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diff --git a/13029.txt b/13029.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..891c65a --- /dev/null +++ b/13029.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6705 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Art Of The Moving Picture, by Vachel +Lindsay + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Art Of The Moving Picture + +Author: Vachel Lindsay + +Release Date: July 26, 2004 [eBook #13029] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ART OF THE MOVING PICTURE*** + + +E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +THE ART OF THE MOVING PICTURE + +By + +VACHEL LINDSAY + + + + + + + +Intended, First of All, for the New Art Museums Springing Up All over the +Country. But the Book Is for Our Universities and Institutions of +Learning. It Contains an Appeal to Our Whole Critical and Literary World, +and to Our Creators of Sculpture, Architecture, Painting, and the +American Cities They Are Building. Being the 1922 Revision of the Book +First Issued in 1915, and Beginning With an Ample Discourse on the Great +New Prospects of 1922 + + + + "Hail, all ye gods in the house of the soul, who weigh Heaven and + Earth in a balance, and who give celestial food." + + From the book of the scribe Ani, translated from the + original Egyptian hieroglyphics by Professor E.A. + Wallis Budge + + + +Dedicated + +TO GEORGE MATHER RICHARDS +IN MEMORY OF THE ART STUDENT DAYS WE SPENT TOGETHER +WHEN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM WAS OUR PICTURE-DRAMA + + + + +CONTENTS + + +A WORD FROM THE DIRECTOR OF THE DENVER ART ASSOCIATION + + + +BOOK I + +THE GENERAL PHOTOPLAY SITUATION IN +AMERICA, JANUARY 1, 1922, ESPECIALLY AS +VIEWED FROM THE HEIGHTS OF THE CIVIC +CENTRE AT DENVER, COLORADO, AND THE +DENVER ART MUSEUM, WHICH IS TO BE A +LEADING FEATURE OF THIS CIVIC CENTRE + + + +BOOK II + +THE OUTLINE WHICH HAS BEEN ACCEPTED AS +THE BASIS OF PHOTOPLAY CRITICISM IN +AMERICA, BOTH IN THE STUDIOS OF THE +LOS ANGELES REGION, AND ALL THE SERIOUS +CRITICISM WHICH HAS APPEARED IN THE +DAILY PRESS AND THE MAGAZINES + +CHAPTER + +I. THE POINT OF VIEW + +II. THE PHOTOPLAY OF ACTION + +III. THE INTIMATE PHOTOPLAY + +IV. THE MOTION PICTURE OF FAIRY SPLENDOR + +V. THE PICTURE OF CROWD SPLENDOR + +VI. THE PICTURE OF PATRIOTIC SPLENDOR + +VII. THE PICTURE OF RELIGIOUS SPLENDOR + +VIII. SCULPTURE-IN-MOTION + +IX. PAINTING-IN-MOTION + +X. FURNITURE, TRAPPINGS, AND INVENTIONS IN MOTION + +XI. ARCHITECTURE-IN-MOTION + +XII. THIRTY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE PHOTOPLAYS AND THE STAGE + +XIII. HIEROGLYPHICS + + +BOOK III + +MORE PERSONAL SPECULATIONS AND AFTERTHOUGHTS NOT BROUGHT +FORWARD SO DOGMATICALLY + +XIV. THE ORCHESTRA, CONVERSATION, AND THE CENSORSHIP + +XV. THE SUBSTITUTE FOR THE SALOON + +XVI. CALIFORNIA AND AMERICA + +XVII. PROGRESS AND ENDOWMENT + +XVIII. ARCHITECTS AS CRUSADERS + +XIX. ON COMING FORTH BY DAY + +XX. THE PROPHET-WIZARD + +XXI. THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD + + + + +A WORD FROM THE DIRECTOR OF THE DENVER ART ASSOCIATION + +The Art of the Moving Picture, as it appeared six years ago, possessed +among many elements of beauty at least one peculiarity. It viewed art as +a reality, and one of our most familiar and popular realities as an art. +This should have made the book either a revelation or utter Greek to most +of us, and those who read it probably dropped it easily into one or the +other of the two categories. + +For myself, long a propagandist for its doctrines in another but related +field, the book came as a great solace. In it I found, not an appeal to +have the art museum used--which would have been an old though welcome +story--not this, but much to my surprise, the art museum actually at +work, one of the very wheels on which our culture rolled forward upon its +hopeful way. I saw among other museums the one whose destinies I was +tenderly guiding, playing in Lindsay's book the part that is played by +the classic myths in Milton, or by the dictionary in the writings of the +rest of us. For once the museum and its contents appeared, not as a +lovely curiosity, but as one of the basic, and in a sense humble +necessities of life. To paraphrase the author's own text, the art museum, +like the furniture in a good movie, was actually "in motion"--a character +in the play. On this point of view as on a pivot turns the whole book. + +In The Art of the Moving Picture the nature and domain of a new Muse is +defined. She is the first legitimate addition to the family since classic +times. And as it required trained painters of pictures like Fulton and +Morse to visualize the possibility of the steamboat and the telegraph, so +the bold seer who perceived the true nature of this new star in our +nightly heavens, it should here be recorded, acquired much of the vision +of his seeing eye through an early training in art. Vachel Lindsay (as he +himself proudly asserts) was a student at the Institute in Chicago for +four years, spent one more at the League and at Chase's in New York, and +for four more haunted the Metropolitan Museum, lecturing to his fellows +on every art there shown from the Egyptian to that of Arthur B. Davies. + +Only such a background as this could have evolved the conception of +"Architecture, sculpture, and painting in motion" and given authenticity +to its presentation. The validity of Lindsay's analysis is attested by +Freeburg's helpful characterization, "Composition in fluid forms," which +it seems to have suggested. To Lindsay's category one would be tempted to +add, "pattern in motion," applying it to such a film as the "Caligari" +which he and I have seen together and discussed during these past few +days. Pattern in this connection would imply an emphasis on the intrinsic +suggestion of the spot and shape apart from their immediate relation to +the appearance of natural objects. But this is a digression. It simply +serves to show the breadth and adaptability of Lindsay's method. + +The book was written for a visual-minded public and for those who would +be its leaders. A long, long line of picture-readers trailing from the +dawn of history, stimulated all the masterpieces of pictorial art from +Altamira to Michelangelo. For less than five centuries now Gutenberg has +had them scurrying to learn their A, B, C's, but they are drifting back +to their old ways again, and nightly are forming themselves in cues at +the doorways of the "Isis," the "Tivoli," and the "Riviera," the while +it is sadly noted that "'the pictures' are driving literature off the +parlor table." + +With the creative implications of this new pictorial art, with the whole +visual-minded race clamoring for more, what may we not dream in the way +of a new renaissance? How are we to step in to the possession of such a +destiny? Are the institutions with a purely literary theory of life going +to meet the need? Are the art schools and the art museums making +themselves ready to assimilate a new art form? Or what is the type of +institution that will ultimately take the position of leadership in +culture through this new universal instrument? + +What possibilities lie in this art, once it is understood and developed, +to plant new conceptions of civic and national idealism? How far may it +go in cultivating concerted emotion in the now ungoverned crowd? Such +questions as these can be answered only by minds with the imagination to +see art as a reality; with faith to visualize for the little mid-western +"home town" a new and living Pallas Athena; with courage to raze the very +houses of the city to make new and greater forums and "civic centres." + +For ourselves in Denver, we shall try to do justice to the new Muse. In +the museum which we build we shall provide a shrine for her. We shall +first endeavor by those simple means which lie to our hands, to know the +areas of charm and imagination which remain as yet an untilled field of +her domain. Plowing is a simple art, but it requires much sweat. This at +least we know--to the expenditure we cheerfully consent. So much for the +beginning. It would be boastful to describe plans to keep pace with the +enlarging of the motion picture field before a real beginning is made. +But with youth in its favor, the Denver Art Museum hopes yet to see this +art set in its rightful place with painting, sculpture, architecture, and +the handicrafts--hopes yet to be an instrument in the great work of +making this art real as those others are being even now made real, to the +expanding vision of an eager people. + + GEORGE WILLIAM EGGERS + Director + The Denver Art Association + + DENVER, COLORADO, + New Year's Day, 1922. + + + + +BOOK I--THE GENERAL PHOTOPLAY SITUATION IN AMERICA, JANUARY 1, 1922 + +Especially as Viewed from the Heights of the Civic Centre at Denver, +Colorado, and the Denver Art Museum, Which Is to Be a Leading Feature of +This Civic Centre + + +In the second chapter of book two, on page 8, the theoretical outline +begins, with a discussion of the Photoplay of Action. I put there on +record the first crude commercial films that in any way establish the +principle. There can never be but one first of anything, and if the +negatives of these films survive the shrinking and the warping that comes +with time, they will still be, in a certain sense, classic, and ten years +hence or two years hence will still be better remembered than any films +of the current releases, which come on like newspapers, and as George Ade +says:--"Nothing is so dead as yesterday's newspaper." But the first +newspapers, and the first imprints of Addison's Spectator, and the first +Almanacs of Benjamin Franklin, and the first broadside ballads and the +like, are ever collected and remembered. And the lists of films given in +books two and three of this work are the only critical and carefully +sorted lists of the early motion pictures that I happen to know anything +about. I hope to be corrected if I am too boastful, but I boast that my +lists must be referred to by all those who desire to study these +experiments in their beginnings. So I let them remain, as still vivid in +the memory of all true lovers of the photoplay who have watched its +growth, fascinated from the first. But I would add to the list of Action +Films of chapter two the recent popular example, Douglas Fairbanks in The +Three Musketeers. That is perhaps the most literal "Chase-Picture" that +was ever really successful in the commercial world. The story is cut to +one episode. The whole task of the four famous swordsmen of Dumas is to +get the Queen's token that is in the hands of Buckingham in England, and +return with it to Paris in time for the great ball. It is one long race +with the Cardinal's guards who are at last left behind. It is the same +plot as Reynard the Fox, John Masefield's poem--Reynard successfully +eluding the huntsmen and the dogs. If that poem is ever put on in an Art +Museum film, it will have to be staged like one of AEsop's Fables, with a +_man_ acting the Fox, for the children's delight. And I earnestly urge +all who would understand the deeper significance of the "chase-picture" +or the "Action Picture" to give more thought to Masefield's poem than to +Fairbanks' marvellous acting in the school of the younger Salvini. The +Mood of the _intimate photoplay_, chapter three, still remains indicated +in the current films by the acting of Lillian Gish and Mary Pickford, +when they are not roused up by their directors to turn handsprings to +keep the people staring. Mary Pickford in particular has been stimulated +to be over-athletic, and in all her career she has been given just one +chance to be her more delicate self, and that was in the almost forgotten +film:--A Romance of the Redwoods. This is one of the serious commercial +attempts that should be revived and studied, in spite of its crudities of +plot, by our Art Museums. There is something of the grandeur of the +redwoods in it, in contrast to the sustained Botticelli grace of "Our +Mary." + +I am the one poet who has a right to claim for his muses Blanche Sweet, +Mary Pickford, and Mae Marsh. I am the one poet who wrote them songs when +they were Biograph heroines, before their names were put on the screen, +or the name of their director. Woman's clubs are always asking me for +bits of delicious gossip about myself to fill up literary essays. Now +there's a bit. There are two things to be said for those poems. First, +they were heartfelt. Second, any one could improve on them. + +In the fourth chapter of book two I discourse elaborately and formally on +The Motion Picture of Fairy Splendor. And to this carefully balanced +technical discourse I would add the informal word, this New Year's Day, +that this type is best illustrated by such fairy-tales as have been most +ingratiatingly retold in the books of Padraic Colum, and dazzlingly +illustrated by Willy Pogany. The Colum-Pogany School of Thought is one +which the commercial producers have not yet condescended to illustrate in +celluloid, and it remains a special province for the Art Museum Film. +Fairy-tales need not be more than one-tenth of a reel long. Some of the +best fairy-tales in the whole history of man can be told in a breath. +And the best motion picture story for fifty years may turn out to be a +reel ten minutes long. Do not let the length of the commercial film +tyrannize over your mind, O young art museum photoplay director. Remember +the brevity of Lincoln's Gettysburg address.... + +And so my commentary, New Year's Day, 1922, proceeds, using for points of +more and more extensive departure the refrains and old catch-phrases of +books two and three. + +Chapter V--The Picture of Crowd Splendor, being the type illustrated by +Griffith's Intolerance. + +Chapter VI--The Picture of Patriotic Splendor, which was illustrated by +all the War Films, the one most recently approved and accepted by the +public being The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. + +Chapter VII--The Picture of Religious Splendor, which has no examples, +that remain in the memory with any sharpness in 1922, except The Faith +Healer, founded on the play by William Vaughn Moody, the poet, with much +of the directing and scenario by Mrs. William Vaughn Moody, and a more +talked-of commercial film, The Miracle Man. But not until the religious +film is taken out of the commercial field, and allowed to develop +unhampered under the Church and the Art Museum, will the splendid +religious and ritualistic opportunity be realized. + +Chapter VIII--Sculpture-in-Motion, being a continuation of the argument +of chapter two. The Photoplay of Action. Like the Action Film, this +aspect of composition is much better understood by the commercial people +than some other sides of the art. Some of the best of the William S. Hart +productions show appreciation of this quality by the director, the +photographer, and the public. Not only is the man but the horse allowed +to be moving bronze, and not mere cowboy pasteboard. Many of the pictures +of Charles Ray make the hero quite a bronze-looking sculpturesque person, +despite his yokel raiment. + +Chapter IX--Painting-in-Motion, being a continuation on a higher terrace +of chapter three, The Intimate Photoplay. Charlie Chaplin has intimate +and painter's qualities in his acting, and he makes himself into a +painting or an etching in the midst of furious slapstick. But he has been +in no films that were themselves paintings. The argument of this chapter +has been carried much further in Freeburg's book, The Art of Photoplay +Making. + +Chapter X--Furniture, Trappings, and Inventions in Motion, being a +continuation of the chapter on Fairy Splendor. In this field we find one +of the worst failures of the commercial films, and their utterly +unimaginative corporation promoters. Again I must refer them to such +fairy books as those of Padraic Colum, where neither sword nor wing nor +boat is found to move, except for a fairy reason. + +I have just returned this very afternoon from a special showing of the +famous imported film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Some of the earnest +spirits of the Denver Art Association, finding it was in storage in the +town, had it privately brought forth to study it with reference to its +bearing on their new policies. What influence it will have in that most +vital group, time will show. + +Meanwhile it is a marvellous illustration of the meaning of this chapter +and the chapter on Fairy Splendor, though it is a diabolical not a +beneficent vitality that is given to inanimate things. The furniture, +trappings, and inventions are in motion to express the haunted mind, as +in Griffith's Avenging Conscience, described pages 121 through 132. The +two should be shown together in the same afternoon, in the Art Museum +study rooms. Caligari is undoubtedly the most important imported film +since that work of D'Annunzio, Cabiria, described pages 55 through 57. +But it is the opposite type of film. Cabiria is all out-doors and +splendor on the Mediterranean scale. In general, imported films do not +concern Americans, for we have now a vast range of technique. All we lack +is the sense to use it. + +The cabinet of Caligari is indeed a cabinet, and the feeling of being in +a cell, and smothered by all the oppressions of a weary mind, does not +desert the spectator for a minute. + +The play is more important, technically, than in its subject-matter and +mood. It proves in a hundred new ways the resources of the film in making +all the inanimate things which, on the spoken stage, cannot act at all, +the leading actors in the films. But they need not necessarily act to a +diabolical end. An angel could have as well been brought from the cabinet +as a murderous somnambulist, and every act of his could have been a work +of beneficence and health and healing. I could not help but think that +the ancient miracle play of the resurrection of Osiris could have been +acted out with similar simple means, with a mummy case and great +sarcophagus. The wings of Isis and Nephthys could have been spread over +the sky instead of the oppressive walls of the crooked city. Lights +instead of shadows could have been made actors and real hieroglyphic +inscriptions instead of scrawls. + +As it was, the alleged insane man was more sensible than most motion +picture directors, for his scenery acted with him, and not according to +accident or silly formula. I make these points as an antidote to the +general description of this production by those who praise it. + +They speak of the scenery as grotesque, strained, and experimental, and +the plot as sinister. But this does not get to the root of the matter. +There is rather the implication in most of the criticisms and praises +that the scenery is abstract. Quite the contrary is the case. Indoors +looks like indoors. Streets are always streets, roofs are always roofs. +The actors do not move about in a kind of crazy geometry as I was led to +believe. The scenery is oppressive, but sane, and the obsession is for +the most part expressed in the acting and plot. The fair looks like a +fair and the library looks like a library. There is nothing experimental +about any of the setting, nothing unconsidered or strained or +over-considered. It seems experimental because it is thrown into contrast +with extreme commercial formulas in the regular line of the "movie +trade." But compare The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari with a book of Rackham or +Du Lac or Duerer, or Rembrandt's etchings, and Dr. Caligari is more +realistic. And Eggers insists the whole film is replete with suggestions +of the work of Pieter Breughel, the painter. Hundreds of indoor stories +will be along such lines, once the merely commercial motive is +eliminated, and the artist is set free. This film is an extraordinary +variation of the intimate, as expounded in chapter three. It is +drawing-in-motion, instead of painting-in-motion. Because it was drawing +instead of painting, literary-minded people stepped to the hasty +conclusion it was experimental. Half-tone effects are, for the most part, +eliminated. Line is dominant everywhere. It is the opposite of vast +conceptions like Theodora--which are architecture-in-motion. All the +architecture of the Caligari film seems pasteboard. The whole thing +happens in a cabinet. + +It is the most overwhelming contrast to Griffith's Intolerance that could +be in any way imagined. It contains, one may say, all the effects left +out of Intolerance. The word cabinet is a quadruple pun. Not only does it +mean a mystery box and a box holding a somnambulist, but a kind of +treasury of tiny twisted thoughts. There is not one line or conception in +it on the grand scale, or even the grandiose. It is a devil's toy-house. +One feels like a mouse in a mouse-trap so small one cannot turn around. +In Intolerance, Griffith hurls nation at