind. Nevertheless, we westerners represent the true American spirit better than you in the East since you are so much in contact with the influences exerted on American by foreign countries."