nation, race at race, century +against century, and his camera is not only a telescope across the plains +of Babylon, but across the ages. Griffith is, in Intolerance, the +ungrammatical Byron of the films, but certainly as magnificent as Byron, +and since he is the first of his kind I, for one, am willing to name him +with Marlowe. + +But for technical study for Art Schools, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is +more profitable. It shows how masterpieces can be made, with the +second-hand furniture of any attic. But I hope fairy-tales, not +diabolical stories, will come from these attics. Fairy-tales are +inherent in the genius of the motion picture and are a thousand times +hinted at in the commercial films, though the commercial films are not +willing to stop to tell them. Lillian Gish could be given wings and a +wand if she only had directors and scenario writers who believed in +fairies. And the same can most heartily be said of Mae Marsh. + +Chapter XI--Architecture-in-Motion, being a continuation of the argument +about the Splendor Pictures, in chapters five, six, and seven. This is an +element constantly re-illustrated in a magnificent but fragmentary way by +the News Films. Any picture of a seagull flying so close to the camera +that it becomes as large as a flying machine, or any flying machine made +by man and photographed in epic flight captures the eye because it is +architecture and in motion, motion which is the mysterious fourth +dimension of its grace and glory. So likewise, and in kind, any picture +of a tossing ship. The most superb example of architecture-in-motion in +the commercial history of the films is the march of the moving war-towers +against the walls of Babylon in Griffith's Intolerance. But Griffith is +the only person so far who has known how to put a fighting soul into a +moving tower. + +The only real war that has occurred in the films with the world's +greatest war going on outside was Griffith's War Against Babylon. The +rest was news. + +Chapter XII--Thirty Differences between the Photoplays and the Stage. The +argument of the whole of the 1915 edition has been accepted by the +studios, the motion picture magazines, and the daily motion picture +columns throughout the land. I have read hundreds of editorials and +magazines, and scarcely one that differed from it in theory. Most of them +read like paraphrases of this work. And of all arguments made, the one in +this chapter is the one oftenest accepted in its entirety. The people who +dominate the films are obviously those who grew up with them from the +very beginning, and the merely stage actors who rushed in with the +highest tide of prosperity now have to take second rank if they remain in +the films. But most of these have gone back to the stage by this time, +with their managers as well, and certainly this chapter is abundantly +proved out. + +Chapter XIII--Hieroglyphics. One of the implications of this chapter and +the one preceding is that the fewer words printed on the screen the +better, and that the ideal film has no words printed on it at all, but is +one unbroken sheet of photography. This is admitted in theory in all the +studios now, though the only film of the kind ever produced of general +popular success was The Old Swimmin' Hole, acted by Charles Ray. If I +remember, there was not one word on the screen, after the cast of +characters was given. The whole story was clearly and beautifully told by +Photoplay Hieroglyphics. For this feature alone, despite many defects of +the film, it should be studied in every art school in America. + +Meanwhile "Title writing" remains a commercial necessity. In this field +there is but one person who has won distinction--Anita Loos. She is one +of the four or five important and thoroughly artistic brains in the +photoplay game. Among them is the distinguished John Emerson. In +combination with John Emerson, director, producer, etc., she has done so +many other things well, her talents as a title writer are incidental, but +certainly to be mentioned in this place. + +The outline we are discussing continues through + +_Book III--More Personal Speculations and Afterthoughts Not Brought +Forward so Dogmatically_. + +Chapter XIV--The Orchestra, Conversation, and the Censorship. In this +chapter, on page 189, I suggest suppressing the orchestra entirely and +encouraging the audience to talk about the film. No photoplay people have +risen to contradict this theory, but it is a chapter that once caused me +great embarrassment. With Christopher Morley, the well-known author of +Shandygaff and other temperance literature, I was trying to prove out +this chapter. As soon as the orchestra stopped, while the show rolled on +in glory, I talked about the main points in this book, illustrating it by +the film before us. Almost everything that happened was a happy +illustration of my ideas. But there were two shop girls in front of us +awfully in love with a certain second-rate actor who insisted on kissing +the heroine every so often, and with her apparent approval. Every time we +talked about that those shop girls glared at us as though we were robbing +them of their time and money. Finally one of them dragged the other out +into the aisle, and dashed out of the house with her dear chum, saying, +so all could hear: "Well, come on, Terasa, we might as well go, if these +two talking _pests_ are going to keep this up behind us." The poor girl's +voice trembled. She was in tears. She was gone before we could apologize +or offer flowers. So I say in applying this chapter, in our present stage +of civilization, sit on the front seat, where no one can hear your +whisperings but Mary Pickford on the screen. She is but a shadow there, +and will not mind. + +Chapter XV--The Substitute for the Saloon. I leave this argument as a +monument, just as it was written, in 1914 and '15. It indicates a certain +power of forecasting on the part of the writer. We drys have certainly +won a great victory. Some of the photoplay people agree with this +temperance sermon, and some of them do not. The wets make one mistake +above all. They do not realize that the drys can still keep on voting +dry, with intense conviction, and great battle cries, and still have a +sense of humor. + +Chapter XVI--California and America. This chapter was quoted and +paraphrased almost bodily as the preface to my volume of verses, The +Golden Whales of California. "I Know All This When Gipsy Fiddles Cry," a +song of some length recently published in the New Republic and the London +Nation, further expresses the sentiment of this chapter in what I hope is +a fraternal way, and I hope suggests the day when California will have +power over India, Asia, and all the world, and plant giant redwood trees +of the spirit the world around. + +Chapter XVII--Progress and Endowment. I allow this discourse, also, to +stand as written in 1914 and '15. It shows the condition just before the +war, better than any new words of mine could do it. The main change now +is the growing hope of a backing, not only from Universities, but great +Art Museums. + +Chapter XVIII--Architects as Crusaders. The sermon in this chapter has +been carried out on a limited scale, and as a result of the suggestion, +or from pure American instinct, we now have handsome gasoline filling +stations from one end of America to the other, and really gorgeous Ford +garages. Our Union depots and our magazine stands in the leading hotels, +and our big Soda fountains are more and more attractive all the time. +Having recited of late about twice around the United States and, +continuing the pilgrimage, I can testify that they are all alike from New +York to San Francisco. One has to ask the hotel clerk to find out whether +it is New York or ----. And the motion picture discipline of the American +eye has had a deal to do with this increasing tendency to news-stand and +architectural standardization and architectural thinking, such as it is. +But I meant this suggestion to go further, and to be taken in a higher +sense, so I ask these people to read this chapter again. I have carried +out the idea, in a parable, perhaps more clearly in The Golden Book of +Springfield, when I speak of the World's Fair of the University of +Springfield, to be built one hundred years hence. And I would recommend +to those who have already taken seriously chapter eighteen, to reread it +in two towns, amply worth the car fare it costs to go to both of them. +First, Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the end of the Santa Fe Trail, the oldest +city in the United States, the richest in living traditions, and with the +oldest and the newest architecture in the United States; not a stone or a +stick of it standardized, a city with a soul, Jerusalem and Mecca and +Benares and Thebes for any artist or any poet of America's future, or +any one who would dream of great cities born of great architectural +photoplays, or great photoplays born of great cities. And the other city, +symbolized by The Golden Rain Tree in The Golden Book of Springfield, is +New Harmony, Indiana. That was the Greenwich Village of America more than +one hundred years ago, when it was yet in the heart of the wilderness, +millions of miles from the sea. It has a tradition already as dusty and +wonderful as Abydos and Gem Aten. And every stone is still eloquent of +individualism, and standardization has not yet set its foot there. Is it +not possible for the architects to brood in such places and then say to +one another:--"Build from your hearts buildings and films which shall be +your individual Hieroglyphics, each according to his own loves and +fancies?" + +Chapter XIX--On Coming Forth by Day. This is the second Egyptian chapter. +It has its direct relation to the Hieroglyphic chapter, page 171. I note +that I say here it costs a dime to go to the show. Well, now it costs +around thirty cents to go to a good show in a respectable suburb, +sometimes fifty cents. But we will let that dime remain there, as a +matter of historic interest, and pass on, to higher themes. + +Certainly the Hieroglyphic chapter is in words of one syllable and any +kindergarten teacher can understand it. Chapter nineteen adds a bit to +the idea. I do not know how warranted I am in displaying Egyptian +learning. Newspaper reporters never tire of getting me to talk about +hieroglyphics in their relation to the photoplays, and always give me +respectful headlines on the theme. I can only say that up to this hour, +every time I have toured art museums, I have begun with the Egyptian +exhibit, and if my patient guest was willing, lectured on every period on +to the present time, giving a little time to the principal exhibits in +each room, but I have always found myself returning to Egypt as a +standard. It seems my natural classic land of art. So when I took up +hieroglyphics more seriously last summer, I found them extraordinarily +easy as though I were looking at a "movie" in a book. I think Egyptian +picture-writing came easy because I have analyzed so many hundreds of +photoplay films, merely for recreation, and the same style of composition +is in both. Any child who reads one can read the other. But of course +the literal translation must be there at hand to correct all wrong +guesses. I figure that in just one thousand years I can read +hieroglyphics without a pony. But meanwhile, I tour museums and I ride +Pharaoh's "horse," and suggest to all photoplay enthusiasts they do the +same. I recommend these two books most heartily: Elementary Egyptian +Grammar, by Margaret A. Murray, London, Bernard Quaritch, 11 Grafton +Street, Bond Street, W., and the three volumes of the Book of the Dead, +which are, indeed, the Papyrus of Ani, referred to in this chapter, pages +255-258. It is edited, translated, and reproduced in fac-simile by the +keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum, +Professor E.A. Wallis Budge; published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, +and Philip Lee Warner, London. This book is certainly the greatest motion +picture I ever attended. I have gone through it several times, and it is +the only book one can read twelve hours at a stretch, on the Pullman, +when he is making thirty-six hour and forty-eight hour jumps from town to +town. + +American civilization grows more hieroglyphic every day. The cartoons of +Darling, the advertisements in the back of the magazines and on the +bill-boards and in the street-cars, the acres of photographs in the +Sunday newspapers, make us into a hieroglyphic civilization far nearer to +Egypt than to England. Let us then accept for our classic land, for our +standard of form, the country naturally our own. Hieroglyphics are so +much nearer to the American mood than the rest of the Egyptian legacy, +that Americans seldom get as far as the Hieroglyphics to discover how +congenial they are. Seeing the mummies, good Americans flee. But there is +not a man in America writing advertisements or making cartoons or films +but would find delightful the standard books of Hieroglyphics sent out by +the British Museum, once he gave them a chance. They represent that very +aspect of visual life which Europe understands so little in America, and +which has been expanding so enormously even the last year. Hallowe'en, +for instance, lasts a whole week now, with mummers on the streets every +night, October 25-31. + +Chapter XX--The Prophet-Wizard. Who do we mean by The Prophet-Wizard? We +mean not only artists, such as are named in this chapter, but dreamers +and workers like Johnny Appleseed, or Abraham Lincoln. The best account +of Johnny Appleseed is in Harper's Monthly for November, 1871. People do +not know Abraham Lincoln till they have visited the grave of Anne +Rutledge, at Petersburg, Illinois, then New Old Salem a mile away. New +Old Salem is a prophet's hill, on the edge of the Sangamon, with lovely +woods all around. Here a brooding soul could be born, and here the +dreamer Abraham Lincoln spent his real youth. I do not call him a dreamer +in a cheap and sentimental effort to describe a man of aspiration. +Lincoln told and interpreted his visions like Joseph and Daniel in the +Old Testament, revealing them to the members of his cabinet, in great +trials of the Civil War. People who do not see visions and dream dreams +in the good Old Testament sense have no right to leadership in America. I +would prefer photoplays filled with such visions and oracles to the state +papers written by "practical men." As it is, we are ruled indirectly by +photoplays owned and controlled by men who should be in the shoe-string +and hook-and-eye trade. Apparently their digestions are good, they are in +excellent health, and they keep out of jail. + +Chapter XXI--The Acceptable Year of the Lord. If I may be pardoned for +referring again to the same book, I assumed, in The Golden Book of +Springfield, Illinois, that the Acceptable Year of the Lord would come +for my city beginning November 1, 2018, and that up to that time, amid +much of joy, there would also be much of thwarting and tribulation. But +in the beginning of that mystic November, the Soul of My City, named +Avanel, would become as much a part of the city as Pallas Athena was +Athens, and indeed I wrote into the book much of the spirit of the +photoplay outlined, pages 147 through 150. But in The Golden Book I +changed the lady the city worshipped from a golden image into a living, +breathing young girl, descendant of that great American, Daniel Boone, +and her name, obviously, Avanel Boone. With her tribe she incarnates all +the mystic ideals of the Boones of Kentucky. + +All this but a prelude to saying that I have just passed through the city +of Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is a Santa Fe full of the glory of the New +Architecture of which I have spoken, and the issuing of a book of cowboy +songs collected, and many of them written, by N. Howard Thorp, a citizen +of Santa Fe, and thrilling with the issuing of a book of poems about the +Glory of New Mexico. This book is called Red Earth. It is by Alice Corbin +Henderson. And Santa Fe is full of the glory of a magnificent State +Capitol that is an art gallery of the whole southwest, and the glories of +the studio of William Penhallow Henderson, who has painted our New Arabia +more splendidly than it was ever painted before, with the real character +thereof, and no theatricals. This is just the kind of a town I hoped for +when I wrote my first draft of The Art of the Moving Picture. Here now is +literature and art. When they become one art as of old in Egypt, we will +have New Mexico Hieroglyphics from the Hendersons and their kind, and +their surrounding Indian pupils, a basis for the American Motion Picture +more acceptable, and more patriotic, and more organic for us than the +Egyptian. + +And I come the same month to Denver, and find a New Art Museum projected, +which I hope has much indeed to do with the Acceptable Year of the Lord, +when films as vital as the Santa Fe songs and pictures and architecture +can be made, and in common spirit with them, in this New Arabia. George +W. Eggers, the director of the newly projected Denver Art Museum, assures +me that a photoplay policy can be formulated, amid the problems of such +an all around undertaking as building a great Art Museum in Denver. He +expects to give the photoplay the attention a new art deserves, +especially when it affects almost every person in the whole country. So I +prophesy Denver to be the Museum and Art-school capital of New Arabia, as +Santa Fe is the artistic, architectural, and song capital at this hour. +And I hope it may become the motion picture capital of America from the +standpoint of pure art, not manufacture. + +What do I mean by New Arabia? + +When I was in London in the fall of 1920 the editor of The Landmark, the +organ of The English Speaking Union, asked me to draw my map of the +United States. I marked out the various regions under various names. For +instance I called the coast states, Washington, Oregon, and California, +New Italy. The reasons may be found in the chapter in this book on +California. Then I named the states just west of the Middle West, and +east of New Italy, New Arabia. These states are New Mexico, Arizona, +Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. These are the states which +carry the Rocky Mountains north toward the Aurora Borealis, and south +toward the tropics. Here individualism, Andrew Jacksonism, will forever +prevail, and American standardization can never prevail. In cabins that +cannot be reached by automobile and deserts that cannot be crossed by +boulevards, the John the Baptists, the hermits and the prophets can +strengthen their souls. Here are lonely places as sweet for the spirit as +was little old New Salem, Illinois, one hundred years ago, or the +wilderness in which walked Johnny Appleseed. + +Now it is the independence of Spirit of this New Arabia that I hope the +Denver Art Museum can interpret in its photoplay films, and send them on +circuits to the Art Museums springing up all over America, where +sculpture, architecture, and painting are now constantly sent on circuit. +Let that already established convention--the "circuit-exhibition"--be +applied to this new art. + +And after Denver has shown the way, I devoutly hope that Great City of +Los Angeles may follow her example. Consider, O Great City of Los +Angeles, now almost the equal of New York in power and splendor, +consider what it would do for the souls of all your film artists if you +projected just such a museum as Denver is now projecting. Your fate is +coming toward you. Denver is halfway between Chicago, with the greatest +art institute in the country, and Los Angeles, the natural capital of the +photoplay. The art museums of America should rule the universities, and +the photoplay studios as well. In the art museums should be set the final +standards of civic life, rather than in any musty libraries or routine +classrooms. And the great weapon of the art museums of all the land +should be the hieroglyphic of the future, the truly artistic photoplay. + +And now for book two, at length. It is a detailed analysis of the films, +first proclaimed in 1915, and never challenged or overthrown, and, for +the most part, accepted intact by the photoplay people, and the critics +and the theorists, as well. + + + + +BOOK II--THE UNCHALLENGED OUTLINE OF PHOTOPLAY CRITICAL METHOD + +CHAPTER I + +THE POINT OF VIEW + + +While there is a great deal of literary reference in all the following +argument, I realize, looking back over many attempts to paraphrase it for +various audiences, that its appeal is to those who spend the best part of +their student life in classifying, and judging, and producing works of +sculpture, painting, and architecture. I find the eyes of all others +wandering when I make talks upon the plastic artist's point of view. + +This book tries to find that fourth dimension of architecture, painting, +and sculpture, which is the human soul in action, that arrow with wings +which is the flash of fire from the film, or the heart of man, or +Pygmalion's image, when it becomes a woman. + +The 1915 edition was used by Victor O. Freeburg as one of the text-books +in the Columbia University School of Journalism, in his classes in +photoplay writing. I was invited several times to address those classes +on my yearly visits to New York. I have addressed many other academic +classes, the invitation being based on this book. Now I realize that +those who approach the theory from the general University standpoint, or +from the history of the drama, had best begin with Freeburg's book, for +he is not only learned in both matters, but presents the special +analogies with skill. Freeburg has an excellent education in the history +of music, and some of the happiest passages in his work relate the +photoplay to the musical theory of the world, as my book relates it to +the general Art Museum point of view of the world. Emphatically, my book +belongs in the Art Institutes as a beginning, or in such religious and +civic bodies as think architecturally. From there it must work its way +out. Of course those bodies touch on a thousand others. + +The work is being used as one basis of the campaign for the New Denver +Art Museum, and I like to tell the story of how George W. Eggers of +Denver first began to apply the book when the Director of the Art +Institute, Chicago, that it may not seem to the merely University type of +mind a work of lost abstractions. One of the most gratifying recognitions +I ever received was the invitation to talk on the films in Fullerton +Hall, Chicago Art Institute. Then there came invitations to speak at +Chicago University, and before the Fortnightly Club, Chicago, all around +1916-17. One difficulty was getting the film to _prove_ my case from out +the commercial whirl. I talked at these three and other places, but +hardly knew how to go about crossing the commercial bridge. At last, with +the cooperation of Director Eggers, we staged, in the sacred precincts of +Fullerton Hall, Mae Marsh in The Wild Girl of the Sierras. The film was +in battered condition, and was turned so fast I could not talk with it +satisfactorily and fulfil the well-known principles of chapter fourteen. +But at least I had converted one Art Institute Director to the idea that +an ex-student of the Institute could not only write a book about +painting-in-motion, but the painting could be shown in an Art Museum as +promise of greater things in this world. It took a deal of will and +breaking of precedent, on the part of all concerned, to show this film, +The Wild Girl of the Sierras, and I retired from the field a long time. +But now this same Eggers is starting, in Denver, an Art Museum from its +very foundations, but on the same constructive scale. So this enterprise, +in my fond and fatuous fancy, is associated with the sweet Mae Marsh as +The Wild Girl of the Sierras--one of the loveliest bits of poetry ever +put into screen or fable. + +For about one year, off and on, I had the honor to be the photoplay +critic of The New Republic, this invitation also based on the first +edition of this book. Looking back upon that experience I am delighted to +affirm that not only The New Republic constituency but the world of the +college and the university where I moved at that time, while at loss for +a policy, were not only willing but eager to take the films with +seriousness. + +But when I was through with all these dashes into the field, and went +back to reciting verses again, no one had given me any light as to who +should make the disinterested, non-commercial film for these immediate +times, the film that would class, in our civilization, with The New +Republic or The Atlantic Monthly or the poems of Edwin Arlington +Robinson. That is, the production not for the trade, but for the soul. +Anita Loos, that good crusader, came out several years ago with the +flaming announcement that there was now hope, since a school of films had +been heavily endowed for the University of Rochester. The school was to +be largely devoted to producing music for the photoplay, in defiance of +chapter fourteen. But incidentally there were to be motion pictures made +to fit good music. Neither music nor films have as yet shaken the world. + +I liked this Rochester idea. I felt that once it was started the films +would take their proper place and dominate the project, disinterested +non-commercial films to be classed with the dramas so well stimulated by +the great drama department under Professor Baker of Harvard. + +As I look back over this history I see that the printed page had counted +too much, and the real forces of the visible arts in America had not been +definitely enlisted. They should take the lead. I would suggest as the +three people to interview first on building any Art Museum Photoplay +project: Victor Freeburg, with his long experience of teaching the +subject in Columbia, and John Emerson and Anita Loos, who are as brainy +as people dare to be and still remain in the department store film +business. No three people would more welcome opportunities to outline the +idealistic possibilities of this future art. And a well-known American +painter was talking to me of a midnight scolding Charlie Chaplin gave to +some Los Angeles producer, in a little restaurant, preaching the really +beautiful film, and denouncing commerce like a member of Coxey's +illustrious army. And I have heard rumors from all sides that Charlie +Chaplin has a soul. He is the comedian most often proclaimed an artist by +the fastidious, and most often forgiven for his slapstick. He is praised +for a kind of O. Henry double meaning to his antics. He is said to be +like one of O. Henry's misquotations of the classics. He looks to me like +that artist Edgar Poe, if Poe had been obliged to make millions laugh. I +do not like Chaplin's work, but I have to admit the good intentions and +the enviable laurels. Let all the Art Museums invite him in, as tentative +adviser, if not a chastened performer. Let him be given as good a chance +as Mae Marsh was given by Eggers in Fullerton Hall. Only let him come in +person, not in film, till we hear him speak, and consider his +suggestions, and make sure he has eaten of the mystic Amaranth Apples of +Johnny Appleseed. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE PHOTOPLAY OF ACTION + + +Let us assume, friendly reader, that it is eight o'clock in the evening +when you make yourself comfortable in your den, to peruse this chapter. I +want to tell you about the Action Film, the simplest, the type most often +seen. In the mind of the habitue of the cheaper theatre it is the only +sort in existence. It dominates the slums, is announced there by red and +green posters of the melodrama sort, and retains its original elements, +more deftly handled, in places more expensive. The story goes at the +highest possible speed to be still credible. When it is a poor thing, +which is the case too often, the St. Vitus dance destroys the +pleasure-value. The rhythmic quality of the picture-motions is twitched +to death. In the bad photoplay even the picture of an express train more +than exaggerates itself. Yet when the photoplay chooses to behave it can +reproduce a race far more joyously than the stage. On that fact is based +the opportunity of this form. Many Action Pictures are indoors, but the +abstract theory of the Action Film is based on the out-of-door chase. You +remember the first one you saw where the policeman pursues the comical +tramp over hill and dale and across the town lots. You remember that +other where the cowboy follows the horse thief across the desert, spies +him at last and chases him faster, faster, faster, and faster, and +finally catches him. If the film was made in the days before the National +Board of Censorship, it ends with the cowboy cheerfully hanging the +villain; all details given to the last kick of the deceased. + +One of the best Action Pictures is an old Griffith Biograph, recently +reissued, the story entitled "Man's Genesis." In the time when +cave-men-gorillas had no weapons, Weak-Hands (impersonated by Robert +Harron) invents the stone club. He vanquishes his gorilla-like rival, +Brute-Force (impersonated by Wilfred Lucas). Strange but credible manners +and customs of the cave-men are detailed. They live in picturesque caves. +Their half-monkey gestures are wonderful to see. But these things are +beheld on the fly. It is the chronicle of a race between the brain of +Weak-Hands and the body of the other, symbolized by the chasing of poor +Weak-Hands in and out among the rocks until the climax. Brain desperately +triumphs. Weak-Hands slays Brute-Force with the startling invention. He +wins back his stolen bride, Lily-White (impersonated by Mae Marsh). It is +a Griffith masterpiece, and every actor does sound work. The audience, +mechanical Americans, fond of crawling on their stomachs to tinker their +automobiles, are eager over the evolution of the first weapon from a +stick to a hammer. They are as full of curiosity as they could well be +over the history of Langley or the Wright brothers. + +The dire perils of the motion pictures provoke the ingenuity of the +audience, not their passionate sympathy. When, in the minds of the +deluded producers, the beholders should be weeping or sighing with +desire, they are prophesying the next step to one another in worldly +George Ade slang. This is illustrated in another good Action Photoplay: +the dramatization of The Spoilers. The original novel was written by Rex +Beach. The gallant William Farnum as Glenister dominates the play. He has +excellent support. Their team-work makes them worthy of chronicle: Thomas +Santschi as McNamara, Kathlyn Williams as Cherry Malotte, Bessie Eyton +as Helen Chester, Frank Clark as Dextry, Wheeler Oakman as Bronco Kid, +and Jack McDonald as Slapjack. + +There are, in The Spoilers, inspiriting ocean scenes and mountain views. +There are interesting sketches of mining-camp manners and customs. There +is a well-acted love-interest in it, and the element of the comradeship +of loyal pals. But the chase rushes past these things to the climax, as +in a policeman picture it whirls past blossoming gardens and front lawns +till the tramp is arrested. The difficulties are commented on by the +people in the audience as rah-rah boys on the side lines comment on +hurdles cleared or knocked over by the men running in college field-day. +The sudden cut-backs into side branches of the story are but hurdles +also, not plot complications in the stage sense. This is as it should be. +The pursuit progresses without St. Vitus dance or hysteria to the end of +the film. There the spoilers are discomfited, the gold mine is +recaptured, the incidental girls are won, in a flash, by the rightful +owners. + +These shows work like the express elevators in the Metropolitan Tower. +The ideal is the maximum of speed in descending or ascending, not to be +jolted into insensibility. There are two girl parts as beautifully +thought out as the parts of ladies in love can be expected to be in +Action Films. But in the end the love is not much more romantic in the +eye of the spectator than it would be to behold a man on a motorcycle +with the girl of his choice riding on the same machine behind him. And +the highest type of Action Picture romance is not attained by having +Juliet triumph over the motorcycle handicap. It is not achieved by +weaving in a Sherlock Holmes plot. Action Picture romance comes when each +hurdle is a tableau, when there is indeed an art-gallery-beauty in each +one of these swift glimpses: when it is a race, but with a proper and +golden-linked grace from action to action, and the goal is the most +beautiful glimpse in the whole reel. + +In the Action Picture there is no adequate means for the development of +any full grown personal passion. The distinguished character-study that +makes genuine the personal emotions in the legitimate drama, has no +chance. People are but types, swiftly moved chessmen. More elaborate +discourse on this subject may be found in chapter twelve on the +differences between the films and the stage. But here, briefly: the +Action Pictures are falsely advertised as having heart-interest, or +abounding in tragedy. But though the actors glower and wrestle and even +if they are the most skilful lambasters in the profession, the audience +gossips and chews gum. + +Why does the audience keep coming to this type of photoplay if neither +lust, love, hate, nor hunger is adequately conveyed? Simply because such +spectacles gratify the incipient or rampant speed-mania in every +American. + +To make the elevator go faster than the one in the Metropolitan Tower is +to destroy even this emotion. To elaborate unduly any of the agonies or +seductions in the hope of arousing lust, love, hate, or hunger, is to +produce on the screen a series of misplaced figures of the order +Frankenstein. + +How often we have been horrified by these galvanized and ogling corpses. +These are the things that cause the outcry for more censors. It is not +that our moral codes are insulted, but what is far worse, our nervous +systems are temporarily racked to pieces. These wriggling half-dead men, +these over-bloody burglars, are public nuisances, no worse and no better +than dead cats being hurled about by street urchins. + +The cry for more censors is but the cry for the man with the broom. +Sometimes it is a matter as simple as when a child is scratching with a +pin on a slate. While one would not have the child locked up by the chief +of police, after five minutes of it almost every one wants to smack him +till his little jaws ache. It is the very cold-bloodedness of the +proceeding that ruins our kindness of heart. And the best Action Film is +impersonal and unsympathetic even if it has no scratching pins. Because +it is cold-blooded it must take extra pains to be tactful. Cold-blooded +means that the hero as we see him on the screen is a variety of amiable +or violent ghost. Nothing makes his lack of human charm plainer than when +we as audience enter the theatre at the middle of what purports to be the +most passionate of scenes when the goal of the chase is unknown to us and +the alleged "situation" appeals on its magnetic merits. Here is neither +the psychic telepathy of Forbes Robertson's Caesar, nor the fire-breath of +E.H. Sothern's Don Quixote. The audience is not worked up into the +deadly still mob-unity of the speaking theatre. We late comers wait for +the whole reel to start over and the goal to be indicated in the +preliminary, before we can get the least bit wrought up. The prize may +be a lady's heart, the restoration of a lost reputation, or the ownership +of the patent for a churn. In the more effective Action Plays it is often +what would be secondary on the stage, the recovery of a certain glove, +spade, bull-calf, or rock-quarry. And to begin, we are shown a clean-cut +picture of said glove, spade, bull-calf, or rock-quarry. Then when these +disappear from ownership or sight, the suspense continues till they are +again visible on the screen in the hands of the rightful owner. + +In brief, the actors hurry through what would be tremendous passions on +the stage to recover something that can be really photographed. For +instance, there came to our town long ago a film of a fight between +Federals and Confederates, with the loss of many lives, all for the +recapture of a steam-engine that took on more personality in the end than +private or general on either side, alive or dead. It was based on the +history of the very engine photographed, or else that engine was given in +replica. The old locomotive was full of character and humor amidst the +tragedy, leaking steam at every orifice. The original is in one of the +Southern Civil War museums. This engine in its capacity as a principal +actor is going to be referred to more than several times in this work. + +The highest type of Action Picture gives us neither the quality of +Macbeth or Henry Fifth, the Comedy of Errors, or the Taming of the Shrew. +It gives us rather that fine and special quality that was in the +ink-bottle of Robert Louis Stevenson, that brought about the limitations +and the nobility of the stories of Kidnapped, Treasure Island, and the +New Arabian Nights. + +This discussion will be resumed on another plane in the eighth chapter: +Sculpture-in-Motion. + +Having read thus far, why not close the book and go round the corner to a +photoplay theatre? Give the preference to the cheapest one. _The Action +Picture will be inevitable. Since this chapter was written, Charlie +Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks have given complete department store +examples of the method, especially Chaplin in the brilliantly constructed +Shoulder Arms, and Fairbanks in his one great piece of acting, in The +Three Musketeers_. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE INTIMATE PHOTOPLAY + + +Let us take for our platform this sentence: THE MOTION PICTURE ART IS A +GREAT HIGH ART, NOT A PROCESS OF COMMERCIAL MANUFACTURE. The people I +hope to convince of this are (1) The great art museums of America, +including the people who support them in any way, the people who give the +current exhibitions there or attend them, the art school students in the +corridors below coming on in the same field; (2) the departments of +English, of the history of the drama, of the practice of the drama, and +the history and practice of "art" in that amazingly long list of our +colleges and universities--to be found, for instance, in the World +Almanac; (3) the critical and literary world generally. Somewhere in this +enormous field, piled with endowments mountain high, it should be +possible to establish the theory and practice of the photoplay as a fine +art. Readers who do not care for the history of any art, readers who +have neither curiosity nor aspiration in regard to any of the ten or +eleven muses who now dance around Apollo, such shabby readers had best +lay the book down now. Shabby readers do not like great issues. My poor +little sermon is concerned with a great issue, the clearing of the way +for a critical standard, whereby the ultimate photoplay may be judged. I +cannot teach office-boys ways to make "quick money" in the "movies." That +seems to be the delicately implied purpose of the mass of books on the +photoplay subject. They are, indeed, a sickening array. Freeburg's book +is one of the noble exceptions. And I have paid tribute elsewhere to John +Emerson and Anita Loos. They have written a crusading book, and many +crusading articles. + +After five years of exceedingly lonely art study, in which I had always +specialized in museum exhibits, prowling around like a lost dog, I began +to intensify my museum study, and at the same time shout about what I was +discovering. From nineteen hundred and five on I did orate my opinions to +a group of advanced students. We assembled weekly for several winters in +the Metropolitan Museum, New York, for the discussion of the +masterpieces in historic order, from Egypt to America. From that +standpoint, the work least often found, hardest to make, least popular in +the street, may be in the end the one most treasured in a world-museum as +a counsellor and stimulus of mankind. Throughout this book I try to bring +to bear the same simple standards of form, composition, mood, and motive +that we used in finding the fundamental exhibits; the standards which are +taken for granted in art histories and schools, radical or conservative, +anywhere. + +Again we assume it is eight o'clock in the evening, friend reader, when +the chapter begins. + +Just as the Action Picture has its photographic basis or fundamental +metaphor in the long chase down the highway, so the Intimate Film has its +photographic basis in the fact that any photoplay interior has a very +small ground plan, and the cosiest of enclosing walls. Many a worth-while +scene is acted out in a space no bigger than that which is occupied by an +office boy's stool and hat. If there is a table in this room, it is often +so near it is half out of the picture or perhaps it is against the front +line of the triangular ground-plan. Only the top of the table is seen, +and nothing close up to us is pictured below that. We in the audience are +privileged characters. Generally attending the show in bunches of two or +three, we are members of the household on the screen. Sometimes we are +sitting on the near side of the family board. Or we are gossiping +whispering neighbors, of the shoemaker, we will say, with our noses +pressed against the pane of a metaphoric window. + +Take for contrast the old-fashioned stage production showing the room and +work table of a shoemaker. As it were the whole side of the house has +been removed. The shop is as big as a banquet hall. There is something +essentially false in what we see, no matter how the stage manager fills +in with old boxes, broken chairs, and the like. But the photoplay +interior is the size such a work-room should be. And there the awl and +pegs and bits of leather, speaking the silent language of picture +writing, can be clearly shown. They are sometimes like the engine in +chapter two, the principal actors. + +Though the Intimate-and-friendly Photoplay may be carried out of doors to +the row of loafers in front of the country store, or the gossiping +streets of the village, it takes its origin and theory from the snugness +of the interior. + +The restless reader replies that he has seen photoplays that showed +ballrooms that were grandiose, not the least cosy. These are to be +classed as out-of-door scenery so far as theory goes, and are to be +discussed under the head of Splendor Pictures. Masses of human beings +pour by like waves, the personalities of none made plain. The only +definite people are the hero and heroine in the foreground, and maybe one +other. Though these three be in ball-costume, the little triangle they +occupy next to the camera is in sort an interior, while the impersonal +guests behind them conform to the pageant principles of out-of-doors, and +the dancers are to the main actor as is the wind-shaken forest to the +charcoal-burner, or the bending grain to the reaper. + +The Intimate Motion Picture is the world's new medium for studying, not +the great passions, such as black hate, transcendent love, devouring +ambition, but rather the half relaxed or gently restrained moods of human +creatures. It gives also our idiosyncrasies. It is gossip _in extremis_. +It is apt to chronicle our petty little skirmishes, rather than our +feuds. In it Colin Clout and his comrades return. + +The Intimate Photoplay should not crowd its characters. It should not +choke itself trying to dramatize the whole big bloody plot of Lorna +Doone, or any other novel with a dozen leading people. Yet some gentle +episode from the John Ridd farm, some half-chapter when Lorna and the +Doones are almost forgotten, would be fitting. Let the duck-yard be +parading its best, and Annie among the milk-pails, her work for the +evening well nigh done. The Vicar of Wakefield has his place in this +form. The Intimate-and-friendly Motion Picture might very well give +humorous moments in the lives of the great, King Alfred burning the +cakes, and other legendary incidents of him. Plato's writings give us +glimpses of Socrates, in between the long dialogues. And there are +intimate scraps in Plutarch. + +Prospective author-producer, do you remember Landor's Imaginary +Conversations, and Lang's Letters to Dead Authors? Can you not attain to +that informal understanding in pictorial delineations of such people? + +The photoplay has been unjust to itself in comedies. The late John +Bunny's important place in my memory comes from the first picture in +which I saw him. It is a story of high life below stairs. The hero is the +butler at a governor's reception. John Bunny's work as this man is a +delightful piece of acting. The servants are growing tipsier downstairs, +but the more afraid of the chief functionary every time he appears, +frozen into sobriety by his glance. At the last moment this god of the +basement catches them at their worst and gives them a condescending but +forgiving smile. The lid comes off completely. He himself has been +imbibing. His surviving dignity in waiting on the governor's guests is +worthy of the stage of Goldsmith and Sheridan. This film should be +reissued in time as a Bunny memorial. + +So far as my experience has gone, the best of the comedians is Sidney +Drew. He could shine in the atmosphere of Pride and Prejudice or +Cranford. But the best things I have seen of his are far from such. I beg +the pardon of Miss Jane Austen and Mrs. Gaskell while I mention Who's Who +in Hogg's Hollow, and A Regiment of Two. Over these I rejoiced like a +yokel with a pocketful of butterscotch and peanuts. The opportunities to +laugh on a higher plane than this, to laugh like Olympians, are seldom +given us in this world. + +The most successful motion picture drama of the intimate type ever placed +before mine eyes was Enoch Arden, produced by Cabanne. + +Lillian Gish takes the part of Annie, Alfred Paget impersonates Enoch +Arden, and Wallace Reid takes the part of Philip Ray. The play is in four +reels of twenty minutes each. It should have been made into three reels +by shortening every scene just a bit. Otherwise it is satisfying, and I +and my friends have watched it through many times as it has returned to +Springfield. + +The mood of the original poem is approximated. The story is told with +fireside friendliness. The pale Lillian Gish surrounded by happy children +gives us many a genre painting on the theme of domesticity. It is a +photographic rendering in many ways as fastidious as Tennyson's +versification. The scenes on the desert island are some of them +commonplace. The shipwreck and the like remind one of other photoplays, +but the rest of the production has a mood of its own. Seen several months +ago it fills my eye-imagination and eye-memory more than that particular +piece of Tennyson's fills word-imagination and word-memory. Perhaps this +is because it is pleasing to me as a theorist. It is a sound example of +the type of film to which this chapter is devoted. If you cannot get your +local manager to bring Enoch Arden, reread that poem of Tennyson's and +translate it in your own mind's eye into a gallery of six hundred +delicately toned photographs hung in logical order, most of them cosy +interior scenes, some of the faces five feet from chin to forehead in the +more personal episodes, yet exquisitely fair. Fill in the out-of-door +scenes and general gatherings with the appointments of an idyllic English +fisher-village, and you will get an approximate conception of what we +mean by the Intimate-and-friendly Motion Picture, or the Intimate +Picture, as I generally call it, for convenience. + +It is a quality, not a defect, of all photoplays that human beings tend +to become dolls and mechanisms, and dolls and mechanisms tend to become +human. But the haughty, who scorn the moving pictures, cannot rid +themselves of the feeling that they are being seduced into going into +some sort of a Punch-and-Judy show. And they think that of course one +should not take seriously anything so cheap in price and so appealing to +the cross-roads taste. But it is very well to begin in the +Punch-and-Judy-show state of mind, and reconcile ourselves to it, and +then like good democrats await discoveries. Punch and Judy is the +simplest form of marionette performance, and the marionette has a place +in every street in history just as the dolls' house has its corner in +every palace and cottage. The French in particular have had their great +periods of puppet shows; and the Italian tradition survived in America's +Little Italy, in New York for many a day; and I will mention in passing +that one of Pavlowa's unforgettable dance dramas is The Fairy Doll. +Prospective author-producer, why not spend a deal of energy on the +photoplay successors of the puppet-plays? + +We have the queen of the marionettes already, without the play. + +One description of the Intimate-and-friendly Comedy would be the Mary +Pickford kind of a story. None has as yet appeared. But we know the Mary +Pickford mood. When it is gentlest, most roguish, most exalted, it is a +prophecy of what this type should be, not only in the actress, but in the +scenario and setting. + +Mary Pickford can be a doll, a village belle, or a church angel. Her +powers as a doll are hinted at in the title of the production: Such a +Little Queen. I remember her when she was a village belle in that film +that came out before producers or actors were known by name. It was +sugar-sweet. It was called: What the Daisy Said. If these productions had +conformed to their titles sincerely, with the highest photoplay art we +would have had two more examples for this chapter. + +Why do the people love Mary? Not on account of the Daniel Frohman style +of handling her appearances. He presents her to us in what are almost the +old-fashioned stage terms: the productions energetic and full of +painstaking detail but dominated by a dream that is a theatrical hybrid. +It is neither good moving picture nor good stage play. Yet Mary could be +cast as a cloudy Olympian or a church angel if her managers wanted her to +be such. She herself was transfigured in the Dawn of Tomorrow, but the +film-version of that play was merely a well mounted melodrama. + +Why do the people love Mary? Because of a certain aspect of her face in +her highest mood. Botticelli painted her portrait many centuries ago +when by some necromancy she appeared to him in this phase of herself. +There is in the Chicago Art Institute at the top of the stairs on the +north wall a noble copy of a fresco by that painter, the copy by Mrs. +MacMonnies. It is very near the Winged Victory of Samothrace. In the +picture the muses sit enthroned. The loveliest of them all is a startling +replica of Mary. + +The people are hungry for this fine and spiritual thing that Botticelli +painted in the faces of his muses and heavenly creatures. Because the mob +catch the very glimpse of it in Mary's face, they follow her night after +night in the films. They are never quite satisfied with the plays, +because the managers are not artists enough to know they should sometimes +put her into sacred pictures and not have her always the village hoyden, +in plays not even hoydenish. But perhaps in this argument I have but +betrayed myself as Mary's infatuated partisan. + +So let there be recorded here the name of another actress who is always +in the intimate-and-friendly mood and adapted to close-up interiors, +Marguerite Clark. She is endowed by nature to act, in the same film, the +eight-year-old village pet, the irrepressible sixteen-year-old, and +finally the shining bride of twenty. But no production in which she acts +that has happened to come under my eye has done justice to these +possibilities. The transitions from one of these stages to the other are +not marked by the producer with sufficient delicate graduation, emphasis, +and contrast. Her plots have been but sugared nonsense, or swashbuckling +ups and downs. She shines in a bevy of girls. She has sometimes been +given the bevy. + +But it is easier to find performers who fit this chapter, than to find +films. Having read so far, it is probably not quite nine o'clock in the +evening. Go around the corner to the nearest theatre. You will not be apt +to find a pure example of the Intimate-and-friendly Moving Picture, but +some one or two scenes will make plain the intent of the phrase. Imagine +the most winsome tableau that passes before you, extended logically +through one or three reels, with no melodramatic interruptions or awful +smashes. For a further discussion of these smashes, and other items in +this chapter, read the ninth chapter, entitled "Painting-in-Motion." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE MOTION PICTURE OF FAIRY SPLENDOR + + +Again, kind reader, let us assume it is eight o'clock in the evening, for +purposes of future climax which you no doubt anticipate. + +Just as the Action Motion Picture has its photographic basis in the race +down the high-road, just as the Intimate Motion Picture has its +photographic basis in the close-up interior scene, so the Photoplay of +Splendor, in its four forms, is based on the fact that the kinetoscope +can take in the most varied of out-of-door landscapes. It can reproduce +fairy dells. It can give every ripple of the lily-pond. It can show us +cathedrals within and without. It can take in the panorama of cyclopaean +cloud, bending forest, storm-hung mountain. In like manner it can put on +the screen great impersonal mobs of men. It can give us tremendous +armies, moving as oceans move. The pictures of Fairy Splendor, Crowd +Splendor, Patriotic Splendor, and Religious Splendor are but the +embodiments of these backgrounds. + +And a photographic corollary quite useful in these four forms is that the +camera has a kind of Hallowe'en witch-power. This power is the subject of +this chapter. + +The world-old legends and revelations of men in connection with the +lovely out of doors, or lonely shrines, or derived from inspired +crusading humanity moving in masses, can now be fitly retold. Also the +fairy wand can do its work, the little dryad can come from the tree. And +the spirits that guard the Republic can be seen walking on the clouds +above the harvest-fields. + +But we are concerned with the humblest voodooism at present. + +Perhaps the world's oldest motion picture plot is a tale in Mother Goose. +It ends somewhat in this fashion:-- + + The old lady said to the cat:-- + "Cat, cat, kill rat. + Rat will not gnaw rope, + Rope will not hang butcher, + Butcher will not kill ox, + Ox will not drink water, + Water will not quench fire, + Fire will not burn stick, + Stick will not beat dog, + Dog will not bite pig, + Pig will not jump over the stile, + And I cannot get home to-night." + +By some means the present writer does not remember, the cat was persuaded +to approach the rat. The rest was like a tale of European diplomacy:-- + + The rat began to gnaw the rope, + The rope began to hang the butcher, + The butcher began to kill the ox, + The ox began to drink the water, + The water began to quench the fire, + The fire began to burn the stick, + The stick began to beat the dog, + The dog began to bite the pig, + The frightened little pig jumped over the stile, + And the old lady was able to get home that night. + +Put yourself back to the state of mind in which you enjoyed this bit of +verse. + +Though the photoplay fairy-tale may rise to exquisite heights, it begins +with pictures akin to this rhyme. Mankind in his childhood has always +wanted his furniture to do such things. Arthur names his blade +Excalibur. It becomes a person. The man in the Arabian tale speaks to +the magic carpet. It carries him whithersoever he desires. This yearning +for personality in furniture begins to be crudely worked upon in the +so-called trick-scenes. The typical commercialized comedy of this sort is +Moving Day. Lyman H. Howe, among many excellent reels of a different +kind, has films allied to Moving Day. + +But let us examine at this point, as even more typical, an old Pathe Film +from France. The representatives of the moving-firm are sent for. They +appear in the middle of the room with an astonishing jump. They are told +that this household desires to have its goods and hearthstone gods +transplanted two streets east. The agents salute. They disappear. Yet +their wireless orders are obeyed with a military crispness. The books and +newspapers climb out of the window. They go soberly down the street. In +their wake are the dishes from the table. Then the more delicate +porcelains climb down the shelves and follow. Then follow the +hobble-de-hoy kitchen dishes, then the chairs, then the clothing, and the +carpets from over the house. The most joyous and curious spectacle is to +behold the shoes walking down the boulevard, from father's large boots +to those of the youngest child. They form a complete satire of the +family, yet have a masterful air of their own, as though they were the +most important part of a human being. + +The new apartment is shown. Everything enters in procession. In contrast +to the general certainty of the rest, one or two pieces of furniture grow +confused trying to find their places. A plate, in leaping upon a high +shelf, misses and falls broken. The broom and dustpan sweep up the +pieces, and consign them to the dustbin. Then the human family comes in, +delighted to find everything in order. The moving agents appear and +salute. They are paid their fee. They salute again and disappear with +another gigantic leap. + +The ability to do this kind of a thing is fundamental in the destinies of +the art. Yet this resource is neglected because its special province is +not understood. "People do not like to be tricked," the manager says. +Certainly they become tired of mere contraptions. But they never grow +weary of imagination. There is possible many a highly imaginative +fairy-tale on this basis if we revert to the sound principles of the +story of the old lady and the pig. + +Moving Day is at present too crassly material. It has not the touch of +the creative imagination. We are overwhelmed with a whole van of +furniture. Now the mechanical or non-human object, beginning with the +engine in the second chapter, is apt to be the hero in most any sort of +photoplay while the producer remains utterly unconscious of the fact. Why +not face this idiosyncrasy of the camera and make the non-human object +the hero indeed? Not by filling the story with ropes, buckets, +fire-brands, and sticks, but by having these four unique. Make the fire +the loveliest of torches, the water the most graceful of springs. Let the +rope be the humorist. Let the stick be the outstanding hero, the +D'Artagnan of the group, full of queer gestures and hoppings about. Let +him be both polite and obdurate. Finally let him beat the dog most +heroically. + + * * * * * + +Then, after the purely trick-picture is disciplined till it has fewer +tricks, and those more human and yet more fanciful, the producer can move +on up into the higher realms of the fairy-tale, carrying with him this +riper workmanship. + +Mabel Taliaferro's Cinderella, seen long ago, is the best film +fairy-tale the present writer remembers. It has more of the fireside +wonder-spirit and Hallowe'en-witch-spirit than the Cinderella of Mary +Pickford. + +There is a Japanese actor, Sessue Hayakawa, who takes the leading part +with Blanche Sweet in The Clew, and is the hero in the film version of +The Typhoon. He looks like all the actors in the old Japanese prints. He +has a general dramatic equipment which enables him to force through the +stubborn screen such stagy plays as these, that are more worth while in +the speaking theatre. But he has that atmosphere of pictorial romance +which would make him a valuable man for the retelling of the old Japanese +legends of Kwannon and other tales that are rich, unused moving picture +material, tales such as have been hinted at in the gleaming English of +Lafcadio Hearn. The Japanese genius is eminently pictorial. Rightly +viewed, every Japanese screen or bit of lacquer is from the Ancient Asia +Columbus set sail to find. + +It would be a noble thing if American experts in the Japanese principles +of decoration, of the school of Arthur W. Dow, should tell stories of old +Japan with the assistance of such men as Sessue Hayakawa. Such things go +further than peace treaties. Dooming a talent like that of Mr. Hayakawa +to the task of interpreting the Japanese spy does not conduce to accord +with Japan, however the technique may move us to admiration. Let such of +us as are at peace get together, and tell the tales of our happy +childhood to one another. + +This chapter is ended. You will of course expect to be exhorted to visit +some photoplay emporium. But you need not look for fairy-tales. They are +much harder to find than they should be. But you can observe even in the +advertisements and cartoons the technical elements of the story of the +old lady and the pig. And you can note several other things that show how +much more quickly than on the stage the borderline of All Saints' Day and +Hallowe'en can be crossed. Note how easily memories are called up, and +appear in the midst of the room. In any plays whatever, you will find +these apparitions and recollections. The dullest hero is given glorious +visualizing power. Note the "fadeaway" at the beginning and the end of +the reel, whereby all things emerge from the twilight and sink back into +the twilight at last. These are some of the indestructible least common +denominators of folk stories old and new. When skilfully used, they can +all exercise a power over the audience, such as the crystal has over the +crystal-gazer. + +But this discussion will be resumed, on another plane, in the tenth +chapter: "Furniture, Trappings, and Inventions in Motion." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE PICTURE OF CROWD SPLENDOR + + +Henceforth the reader will use his discretion as to when he will read the +chapter and when he will go to the picture show to verify it. + +The shoddiest silent drama may contain noble views of the sea. This part +is almost sure to be good. It is a fundamental resource. + +A special development of this aptitude in the hands of an expert gives +the sea of humanity, not metaphorically but literally: the whirling of +dancers in ballrooms, handkerchief-waving masses of people in balconies, +hat-waving political ratification meetings, ragged glowering strikers, +and gossiping, dickering people in the marketplace. Only Griffith and his +close disciples can do these as well as almost any manager can reproduce +the ocean. Yet the sea of humanity is dramatically blood-brother to the +Pacific, Atlantic, or Mediterranean. It takes this new invention, the +kinetoscope, to bring us these panoramic drama-elements. By the law of +compensation, while the motion picture is shallow in showing private +passion, it is powerful in conveying the passions of masses of men. +Bernard Shaw, in a recent number of the Metropolitan, answered several +questions in regard to the photoplay. Here are two bits from his +discourse:-- + +"Strike the dialogue from Moliere's Tartuffe, and what audience would +bear its mere stage-business? Imagine the scene in which Iago poisons +Othello's mind against Desdemona, conveyed in dumb show. What becomes of +the difference between Shakespeare and Sheridan Knowles in the film? Or +between Shakespeare's Lear and any one else's Lear? No, it seems to me +that all the interest lies in the new opening for the mass of dramatic +talent formerly disabled by incidental deficiencies of one sort or +another that do not matter in the picture-theatre...." + +"Failures of the spoken drama may become the stars of the picture palace. +And there are the authors with imagination, visualization and first-rate +verbal gifts who can write novels and epics, but cannot for the life of +them write plays. Well, the film lends itself admirably to the +succession of events proper to narrative and epic, but physically +impracticable on the stage. Paradise Lost would make a far better film +than Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman, though Borkman is a dramatic +masterpiece, and Milton could not write an effective play." + +Note in especial what Shaw says about narrative, epic, and Paradise Lost. +He has in mind, no doubt, the pouring hosts of demons and angels. This is +one kind of a Crowd Picture. + +There is another sort to be seen where George Beban impersonates The +Italian in a film of that title, by Thomas H. Ince and G. Gardener +Sullivan. The first part, taken ostensibly in Venice, delineates the +festival spirit of the people on the bridges and in gondolas. It gives +out the atmosphere of town-crowd happiness. Then comes the vineyard, the +crowd sentiment of a merry grape-harvest, then the massed emotion of many +people embarking on an Atlantic liner telling good-by to their kindred on +the piers, then the drama of arrival in New York. The wonder of the +steerage people pouring down their proper gangway is contrasted with the +conventional at-home-ness of the first-class passengers above. Then we +behold the seething human cauldron of the East Side, then the jolly +little wedding-dance, then the life of the East Side, from the policeman +to the peanut-man, and including the bar tender, for the crowd is treated +on two separate occasions. + +It is hot weather. The mobs of children follow the ice-wagon for chips of +ice. They besiege the fountain-end of the street-sprinkling wagon quite +closely, rejoicing to have their clothes soaked. They gather round the +fire-plug that is turned on for their benefit, and again become wet as +drowned rats. + +Passing through these crowds are George Beban and Clara Williams as The +Italian and his sweetheart. They owe the force of their acting to the +fact that they express each mass of humanity in turn. Their child is +born. It does not flourish. It represents in an acuter way another phase +of the same child-struggle with the heat that the gamins indicate in +their pursuit of the water-cart. + +Then a deeper matter. The hero represents in a fashion the adventures of +the whole Italian race coming to America: its natural southern gayety set +in contrast to the drab East Side. The gondolier becomes boot-black. The +grape-gathering peasant girl becomes the suffering slum mother. They are +not specialized characters like Pendennis or Becky Sharp in the Novels of +Thackeray. + +Omitting the last episode, the entrance into the house of Corrigan, The +Italian is a strong piece of work. + +Another kind of Crowd Picture is The Battle, an old Griffith Biograph, +first issued in 1911, before Griffith's name or that of any actor in +films was advertised. Blanche Sweet is the leading lady, and Charles H. +West the leading man. The psychology of a bevy of village lovers is +conveyed in a lively sweet-hearting dance. Then the boy and his comrades +go forth to war. The lines pass between hand-waving crowds of friends +from the entire neighborhood. These friends give the sense of patriotism +in mass. Then as the consequence of this feeling, as the special agents +to express it, the soldiers are in battle. By the fortunes of war the +onset is unexpectedly near to the house where once was the dance. + +The boy is at first a coward. He enters the old familiar door. He appeals +to the girl to hide him, and for the time breaks her heart. He goes forth +a fugitive not only from battle, but from her terrible girlish anger. +But later he rallies. He brings a train of powder wagons through fires +built in his path by the enemy's scouts. He loses every one of his men, +and all but the last wagon, which he drives himself. His return with that +ammunition saves the hard-fought day. + +And through all this, glimpses of the battle are given with a splendor +that only Griffith has attained. + +Blanche Sweet stands as the representative of the bevy of girls in the +house of the dance, and the whole body social of the village. How the +costumes flash and the handkerchiefs wave around her! In the battle the +hero represents the cowardice that all the men are resisting within +themselves. When he returns, he is the incarnation of the hardihood they +have all hoped to display. Only the girl knows he was first a failure. +The wounded general honors him as the hero above all. Now she is radiant, +she cannot help but be triumphant, though the side of the house is blown +out by a shell and the dying are everywhere. + +This one-reel work of art has been reissued of late by the Biograph +Company. It should be kept in the libraries of the Universities as a +standard. One-reel films are unfortunate in this sense that in order to +see a favorite the student must wait through five other reels of a mixed +programme that usually is bad. That is the reason one-reel masterpieces +seldom appear now. The producer in a mood to make a special effort wants +to feel that he has the entire evening, and that nothing before or after +is going to be a bore or destroy the impression. So at present the +painstaking films are apt to be five or six reels of twenty minutes each. +These have the advantage that if they please at all, one can see them +again at once without sitting through irrelevant slapstick work put there +to fill out the time. But now, having the whole evening to work in, the +producer takes too much time for his good ideas. I shall reiterate +throughout this work the necessity for restraint. A one hour programme is +long enough for any one. If the observer is pleased, he will sit it +through again and take another hour. There is not a good film in the +world but is the better for being seen in immediate succession to itself. +Six-reel programmes are a weariness to the flesh. The best of the old +one-reel Biographs of Griffith contained more in twenty minutes than +these ambitious incontinent six-reel displays give us in two hours. It +would pay a manager to hang out a sign: "This show is only twenty minutes +long, but it is Griffith's great film 'The Battle.'" + +But I am digressing. To continue the contrast between private passion in +the theatre and crowd-passion in the photoplay, let us turn to Shaw +again. Consider his illustration of Iago, Othello, and Lear. These parts, +as he implies, would fall flat in motion pictures. The minor situations +of dramatic intensity might in many cases be built up. The crisis would +inevitably fail. Iago and Othello and Lear, whatever their offices in +their governments, are essentially private persons, individuals _in +extremis_. If you go to a motion picture and feel yourself suddenly +gripped by the highest dramatic tension, as on the old stage, and reflect +afterward that it was a fight between only two or three men in a room +otherwise empty, stop to analyze what they stood for. They were probably +representatives of groups or races that had been pursuing each other +earlier in the film. Otherwise the conflict, however violent, appealed +mainly to the sense of speed. + +So, in The Birth of a Nation, which could better be called The Overthrow +of Negro Rule, the Ku Klux Klan dashes down the road as powerfully as +Niagara pours over the cliff. Finally the white girl Elsie Stoneman +(impersonated by Lillian Gish) is rescued by the Ku Klux Klan from the +mulatto politician, Silas Lynch (impersonated by George Seigmann). The +lady is brought forward as a typical helpless white maiden. The white +leader, Col. Ben Cameron (impersonated by Henry B. Walthall), enters not +as an individual, but as representing the whole Anglo-Saxon Niagara. He +has the mask of the Ku Klux Klan on his face till the crisis has passed. +The wrath of the Southerner against the blacks and their Northern +organizers has been piled up through many previous scenes. As a result +this rescue is a real climax, something the photoplays that trace +strictly personal hatreds cannot achieve. + +The Birth of a Nation is a Crowd Picture in a triple sense. On the films, +as in the audience, it turns the crowd into a mob that is either for or +against the Reverend Thomas Dixon's poisonous hatred of the negro. + +Griffith is a chameleon in interpreting his authors. Wherever the +scenario shows traces of The Clansman, the original book, by Thomas +Dixon, it is bad. Wherever it is unadulterated Griffith, which is half +the time, it is good. The Reverend Thomas Dixon is a rather stagy Simon +Legree: in his avowed views a deal like the gentleman with the spiritual +hydrophobia in the latter end of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Unconsciously Mr. +Dixon has done his best to prove that Legree was not a fictitious +character. + + * * * * * + +Joel Chandler Harris, Harry Stillwell Edwards, George W. Cable, Thomas +Nelson Page, James Lane Allen, and Mark Twain are Southern men in Mr. +Griffith's class. I recommend their works to him as a better basis for +future Southern scenarios. + +The Birth of a Nation has been very properly denounced for its Simon +Legree qualities by Francis Hackett, Jane Addams, and others. But it is +still true that it is a wonder in its Griffith sections. In its handling +of masses of men it further illustrates the principles that made notable +the old one-reel Battle film described in the beginning of this chapter. +The Battle in the end is greater, because of its self-possession and +concentration: all packed into twenty minutes. + +When, in The Birth of a Nation, Lincoln (impersonated by Joseph Henabery) +goes down before the assassin, it is a master-scene. He falls as the +representative of the government and a thousand high and noble crowd +aspirations. The mimic audience in the restored Ford's Theatre rises in +panic. This crowd is interpreted in especial for us by the two young +people in the seats nearest, and the freezing horror of the treason +sweeps from the Ford's Theatre audience to the real audience beyond them. +The real crowd touched with terror beholds its natural face in the glass. + +Later come the pictures of the rioting negroes in the streets of the +Southern town, mobs splendidly handled, tossing wildly and rhythmically +like the sea. Then is delineated the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, of which +we have already spoken. For comment on the musical accompaniment to The +Birth of a Nation, read the fourteenth chapter entitled "The Orchestra, +Conversation and the Censorship." + +In the future development of motion pictures mob-movements of anger and +joy will go through fanatical and provincial whirlwinds into great +national movements of anger and joy. + +A book by Gerald Stanley Lee that has a score of future scenarios in it, +a book that might well be dipped into by the reader before he goes to +such a play as The Italian or The Battle, is the work which bears the +title of this chapter: "Crowds." + +Mr. Lee is far from infallible in his remedies for factory and industrial +relations. But in sensitiveness to the flowing street of humanity he is +indeed a man. Listen to the names of some of the divisions of his book: +"Crowds and Machines; Letting the Crowds be Good; Letting the Crowds be +Beautiful; Crowds and Heroes; Where are we Going? The Crowd Scare; The +Strike, an Invention for making Crowds Think; The Crowd's Imagination +about People; Speaking as One of the Crowd; Touching the Imagination of +Crowds." Films in the spirit of these titles would help to make +world-voters of us all. + +The World State is indeed far away. But as we peer into the Mirror Screen +some of us dare to look forward to the time when the pouring streets of +men will become sacred in each other's eyes, in pictures and in fact. + +A further discussion of this theme on other planes will be found in the +eleventh chapter, entitled "Architecture-in-Motion," and the fifteenth +chapter, entitled "The Substitute for the Saloon." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +PATRIOTIC SPLENDOR + + +The Patriotic Picture need not necessarily be in terms of splendor. It +generally is. Beginning the chronicle is one that waves no banners. + +The Typhoon, a film produced by Thomas H. Ince, is a story of the +Japanese love of Nippon in which a very little of the landscape of the +nation is shown, and that in the beginning. The hero (acted by Sessue +Hayakawa), living in the heart of Paris, represents the far-off Empire. +He is making a secret military report. He is a responsible member of a +colony of Japanese gentlemen. The bevy of them appear before or after his +every important action. He still represents this crowd when alone. + +The unfortunate Parisian heroine, unable to fathom the mystery of the +fanatical hearts of the colony, ventures to think that her love for the +Japanese hero and his equally great devotion to her is the important +human relation on the horizon. She flouts his obscure work, pits her +charms against it. In the end there is a quarrel. The irresistible meets +the immovable, and in madness or half by accident, he kills the girl. + +The youth is protected by the colony, for he alone can make the report. +He is the machine-like representative of the Japanese patriotic formula, +till the document is complete. A new arrival in the colony, who obviously +cannot write the book, confesses the murder and is executed. The other +high fanatic dies soon after, of a broken heart, with the completed +manuscript volume in his hand. The one impression of the play is that +Japanese patriotism is a peculiar and fearful thing. The particular +quality of the private romance is but vaguely given, for such things in +their rise and culmination can only be traced by the novelist, or by the +gentle alternations of silence and speech on the speaking stage, aided by +the hot blood of players actually before us. + +Here, as in most photoplays, the attempted lover-conversations in +pantomime are but indifferent things. The details of the hero's last +quarrel with the heroine and the precise thoughts that went with it are +muffled by the inability to speak. The power of the play is in the +adequate style the man represents the colony. Sessue Hayakawa should give +us Japanese tales more adapted to the films. We should have stories of +Iyeyasu and Hideyoshi, written from the ground up for the photoplay +theatre. We should have the story of the Forty-seven Ronin, not a +Japanese stage version, but a work from the source-material. We should +have legends of the various clans, picturizations of the code of the +Samurai. + +The Typhoon is largely indoors. But the Patriotic Motion Picture is +generally a landscape. This is for deeper reasons than that it requires +large fields in which to manoeuvre armies. Flags are shown for other +causes than that they are the nominal signs of a love of the native land. + +In a comedy of the history of a newspaper, the very columns of the +publication are actors, and may be photographed oftener than the human +hero. And in the higher realms this same tendency gives particular power +to the panorama and trappings. It makes the natural and artificial +magnificence more than a narrative, more than a color-scheme, something +other than a drama. In a photoplay by a master, when the American flag is +shown, the thirteen stripes are columns of history and the stars are +headlines. The woods and the templed hills are their printing press, +almost in a literal sense. + +Going back to the illustration of the engine, in chapter two, the +non-human thing is a personality, even if it is not beautiful. When it +takes on the ritual of decorative design, this new vitality is made +seductive, and when it is an object of nature, this seductive ritual +becomes a new pantheism. The armies upon the mountains they are defending +are rooted in the soil like trees. They resist invasion with the same +elementary stubbornness with which the oak resists the storm or the cliff +resists the wave. + + * * * * * + +Let the reader consider Antony and Cleopatra, the Cines film. It was +brought to America from Italy by George Klein. This and several ambitious +spectacles like it are direct violations of the foregoing principles. +True, it glorifies Rome. It is equivalent to waving the Italian above the +Egyptian flag, quite slowly for two hours. From the stage standpoint, +the magnificence is thoroughgoing. Viewed as a circus, the acting is +elephantine in its grandeur. All that is needed is pink lemonade sold in +the audience. + +The famous Cabiria, a tale of war between Rome and Carthage, by +D'Annunzio, is a prime example of a success, where Antony and Cleopatra +and many European films founded upon the classics have been failures. +With obvious defects as a producer, D'Annunzio appreciates spectacular +symbolism. He has an instinct for the strange and the beautifully +infernal, as they are related to decorative design. Therefore he is able +to show us Carthage indeed. He has an Italian patriotism that amounts to +frenzy. So Rome emerges body and soul from the past, in this spectacle. +He gives us the cruelty of Baal, the intrepidity of the Roman legions. +Everything Punic or Italian in the middle distance or massed background +speaks of the very genius of the people concerned and actively generates +their kind of lightning. + +The principals do not carry out the momentum of this immense resource. +The half a score of leading characters, with the costumes, gestures, and +aspects of gods, are after all works of the taxidermist. They are +stuffed gods. They conduct a silly nickelodeon romance while Carthage +rolls on toward her doom. They are like sparrows fighting for grain on +the edge of the battle. + +The doings of his principals are sufficiently evident to be grasped with +a word or two of printed insert on the films. But he sentimentalizes +about them. He adds side-elaborations of the plot that would require much +time to make clear, and a hard working novelist to make interesting. We +are sentenced to stop and gaze long upon this array of printing in the +darkness, just at the moment the tenth wave of glory seems ready to sweep +in. But one hundred words cannot be a photoplay climax. The climax must +be in a tableau that is to the eye as the rising sun itself, that follows +the thousand flags of the dawn. + +In the New York performance, and presumably in other large cities, there +was also an orchestra. Behold then, one layer of great photoplay, one +layer of bad melodrama, one layer of explanation, and a final cement of +music. It is as though in an art museum there should be a man at the door +selling would-be masterly short-stories about the paintings, and a man +with a violin playing the catalogue. But for further discourse on the +orchestra read the fourteenth chapter. + +I left Cabiria with mixed emotions. And I had to forget the distressful +eye-strain. Few eyes submit without destruction to three hours of film. +But the mistakes of Cabiria are those of the pioneer work of genius. It +has in it twenty great productions. It abounds in suggestions. Once the +classic rules of this art-unit are established, men with equal genius +with D'Annunzio and no more devotion, will give us the world's +masterpieces. As it is, the background and mass-movements must stand as +monumental achievements in vital patriotic splendor. + +D'Annunzio is Griffith's most inspired rival in these things. He lacks +Griffith's knowledge of what is photoplay and what is not. He lacks +Griffith's simplicity of hurdle-race plot. He lacks his avalanche-like +action. The Italian needs the American's health and clean winds. He needs +his foregrounds, leading actors, and types of plot. But the American has +never gone as deep as the Italian into landscapes that are their own +tragedians, and into Satanic and celestial ceremonials. + +Judith of Bethulia and The Battle Hymn of the Republic have impressed me +as the two most significant photoplays I have ever encountered. They may +be classed with equal justice as religious or patriotic productions. But +for reasons which will appear, The Battle Hymn of the Republic will be +classed as a film of devotion and Judith as a patriotic one. The latter +was produced by D.W. Griffith, and released by the Biograph Company in +1914. The original stage drama was once played by the famous Boston +actress, Nance O'Neil. It is the work of Thomas Bailey Aldrich. The +motion picture scenario, when Griffith had done with it, had no especial +Aldrich flavor, though it contained several of the characters and events +as Aldrich conceived them. It was principally the old apocryphal story +plus the genius of Griffith and that inner circle of players whom he has +endowed with much of his point of view. + +This is his cast of characters:-- + +Judith Blanche Sweet +Holofernes Henry Walthall +His servant J.J. Lance +Captain of the Guards H. Hyde +Judith's maid Miss Bruce +General of the Jews C.H. Mailes +Priests Messrs. Oppleman and Lestina +Nathan Robert Harron +Naomi Mae Marsh +Keeper of the slaves for Holofernes Alfred Paget +The Jewish mother Lillian Gish + +The Biograph Company advertises the production with the following Barnum +and Bailey enumeration: "In four parts. Produced in California. Most +expensive Biograph ever produced. More than one thousand people and about +three hundred horsemen. The following were built expressly for the +production: a replica of the ancient city of Bethulia; the mammoth wall +that protected Bethulia; a faithful reproduction of the ancient army +camps, embodying all their barbaric splendor and dances; chariots, +battering rams, scaling ladders, archer towers, and other special war +paraphernalia of the period. + +"The following spectacular effects: the storming of the walls of the +city of Bethulia; the hand-to-hand conflicts; the death-defying chariot +charges at break-neck speed; the rearing and plunging horses infuriated +by the din of battle; the wonderful camp of the terrible Holofernes, +equipped with rugs brought from the far East; the dancing girls in their +exhibition of the exquisite and peculiar dances of the period; the +routing of the command of the terrible Holofernes, and the destruction of +the camp by fire. And overshadowing all, the heroism of the beautiful +Judith." + +This advertisement should be compared with the notice of Your Girl and +Mine transcribed in the seventeenth chapter. + +But there is another point of view by which this Judith of Bethulia +production may be approached, however striking the advertising notice. + +There are four sorts of scenes alternated: (1) the particular history of +Judith; (2) the gentle courtship of Nathan and Naomi, types of the +inhabitants of Bethulia; (3) pictures of the streets, with the population +flowing like a sluggish river; (4) scenes of raid, camp, and battle, +interpolated between these, tying the whole together. The real plot is +the balanced alternation of all the elements. So many minutes of one, +then so many minutes of another. As was proper, very little of the tale +was thrown on the screen in reading matter, and no climax was ever a +printed word, but always an enthralling tableau. + +The particular history of Judith begins with the picture of her as the +devout widow. She is austerely garbed, at prayer for her city, in her own +quiet house. Then later she is shown decked for the eyes of man in the +camp of Holofernes, where all is Assyrian glory. Judith struggles between +her unexpected love for the dynamic general and the resolve to destroy +him that brought her there. In either type of scene, the first gray and +silver, the other painted with Paul Veronese splendor, Judith moves with +a delicate deliberation. Over her face the emotions play like winds on a +meadow lake. Holofernes is the composite picture of all the Biblical +heathen chieftains. His every action breathes power. He is an Assyrian +bull, a winged lion, and a god at the same time, and divine honors are +paid to him every moment. + +Nathan and Naomi are two Arcadian lovers. In their shy meetings they +express the life of the normal Bethulia. They are seen among the reapers +outside the city or at the well near the wall, or on the streets of the +ancient town. They are generally doing the things the crowd behind them +is doing, meanwhile evolving their own little heart affair. Finally when +the Assyrian comes down like a wolf on the fold, the gentle Naomi becomes +a prisoner in Holofernes' camp. She is in the foreground, a +representative of the crowd of prisoners. Nathan is photographed on the +wall as the particular defender of the town in whom we are most +interested. + +The pictures of the crowd's normal activities avoid jerkiness and haste. +They do not abound in the boresome self-conscious quietude that some +producers have substituted for the usual twitching. Each actor in the +assemblies has a refreshing equipment in gentle gesticulation; for the +manners and customs of Bethulia must needs be different from those of +America. Though the population moves together as a river, each citizen is +quite preoccupied. To the furthest corner of the picture, they are +egotistical as human beings. The elder goes by, in theological +conversation with his friend. He thinks his theology is important. The +mother goes by, all absorbed in her child. To her it is the only child in +the world. + +Alternated with these scenes is the terrible rush of the Assyrian army, +on to exploration, battle, and glory. The speed of their setting out +becomes actual, because it is contrasted with the deliberation of the +Jewish town. At length the Assyrians are along those hills and valleys +and below the wall of defence. The population is on top of the +battlements, beating them back the more desperately because they are +separated from the water-supply, the wells in the fields where once the +lovers met. In a lull in the siege, by a connivance of the elders, Judith +is let out of a little door in the wall. And while the fortune of her +people is most desperate she is shown in the quiet shelter of the tent of +Holofernes. Sinuous in grace, tranced, passionately in love, she has +forgotten her peculiar task. She is in a sense Bethulia itself, the race +of Israel made over into a woman, while Holofernes is the embodiment of +the besieging army. Though in a quiet tent, and on the terms of love, it +is the essential warfare of the hot Assyrian blood and the pure and +peculiar Jewish thoroughbredness. + +Blanche Sweet as Judith is indeed dignified and ensnaring, the more so +because in her abandoned quarter of an hour the Jewish sanctity does not +leave her. And her aged woman attendant, coming in and out, sentinel and +conscience, with austere face and lifted finger, symbolizes the fire of +Israel that shall yet awaken within her. When her love for her city and +God finally becomes paramount, she shakes off the spell of the divine +honors which she has followed all the camp in according to that living +heathen deity Holofernes, and by the very transfiguration of her figure +and countenance we know that the deliverance of Israel is at hand. She +beheads the dark Assyrian. Soon she is back in the city, by way of the +little gate by which she emerged. The elders receive her and her bloody +trophy. + +The people who have been dying of thirst arise in a final whirlwind of +courage. Bereft of their military genius, the Assyrians flee from the +burning camp. Naomi is delivered by her lover Nathan. This act is taken +by the audience as a type of the setting free of all the captives. Then +we have the final return of the citizens to their town. As for Judith, +hers is no crass triumph. She is shown in her gray and silvery room in +her former widow's dress, but not the same woman. There is thwarted love +in her face. The sword of sorrow is there. But there is also the prayer +of thanksgiving. She goes forth. She is hailed as her city's deliverer. +She stands among the nobles like a holy candle. + +Providing the picture may be preserved in its original delicacy, it has +every chance to retain a place in the affections of the wise, if a humble +pioneer of criticism may speak his honest mind. + +Though in this story the archaic flavor is well-preserved, the way the +producer has pictured the population at peace, in battle, in despair, in +victory gives me hope that he or men like unto him will illustrate the +American patriotic crowd-prophecies. We must have Whitmanesque scenarios, +based on moods akin to that of the poem By Blue Ontario's Shore. The +possibility of showing the entire American population its own face in the +Mirror Screen has at last come. Whitman brought the idea of democracy to +our sophisticated literati, but did not persuade the democracy itself to +read his democratic poems. Sooner or later the kinetoscope will do what +he could not, bring the nobler side of the equality idea to the people +who are so crassly equal. + +The photoplay penetrates in our land to the haunts of the wildest or the +dullest. The isolated prospector rides twenty miles to see the same film +that is displayed on Broadway. There is not a civilized or half-civilized +land but may read the Whitmanesque message in time, if once it is put on +the films with power. Photoplay theatres are set up in ports where +sailors revel, in heathen towns where gentlemen adventurers are willing +to make one last throw with fate. + +On the other hand, as a recorder Whitman approaches the wildest, rawest +American material and conquers it, at the same time keeping his nerves in +the state in which Swinburne wrote Only the Song of Secret Bird, or +Lanier composed The Ballad of Trees and The Master. J.W. Alexander's +portrait of Whitman in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, is not too +sophisticated. The out-of-door profoundness of this poet is far richer +than one will realize unless he has just returned from some cross-country +adventure afoot. Then if one reads breathlessly by the page and the score +of pages, there is a glory transcendent. For films of American +patriotism to parallel the splendors of Cabiria and Judith of Bethulia, +and to excel them, let us have Whitmanesque scenarios based on moods like +that of By Blue Ontario's Shore, The Salute au Monde, and The Passage to +India. Then the people's message will reach the people at last. + +The average Crowd Picture will cling close to the streets that are, and +the usual Patriotic Picture will but remind us of nationality as it is at +present conceived and aflame, and the Religious Picture will for the most +part be close to the standard orthodoxies. The final forms of these merge +into each other, though they approach the heights by different avenues. +We Americans should look for the great photoplay of to-morrow, that will +mark a decade or a century, that prophesies of the flags made one, the +crowds in brotherhood. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +RELIGIOUS SPLENDOR + + +As far as the photoplay is concerned, religious emotion is a form of +crowd-emotion. In the most conventional and rigid church sense this phase +can be conveyed more adequately by the motion picture than by the stage. +There is little, of course, for the anti-ritualist in the art-world +anywhere. The thing that makes cathedrals real shrines in the eye of the +reverent traveller makes them, with their religious processions and the +like, impressive in splendor-films. + +For instance, I have long remembered the essentials of the film, The +Death of Thomas Becket. It may not compare in technique with some of our +present moving picture achievements, but the idea must have been +particularly adapted to the film medium. The story has stayed in my mind +with great persistence, not only as a narrative, but as the first hint to +me that orthodox religious feeling has here an undeveloped field. + +Green tells the story in this way, in his History of the English +People:-- + +"Four knights of the King's court, stirred to outrage by a passionate +outburst of their master's wrath, crossed the sea and on the twenty-ninth +of December forced their way into the Archbishop's palace. After a stormy +parley with him in his chamber they withdrew to arm. Thomas was hurried +by his clerks into the cathedral, but as he reached the steps leading +from the transept into the choir his pursuers burst in from the +cloisters. 'Where,' cried Reginald Fitzurse, 'is the traitor, Thomas +Becket?' 'Here am I, no traitor, but a priest of God,' he replied. And +again descending the steps he placed himself with his back against a +pillar and fronted his foes.... The brutal murder was received with a +thrill of horror throughout Christendom. Miracles were wrought at the +martyr's tomb, etc...." + +It is one of the few deaths in moving pictures that have given me the +sense that I was watching a tragedy. Most of them affect one, if they +have any effect, like exhibits in an art gallery, as does Josef Israels' +oil painting, Alone in the World. We admire the technique, and as for +emotion, we feel the picturesqueness only. But here the church +procession, the robes, the candles, the vaulting overhead, the whole +visualized cathedral mood has the power over the reverent eye it has in +life, and a touch more. + +It is not a private citizen who is struck down. Such a taking off would +have been but nominally impressive, no matter how well acted. Private +deaths in the films, to put it another way, are but narrative statements. +It is not easy to convey their spiritual significance. Take, for +instance, the death of John Goderic, in the film version of Gilbert +Parker's The Seats of the Mighty. The major leaves this world in the +first third of the story. The photoplay use of his death is, that he may +whisper in the ear of Robert Moray to keep certain letters of La +Pompadour well hidden. The fact that it is the desire of a dying man +gives sharpness to his request. Later in the story Moray is hard-pressed +by the villain for those same papers. Then the scene of the death is +flashed for an instant on the screen, representing the hero's memory of +the event. It is as though he should recollect and renew a solemn oath. +The documents are more important than John Goderic. His departure is but +one of their attributes. So it is in any film. There is no emotional +stimulation in the final departure of a non-public character to bring +tears, such tears as have been provoked by the novel or the stage over +the death of Sidney Carton or Faust's Marguerite or the like. + +All this, to make sharper the fact that the murder of Becket the +archbishop is a climax. The great Church and hierarchy are profaned. The +audience feels the same thrill of horror that went through Christendom. +We understand why miracles were wrought at the martyr's tomb. + +In the motion pictures the entrance of a child into the world is a mere +family episode, not a climax, when it is the history of private people. +For instance, several little strangers come into the story of Enoch +Arden. They add beauty, and are links in the chain of events. Still they +are only one of many elements of idyllic charm in the village of Annie. +Something that in real life is less valuable than a child is the goal of +each tiny tableau, some coming or departure or the like that affects the +total plot. But let us imagine a production that would chronicle the +promise to Abraham, and the vision that came with it. Let the film show +the final gift of Isaac to the aged Sarah, even the boy who is the +beginning of a race that shall be as the stars of heaven and the sands of +the sea for multitude. This could be made a pageant of power and glory. +The crowd-emotions, patriotic fires, and religious exaltations on which +it turns could be given in noble procession and the tiny fellow on the +pillow made the mystic centre of the whole. The story of the coming of +Samuel, the dedicated little prophet, might be told on similar terms. + +The real death in the photoplay is the ritualistic death, the real birth +is the ritualistic birth, and the cathedral mood of the motion picture +which goes with these and is close to these in many of its phases, is an +inexhaustible resource. + +The film corporations fear religious questions, lest offence be given to +this sect or that. So let such denominations as are in the habit of +cooperating, themselves take over this medium, not gingerly, but +whole-heartedly, as in mediaeval time the hierarchy strengthened its hold +on the people with the marvels of Romanesque and Gothic architecture. +This matter is further discussed in the seventeenth chapter, entitled +"Progress and Endowment." + +But there is a field wherein the commercial man will not be accused of +heresy or sacrilege, which builds on ritualistic birth and death and +elements akin thereto. This the established producer may enter without +fear. Which brings us to The Battle Hymn of the Republic, issued by the +American Vitagraph Company in 1911. This film should be studied in the +High Schools and Universities till the canons of art for which it stands +are established in America. The director was Larry Trimble. All honor to +him. + +The patriotism of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, if taken literally, +deals with certain aspects of the Civil War. But the picture is +transfigured by so marked a devotion, that it is the main illustration in +this work of the religious photoplay. + +The beginning shows President Lincoln in the White House brooding over +the lack of response to his last call for troops. (He is impersonated by +Ralph Ince.) He and Julia Ward Howe are looking out of the window on a +recruiting headquarters that is not busy. (Mrs. Howe is impersonated by +Julia S. Gordon.) Another scene shows an old mother in the West refusing +to let her son enlist. (This woman is impersonated by Mrs. Maurice.) The +father has died in the war. The sword hangs on the wall. Later Julia Ward +Howe is shown in her room asleep at midnight, then rising in a trance and +writing the Battle Hymn at a table by the bed. + +The pictures that might possibly have passed before her mind during the +trance are thrown upon the screen. The phrases they illustrate are not in +the final order of the poem, but in the possible sequence in which they +went on the paper in the first sketch. The dream panorama is not a +literal discussion of abolitionism or states' rights. It illustrates +rather the Hebraic exultation applied to all lands and times. "Mine eyes +have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord"; a gracious picture of the +nativity. (Edith Storey impersonates Mary the Virgin.) "I have seen him +in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps" and "They have builded him +an altar in the evening dews and damps"--for these are given symbolic +pageants of the Holy Sepulchre crusaders. + +Then there is a visible parable, showing a marketplace in some wicked +capital, neither Babylon, Tyre, nor Nineveh, but all of them in essential +character. First come spectacles of rejoicing, cruelty, and waste. Then +from Heaven descend flood and fire, brimstone and lightning. It is like +the judgment of the Cities of the Plain. Just before the overthrow, the +line is projected upon the screen: "He hath loosed the fateful lightning +of his terrible swift sword." Then the heavenly host becomes gradually +visible upon the air, marching toward the audience, almost crossing the +footlights, and blowing their solemn trumpets. With this picture the line +is given us to read: "Our God is marching on." This host appears in the +photoplay as often as the refrain sweeps into the poem. The celestial +company, its imperceptible emergence, its spiritual power when in the +ascendant, is a thing never to be forgotten, a tableau that proves the +motion picture a great religious instrument. + +Then comes a procession indeed. It is as though the audience were +standing at the side of the throne at Doomsday looking down the hill of +Zion toward the little earth. There is a line of those who are to be +judged, leaders from the beginning of history, barbarians with their +crude weapons, classic characters, Caesar and his rivals for fame; +mediaeval figures including Dante meditating; later figures, Richelieu, +Napoleon. Many people march toward the strange glorifying eye of the +camera, growing larger than men, filling the entire field of vision, +disappearing when they are almost upon us. The audience weighs the worth +of their work to the world as the men themselves with downcast eyes seem +to be doing also. The most thrilling figure is Tolstoi in his peasant +smock, coming after the bitter egotists and conquerors. (The +impersonation is by Edward Thomas.) I shall never forget that presence +marching up to the throne invisible with bowed head. This procession is +to illustrate the line: "He is sifting out the hearts of men before his +Judgment Seat." Later Lincoln is pictured on the steps of the White +House. It is a quaint tableau, in the spirit of the old-fashioned Rogers +group. Yet it is masterful for all that. Lincoln is taking the chains +from a cowering slave. This tableau is to illustrate the line: "Let the +hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel." Now it is the end of +the series of visions. It is morning in Mrs. Howe's room. She rises. She +is filled with wonder to find the poem on her table. + +Written to the rousing glory-tune of John Brown's Body the song goes over +the North like wildfire. The far-off home of the widow is shown. She and +the boy read the famous chant in the morning news column. She takes the +old sword from the wall. She gives it to her son and sends him to enlist +with her blessing. In the next picture Lincoln and Mrs. Howe are looking +out of the window where was once the idle recruiting tent. A new army is +pouring by, singing the words that have rallied the nation. Ritualistic +birth and death have been discussed. This film might be said to +illustrate ritualistic birth, death, and resurrection. + +The writer has seen hundreds of productions since this one. He has +described it from memory. It came out in a time when the American people +paid no attention to the producer or the cast. It may have many technical +crudities by present-day standards. But the root of the matter is there. +And Springfield knew it. It was brought back to our town many times. It +was popular in both the fashionable picture show houses and the cheapest, +dirtiest hole in the town. It will soon be reissued by the Vitagraph +Company. Every student of American Art should see this film. + +The same exultation that went into it, the faculty for commanding the +great spirits of history and making visible the unseen powers of the +air, should be applied to Crowd Pictures which interpret the +non-sectarian prayers of the broad human race. + +The pageant of Religious Splendor is the final photoplay form in the +classification which this work seeks to establish. Much of what follows +will be to reenforce the heads of these first discourses. Further comment +on the Religious Photoplay may be found in the eleventh chapter, entitled +"Architecture-in-Motion." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SCULPTURE-IN-MOTION + + +The outline is complete. Now to reenforce it. Pictures of Action Intimacy +and Splendor are the foundation colors in the photoplay, as red, blue, +and yellow are the basis of the rainbow. Action Films might be called the +red section; Intimate Motion Pictures, being colder and quieter, might be +called blue; and Splendor Photoplays called yellow, since that is the hue +of pageants and sunshine. + +Another way of showing the distinction is to review the types of gesture. +The Action Photoplay deals with generalized pantomime: the gesture of the +conventional policeman in contrast with the mannerism of the stereotyped +preacher. The Intimate Film gives us more elusive personal gestures: the +difference between the table manners of two preachers in the same +restaurant, or two policemen. A mark of the Fairy Play is the gesture of +incantation, the sweep of the arm whereby Mab would transform a prince +into a hawk. The other Splendor Films deal with the total gestures of +crowds: the pantomime of a torch-waving mass of men, the drill of an army +on the march, or the bending of the heads of a congregation receiving the +benediction. + +Another way to demonstrate the thesis is to use the old classification of +poetry: dramatic, lyric, epic. The Action Play is a narrow form of the +dramatic. The Intimate Motion Picture is an equivalent of the lyric. In +the seventeenth chapter it is shown that one type of the Intimate might +be classed as imagist. And obviously the Splendor Pictures are the +equivalent of the epic. + +But perhaps the most adequate way of showing the meaning of this outline +is to say that the Action Film is sculpture-in-motion, the Intimate +Photoplay is painting-in-motion, and the Fairy Pageant, along with the +rest of the Splendor Pictures, may be described as architecture-in-motion. +This chapter will discuss the bearing of the phrase sculpture-in-motion. +It will relate directly to chapter two. + +First, gentle and kindly reader, let us discuss sculpture in its most +literal sense: after that, less realistically, but perhaps more +adequately. Let us begin with Annette Kellerman in Neptune's Daughter. +This film has a crude plot constructed to show off Annette's various +athletic resources. It is good photography, and a big idea so far as the +swimming episodes are concerned. An artist haunted by picture-conceptions +equivalent to the musical thoughts back of Wagner's Rhine-maidens could +have made of Annette, in her mermaid's dress, a notable figure. Or a +story akin to the mermaid tale of Hans Christian Andersen, or Matthew +Arnold's poem of the forsaken merman, could have made this picturesque +witch of the salt water truly significant, and still retained the most +beautiful parts of the photoplay as it was exhibited. It is an +exceedingly irrelevant imagination that shows her in other scenes as a +duellist, for instance, because forsooth she can fence. As a child of the +ocean, half fish, half woman, she is indeed convincing. Such mermaids as +this have haunted sailors, and lured them on the rocks to their doom, +from the day the siren sang till the hour the Lorelei sang no more. The +scene with the baby mermaid, when she swims with the pretty creature on +her back, is irresistible. Why are our managers so mechanical? Why do +they flatten out at the moment the fancy of the tiniest reader of +fairy-tales begins to be alive? Most of Annette's support were stage +dummies. Neptune was a lame Santa Claus with cotton whiskers. + +But as for the bearing of the film on this chapter: the human figure is +within its rights whenever it is as free from self-consciousness as was +the life-radiating Annette in the heavenly clear waters of Bermuda. On +the other hand, Neptune and his pasteboard diadem and wooden-pointed +pitchfork, should have put on his dressing-gown and retired. As a toe +dancer in an alleged court scene, on land, Annette was a mere simperer. +Possibly Pavlowa as a swimmer in Bermuda waters would have been as much +of a mistake. Each queen to her kingdom. + +For living, moving sculpture, the human eye requires a costume and a part +in unity with the meaning of that particular figure. There is the Greek +dress of Mordkin in the arrow dance. There is Annette's breast covering +of shells, and wonderful flowing mermaid hair, clothing her as the +midnight does the moon. The new costume freedom of the photoplay allows +such limitation of clothing as would be probable when one is honestly in +touch with wild nature and preoccupied with vigorous exercise. Thus the +cave-man and desert island narratives, though seldom well done, when +produced with verisimilitude, give an opportunity for the native human +frame in the logical wrappings of reeds and skins. But those who in a +silly hurry seek excuses, are generally merely ridiculous, like the +barefoot man who is terribly tender about walking on the pebbles, or the +wild man who is white as celery or grass under a board. There is no short +cut to vitality. + +A successful literal use of sculpture is in the film Oil and Water. +Blanche Sweet is the leader of the play within a play which occupies the +first reel. Here the Olympians and the Muses, with a grace that we fancy +was Greek, lead a dance that traces the story of the spring, summer, and +autumn of life. Finally the supple dancers turn gray and old and die, but +not before they have given us a vision from the Ionian islands. The play +might have been inspired from reading Keats' Lamia, but is probably +derived from the work of Isadora Duncan. This chapter has hereafter only +a passing word or two on literal sculptural effects. It has more in mind +the carver's attitude toward all that passes before the eye. + +The sculptor George Gray Barnard is responsible for none of the views in +this discourse, but he has talked to me at length about his sense of +discovery in watching the most ordinary motion pictures, and his delight +in following them with their endless combinations of masses and flowing +surfaces. + +The little far-away people on the old-fashioned speaking stage do not +appeal to the plastic sense in this way. They are, by comparison, mere +bits of pasteboard with sweet voices, while, on the other hand, the +photoplay foreground is full of dumb giants. The bodies of these giants +are in high sculptural relief. Where the lights are quite glaring and the +photography is bad, many of the figures are as hard in their impact on +the eye as lime-white plaster-casts, no matter what the clothing. There +are several passages of this sort in the otherwise beautiful Enoch Arden, +where the shipwrecked sailor is depicted on his desert island in the +glaring sun. + +What materials should the photoplay figures suggest? There are as many +possible materials as there are subjects for pictures and tone schemes +to be considered. But we will take for illustration wood, bronze, and +marble, since they have been used in the old sculptural art. + +There is found in most art shows a type of carved wood gargoyle where the +work and the subject are at one, not only in the color of the wood, but +in the way the material masses itself, in bulk betrays its qualities. We +will suppose a moving picture humorist who is in the same mood as the +carver. He chooses a story of quaint old ladies, street gamins, and fat +aldermen. Imagine the figures with the same massing and interplay +suddenly invested with life, yet giving to the eye a pleasure kindred to +that which is found in carved wood, and bringing to the fancy a similar +humor. + +Or there is a type of Action Story where the mood of the figures is that +of bronze, with the aesthetic resources of that metal: its elasticity; its +emphasis on the tendon, ligament, and bone, rather than on the muscle; +and an attribute that we will call the panther-like quality. Hermon A. +MacNeil has a memorable piece of work in the yard of the architect Shaw, +at Lake Forest, Illinois. It is called "The Sun Vow." A little Indian is +shooting toward the sun, while the old warrior, crouching immediately +behind him, follows with his eye the direction of the arrow. Few pieces +of sculpture come readily to mind that show more happily the qualities of +bronze as distinguished from other materials. To imagine such a group +done in marble, carved wood, or Della Robbia ware is to destroy the very +image in the fancy. + +The photoplay of the American Indian should in most instances be planned +as bronze in action. The tribes should not move so rapidly that the +panther-like elasticity is lost in the riding, running, and scalping. On +the other hand, the aborigines should be far from the temperateness of +marble. + +Mr. Edward S. Curtis, the super-photographer, has made an Ethnological +collection of photographs of our American Indians. This work of a +life-time, a supreme art achievement, shows the native as a figure in +bronze. Mr. Curtis' photoplay, The Land of the Head Hunters (World Film +Corporation), a romance of the Indians of the North-West, abounds in +noble bronzes. + +I have gone through my old territories as an art student, in the Chicago +Art Institute and the Metropolitan Museum, of late, in special +excursions, looking for sculpture, painting, and architecture that might +be the basis for the photoplays of the future. + +The Bacchante of Frederick MacMonnies is in bronze in the Metropolitan +Museum and in bronze replica in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. There is +probably no work that more rejoices the hearts of the young art students +in either city. The youthful creature illustrates a most joyous leap into +the air. She is high on one foot with the other knee lifted. She holds a +bunch of grapes full-arm's length. Her baby, clutched in the other hand, +is reaching up with greedy mouth toward the fruit. The bacchante body is +glistening in the light. This is joy-in-bronze as the Sun Vow is +power-in-bronze. This special story could not be told in another medium. +I have seen in Paris a marble copy of this Bacchante. It is as though it +were done in soap. On the other hand, many of the renaissance Italian +sculptors have given us children in marble in low relief, dancing like +lilies in the wind. They could not be put into bronze. + +The plot of the Action Photoplay is literally or metaphorically a chase +down the road or a hurdle-race. It might be well to consider how typical +figures for such have been put into carved material. There are two bronze +statues that have their replicas in all museums. They are generally one +on either side of the main hall, towering above the second-story +balustrade. First, the statue of Gattamelata, a Venetian general, by +Donatello. The original is in Padua. Then there is the figure of +Bartolommeo Colleoni. The original is in Venice. It is by Verrocchio and +Leopardi. These equestrians radiate authority. There is more action in +them than in any cowboy hordes I have ever beheld zipping across the +screen. Look upon them and ponder long, prospective author-producer. Even +in a simple chase-picture, the speed must not destroy the chance to enjoy +the modelling. If you would give us mounted legions, destined to conquer, +let any one section of the film, if it is stopped and studied, be +grounded in the same bronze conception. The Assyrian commanders in +Griffith's Judith would, without great embarrassment, stand this test. + +But it may not be the pursuit of an enemy we have in mind. It may be a +spring celebration, horsemen in Arcadia, going to some happy tournament. +Where will we find our precedents for such a cavalcade? Go to any museum. +Find the Parthenon room. High on the wall is the copy of the famous +marble frieze of the young citizens who are in the procession in praise +of Athena. Such a rhythm of bodies and heads and the feet of proud +steeds, and above all the profiles of thoroughbred youths, no city has +seen since that day. The delicate composition relations, ever varying, +ever refreshing, amid the seeming sameness of formula of rider behind +rider, have been the delight of art students the world over, and shall so +remain. No serious observer escapes the exhilaration of this company. Let +it be studied by the author-producer though it be but an idyl in disguise +that his scenario calls for: merry young farmers hurrying to the State +Fair parade, boys making all speed to the political rally. + +Buy any three moving picture magazines you please. Mark the illustrations +that are massive, in high relief, with long lines in their edges. Cut out +and sort some of these. I have done it on the table where I write. After +throwing away all but the best specimens, I have four different kinds of +sculpture. First, behold the inevitable cowboy. He is on a ramping +horse, filling the entire outlook. The steed rears, while facing us. The +cowboy waves his hat. There is quite such an animal by Frederick +MacMonnies, wrought in bronze, set up on a gate to a park in Brooklyn. It +is not the identical color of the photoplay animal, but the bronze +elasticity is the joy in both. + +Here is a scene of a masked monk, carrying off a fainting girl. The hero +intercepts him. The figures of the lady and the monk are in sufficient +sculptural harmony to make a formal sculptural group for an art +exhibition. The picture of the hero, strong, with well-massed surfaces, +is related to both. The fact that he is in evening dress does not alter +his monumental quality. All three are on a stone balcony that relates +itself to the general largeness of spirit in the group, and the +semi-classic dress of the maiden. No doubt the title is: The Morning +Following the Masquerade Ball. This group could be made in unglazed clay, +in four colors. + +Here is an American lieutenant with two ladies. The three are suddenly +alert over the approach of the villain, who is not yet in the picture. +In costume it is an everyday group, but those three figures are related +to one another, and the trees behind them, in simple sculptural terms. +The lieutenant, as is to be expected, looks forth in fierce readiness. +One girl stands with clasped hands. The other points to the danger. The +relations of these people to one another may seem merely dramatic to the +superficial observer, but the power of the group is in the fact that it +is monumental. I could imagine it done in four different kinds of rare +tropical wood, carved unpolished. + +Here is a scene of storm and stress in an office where the hero is caught +with seemingly incriminating papers. The table is in confusion. The room +is filling with people, led by one accusing woman. Is this also +sculpture? Yes. The figures are in high relief. Even the surfaces of the +chairs and the littered table are massive, and the eye travels without +weariness, as it should do in sculpture, from the hero to the furious +woman, then to the attorney behind her, then to the two other revilers, +then to the crowd in three loose rhythmic ranks. The eye makes this +journey, not from space to space, or fabric to fabric, but first of all +from mass to mass. It is sculpture, but it is the sort that can be done +in no medium but the moving picture itself, and therefore it is one goal +of this argument. + +But there are several other goals. One of the sculpturesque resources of +the photoplay is that the human countenance can be magnified many times, +till it fills the entire screen. Some examples are in rather low relief, +portraits approximating certain painters. But if they are on sculptural +terms, and are studies of the faces of thinking men, let the producer +make a pilgrimage to Washington for his precedent. There, in the rotunda +of the capitol, is the face of Lincoln by Gutzon Borglum. It is one of +the eminently successful attempts to get at the secret of the countenance +by enlarging it much, and concentrating the whole consideration there. + +The photoplay producer, seemingly without taking thought, is apt to show +a sculptural sense in giving us Newfoundland fishermen, clad in oilskins. +The background may have an unconscious Winslow Homer reminiscence. In the +foreground our hardy heroes fill the screen, and dripping with sea-water +become wave-beaten granite, yet living creatures none the less. Imagine +some one chapter from the story of Little Em'ly in David Copperfield, +retold in the films. Show us Ham Peggotty and old Mr. Peggotty in +colloquy over their nets. There are many powerful bronze groups to be had +from these two, on to the heroic and unselfish death of Ham, rescuing his +enemy in storm and lightning. + +I have seen one rich picture of alleged cannibal tribes. It was a comedy +about a missionary. But the aborigines were like living ebony and silver. +That was long ago. Such things come too much by accident. The producer is +not sufficiently aware that any artistic element in his list of +productions that is allowed to go wild, that has not had full analysis, +reanalysis, and final conservation, wastes his chance to attain supreme +mastery. + +Open your history of sculpture, and dwell upon those illustrations which +are not the normal, reposeful statues, but the exceptional, such as have +been listed for this chapter. Imagine that each dancing, galloping, or +fighting figure comes down into the room life-size. Watch it against a +dark curtain. Let it go through a series of gestures in harmony with the +spirit of the original conception, and as rapidly as possible, not to +lose nobility. If you have the necessary elasticity, imagine the figures +wearing the costumes of another period, yet retaining in their motions +the same essential spirit. Combine them in your mind with one or two +kindred figures, enlarged till they fill the end of the room. You have +now created the beginning of an Action Photoplay in your own fancy. + +Do this with each most energetic classic till your imagination flags. I +do not want to be too dogmatic, but it seems to me this is one way to +evolve real Action Plays. It would, perhaps, be well to substitute this +for the usual method of evolving them from old stage material or +newspaper clippings. + +There is in the Metropolitan Museum a noble modern group, the Mares of +Diomedes, by the aforementioned Gutzon Borglum. It is full of material +for the meditations of a man who wants to make a film of a stampede. The +idea is that Hercules, riding his steed bareback, guides it in a circle. +He is fascinating the horses he has been told to capture. They are held +by the mesmerism of the circular path and follow him round and round till +they finally fall from exhaustion. Thus the Indians of the West capture +wild ponies, and Borglum, a far western man, imputes the method to +Hercules. The bronze group shows a segment of this circle. The whirlwind +is at its height. The mares are wild to taste the flesh of Hercules. +Whoever is to photograph horses, let him study the play of light and +color and muscle-texture in this bronze. And let no group of horses ever +run faster than these of Borglum. + +An occasional hint of a Michelangelo figure or gesture appears for a +flash in the films. Young artist in the audience, does it pass you by? +Open your history of sculpture again and look at the usual list of +Michelangelo groups. Suppose the seated majesty of Moses should rise, +what would be the quality of the action? Suppose the sleeping figures of +the Medician tombs should wake, or those famous slaves should break their +bands, or David again hurl the stone. Would not their action be as heroic +as their quietness? Is it not possible to have a Michelangelo of +photoplay sculpture? Should we not look for him in the fulness of time? +His figures might come to us in the skins of the desert island solitary, +or as cave men and women, or as mermaids and mermen, and yet have a force +and grandeur akin to that of the old Italian. + +Rodin's famous group of the citizens of Calais is an example of the +expression of one particular idea by a special technical treatment. The +producer who tells a kindred story to that of the siege of Calais, and +the final going of these humble men to their doom, will have a hero-tale +indeed. It will be not only sculpture-in-action, but a great Crowd +Picture. It begins to be seen that the possibilities of monumental +achievement in the films transcend the narrow boundaries of the Action +Photoplay. Why not conceptions as heroic as Rodin's Hand of God, where +the first pair are clasped in the gigantic fingers of their maker in the +clay from which they came? + +Finally, I desire in moving pictures, not the stillness, but the majesty +of sculpture. I do not advocate for the photoplay the mood of the Venus +of Milo. But let us turn to that sister of hers, the great Victory of +Samothrace, that spreads her wings at the head of the steps of the +Louvre, and in many an art gallery beside. When you are appraising a new +film, ask yourself: "Is this motion as rapid, as godlike, as the sweep of +the wings of the Samothracian?" Let her be the touchstone of the Action +Drama, for nothing can be more swift than the winged Gods, nothing can be +more powerful than the oncoming of the immortals. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PAINTING-IN-MOTION + + +This chapter is founded on the delicate effects that may be worked out +from cosy interior scenes, close to the camera. It relates directly to +chapter three. + +While the Intimate-and-friendly Motion Picture may be in high sculptural +relief, its characteristic manifestations are in low relief. The +situations show to better advantage when they seem to be paintings rather +than monumental groups. + +Turn to your handful of motion picture magazines and mark the +illustrations that look the most like paintings. Cut them out. Winnow +them several times. I have before me, as a final threshing from such an +experiment, five pictures. Each one approximates a different school. + +Here is a colonial Virginia maiden by the hearth of the inn. Bending over +her in a cherishing way is the negro maid. On the other side, the +innkeeper shows a kindred solicitude. A dishevelled traveller sleeps +huddled up in the corner. The costume of the man fades into the velvety +shadows of the wall. His face is concealed. His hair blends with the soft +background. The clothing of the other three makes a patch of light gray. +Added to this is the gayety of special textures: the turban of the +negress, a trimming on the skirt of the heroine, the silkiness of the +innkeeper's locks, the fabric of the broom in the hearthlight, the +pattern of the mortar lines round the bricks of the hearth. The tableau +is a satisfying scheme in two planes and many textures. Here is another +sort of painting. The young mother in her pretty bed is smiling on her +infant. The cot and covers and flesh tints have gentle scales of +difference, all within one tone of the softest gray. Her hair is quite +dark. It relates to the less luminous black of the coat of the physician +behind the bed and the dress of the girl-friend bending over her. The +nurse standing by the doctor is a figure of the same gray-white as the +bed. Within the pattern of the velvety-blacks there are as many subtle +gradations as in the pattern of the gray-whites. The tableau is a +satisfying scheme in black and gray, with practically one non-obtrusive +texture throughout. + +Here is a picture of an Englishman and his wife, in India. It might be +called sculptural, but for the magnificence of the turban of the rajah +who converses with them, the glitter of the light round his shoulders, +and the scheme of shadow out of which the three figures rise. The +arrangement remotely reminds one of several of Rembrandt's semi-oriental +musings. + +Here is a picture of Mary Pickford as Fanchon the Cricket. She is in the +cottage with the strange old mother. I have seen a painting in this mood +by the Greek Nickolas Gysis. + +The Intimate-and-friendly Moving Picture, the photoplay of +painting-in-motion, need not be indoors as long as it has the +native-heath mood. It is generally keyed to the hearthstone, and keeps +quite close to it. But how well I remember when the first French +photoplays began to come. Though unintelligent in some respects, the +photography and subject-matter of many of them made one think of that +painter of gentle out-of-door scenes, Jean Charles Cazin. Here is our +last clipping, which is also in a spirit allied to Cazin. The heroine, +accompanied by an aged shepherd and his dog, are in the foreground. The +sheep are in the middle distance on the edge of the river. There is a +noble hill beyond the gently flowing water. Here is intimacy and +friendliness in the midst of the big out of doors. + +If these five photo-paintings were on good paper enlarged to twenty by +twenty-four inches, they would do to frame and hang on the wall of any +study, for a month or so. And after the relentless test of time, I would +venture that some one of the five would prove a permanent addition to the +household gods. + +Hastily made photographs selected from the films are often put in front +of the better theatres to advertise the show. Of late they are making +them two by three feet and sometimes several times larger. Here is a +commercial beginning of an art gallery, but not enough pains are taken to +give the selections a complete art gallery dignity. Why not have the most +beautiful scenes in front of the theatres, instead of those alleged to be +the most thrilling? Why not rest the fevered and wandering eye, rather +than make one more attempt to take it by force? + +Let the reader supply another side of the argument by looking at the +illustrations in any history of painting. Let him select the pictures +that charm him most, and think of them enlarged and transferred bodily to +one corner of the room, as he has thought of the sculpture. Let them take +on motion without losing their charm of low relief, or their serene +composition within the four walls of the frame. As for the motion, let it +be a further extension of the drawing. Let every gesture be a bolder but +not less graceful brush-stroke. + +The Metropolitan Museum has a Van Dyck that appeals equally to one's sense +of beauty and one's feeling for humor. It is a portrait of James Stuart, +Duke of Lennox, and I cannot see how the author-producer-photographer can +look upon it without having it set his imagination in a glow. Every small +town dancing set has a James like this. The man and the greyhound are the +same witless breed, the kind that achieve a result by their clean-limbed +elegance alone. Van Dyck has painted the two with what might be called a +greyhound brush-stroke, a style of handling that is nothing but courtly +convention and strut to the point of genius. He is as far from the +meditative spirituality of Rembrandt as could well be imagined. + +Conjure up a scene in the hereditary hall after a hunt (or golf +tournament), in which a man like this Duke of Lennox has a noble parley +with his lady (or dancing partner), she being a sweet and stupid swan (or +a white rabbit) by the same sign that he is a noble and stupid greyhound. +Be it an ancient or modern episode, the story could be told in the tone +and with well-nigh the brushwork of Van Dyck. + +Then there is a picture my teachers, Chase and Henri, were never weary of +praising, the Girl with the Parrot, by Manet. Here continence in nervous +force, expressed by low relief and restraint in tone, is carried to its +ultimate point. I should call this an imagist painting, made before there +were such people as imagist poets. It is a perpetual sermon to those that +would thresh around to no avail, be they orators, melodramatists, or +makers of photoplays with an alleged heart-interest. + +Let us consider Gilbert Stuart's portrait of Washington. This painter's +notion of personal dignity has far more of the intellectual quality than +Van Dyck. He loves to give us stately, able, fairly conscientious gentry, +rather than overdone royalty. His work represents a certain mood in +design that in architecture is called colonial. Such portraits go with +houses like Mount Vernon. Let the photographer study the flat blacks in +the garments. Let him note the transparent impression of the laces and +flesh-tints that seem to be painted on glass, observing especially the +crystalline whiteness of the wigs. Let him inspect also the +silhouette-like outlines, noting the courtly self-possession they convey. +Then let the photographer, the producer, and the author, be they one man +or six men, stick to this type of picturization through one entire +production, till any artist in the audience will say, "This photoplay was +painted by a pupil of Gilbert Stuart"; and the layman will say, "It looks +like those stately days." And let us not have battle, but a Mount Vernon +fireside tale. + +Both the Chicago and New York museums contain many phases of one same +family group, painted by George de Forest Brush. There is a touch of the +hearthstone priestess about the woman. The force of sex has turned to the +austere comforting passion of motherhood. From the children, under the +wings of this spirit, come special delicate powers of life. There is +nothing tense or restless about them, yet they embody action, the beating +of the inner fire, without which all outer action is mockery. +Hearthstone tales keyed to the mood and using the brush stroke that +delineates this especial circle would be unmistakable in their +distinction. + +Charles W. Hawthorne has pictures in Chicago and New York that imply the +Intimate-and-friendly Photoplay. The Trousseau in the Metropolitan Museum +shows a gentle girl, an unfashionable home-body with a sweetly sheltered +air. Behind her glimmers the patient mother's face. The older woman is +busy about fitting the dress. The picture is a tribute to the qualities +of many unknown gentlewomen. Such an illumination as this, on faces so +innocently eloquent, is the light that should shine on the countenance of +the photoplay actress who really desires greatness in the field of the +Intimate Motion Picture. There is in Chicago, Hawthorne's painting of +Sylvia: a little girl standing with her back to a mirror, a few blossoms +in one hand and a vase of flowers on the mirror shelf. It is as sound a +composition as Hawthorne ever produced. The painting of the child is +another tribute to the physical-spiritual textures from which humanity is +made. Ah, you producer who have grown squeaky whipping your people into +what you called action, consider the dynamics of these figures that +would be almost motionless in real life. Remember there must be a +spirit-action under the other, or all is dead. + +Yet that soul may be the muse of Comedy. If Hawthorne and his kind are +not your fashion, turn to models that have their feet on the earth +always, yet successfully aspire. Key some of your intimate humorous +scenes to the Dutch Little Masters of Painting, such pictures as Gerard +Terburg's Music Lesson in the Chicago Art Institute. The thing is as well +designed as a Dutch house, wind-mill, or clock. And it is more elegant +than any of these. There is humor enough in the picture to last one reel +through. The society dame of the period, in her pretty raiment, fingers +the strings of her musical instrument, while the master stands by her +with the baton. The painter has enjoyed the satire, from her elegant +little hands to the teacher's well-combed locks. It is very plain that +she does not want to study music with any sincerity, and he does not +desire to develop the ability of this particular person. There may be a +flirtation in the background. Yet these people are not hollow as gourds, +and they are not caricatured. The Dutch Little Masters have indulged in +numberless characterizations of mundane humanity. But they are never so +preoccupied with the story that it is an anecdote rather than a picture. +It is, first of all, a piece of elegant painting-fabric. Next it is a +scrap of Dutch philosophy or aspiration. + +Let Whistler turn over in his grave while we enlist him for the cause of +democracy. One view of the technique of this man might summarize it thus: +fastidiousness in choice of subject, the picture well within the frame, +low relief, a Velasquez study of tones and a Japanese study of spaces. +Let us, dear and patient reader, particularly dwell upon the spacing. A +Whistler, or a good Japanese print, might be described as a kaleidoscope +suddenly arrested and transfixed at the moment of most exquisite +relations in the pieces of glass. An Intimate Play of a kindred sort +would start to turning the kaleidoscope again, losing fine relations only +to gain those which are more exquisite and novel. All motion pictures +might be characterized as _space measured without sound, plus time +measured without sound_. This description fits in a special way the +delicate form of the Intimate Motion Picture, and there can be studied +out, free from irrelevant issues. + +As to _space measured without sound_. Suppose it is a humorous +characterization of comfortable family life, founded on some Dutch Little +Master. The picture measures off its spaces in harmony. The triangle +occupied by the little child's dress is in definite relation to the +triangle occupied by the mother's costume. To these two patterns the +space measured off by the boy's figure is adjusted, and all of them are +as carefully related to the shapes cut out of the background by the +figures. No matter how the characters move about in the photoplay, these +pattern shapes should relate to one another in a definite design. The +exact tone value of each one and their precise nearness or distance to +one another have a deal to do with the final effect. + +We go to the photoplay to enjoy right and splendid picture-motions, to +feel a certain thrill when the pieces of kaleidoscope glass slide into +new places. Instead of moving on straight lines, as they do in the +mechanical toy, they progress in strange curves that are part of the very +shapes into which they fall. + +Consider: first came the photograph. Then motion was added to the +photograph. We must use this order in our judgment. If it is ever to +evolve into a national art, it must first be good picture, then good +motion. + +Belasco's attitude toward the stage has been denounced by the purists +because he makes settings too large a portion of his story-telling, and +transforms his theatre into the paradise of the property-man. But this +very quality of the well spaced setting, if you please, has made his +chance for the world's moving picture anthology. As reproduced by Jesse +K. Lasky the Belasco production is the only type of the old-line drama +that seems really made to be the basis of a moving picture play. Not +always, but as a general rule, Belasco suffers less detriment in the +films than other men. Take, for instance, the Belasco-Lasky production of +The Rose of the Rancho with Bessie Barriscale as the heroine. It has many +highly modelled action-tableaus, and others that come under the +classification of this chapter. When I was attending it not long ago, +here in my home town, the fair companion at my side said that one scene +looked like a painting by Sorolla y Bastida, the Spaniard. It is the +episode where the Rose sends back her servant to inquire the hero's +name. As a matter of fact there were Sorollas and Zuloagas all through +the piece. The betrothal reception with flying confetti was a satisfying +piece of Spanish splendor. It was space music indeed, space measured +without sound. Incidentally the cast is to be congratulated on its +picturesque acting, especially Miss Barriscale in her impersonation of +the Rose. + +It is harder to grasp the other side of the paradox, picture-motions +considered as _time measured without sound_. But think of a lively and +humoresque clock that does not tick and takes only an hour to record a +day. Think of a noiseless electric vehicle, where you are looking out of +the windows, going down the smooth boulevard of Wonderland. Consider a +film with three simple time-elements: (1) that of the pursuer, (2) the +pursued, (3) the observation vehicle of the camera following the road and +watching both of them, now faster, now slower than they, as the +photographer overtakes the actors or allows them to hurry ahead. The +plain chase is a bore because there are only these three time-elements. +But the chase principle survives in every motion picture and we simply +need more of this sort of time measurement, better considered. The more +the non-human objects, the human actors, and the observer move at a +varying pace, the greater chances there are for what might be called +time-and-space music. + +No two people in the same room should gesture at one mechanical rate, or +lift their forks or spoons, keeping obviously together. Yet it stands to +reason that each successive tableau should be not only a charming +picture, but the totals of motion should be an orchestration of various +speeds, of abrupt, graceful, and seemingly awkward progress, worked into +a silent symphony. + +Supposing it is a fisher-maiden's romance. In the background the waves +toss in one tempo. Owing to the sail, the boat rocks in another. In the +foreground the tree alternately bends and recovers itself in the breeze, +making more opposition than the sail. In still another time-unit the +smoke rolls from the chimney, making no resistance to the wind. In +another unit, the lovers pace the sand. Yet there is one least common +multiple in which all move. This the producing genius should sense and +make part of the dramatic structure, and it would have its bearing on the +periodic appearance of the minor and major crises. + +Films like this, you say, would be hard to make. Yes. Here is the place +to affirm that the one-reel Intimate Photoplay will no doubt be the form +in which this type of time-and-space music is developed. The music of +silent motion is the most abstract of moving picture attributes and will +probably remain the least comprehended. Like the quality of Walter +Pater's Marius the Epicurean, or that of Shelley's Hymn to Intellectual +Beauty, it will not satisfy the sudden and the brash. + + * * * * * + +The reader will find in his round of the picture theatres many single +scenes and parts of plays that elucidate the title of this chapter. Often +the first two-thirds of the story will fit it well. Then the producers, +finding that, for reasons they do not understand, with the best and most +earnest actors they cannot work the three reels into an emotional climax, +introduce some stupid disaster and rescue utterly irrelevant to the +character-parts and the paintings that have preceded. Whether the alleged +thesis be love, hate, or ambition, cottage charm, daisy dell sweetness, +or the ivy beauty of an ancient estate, the resource for the final punch +seems to be something like a train-wreck. But the transfiguration of the +actors, not their destruction or rescue, is the goal. The last moment of +the play is great, not when it is a grandiose salvation from a burning +house, that knocks every delicate preceding idea in the head, but a +tableau that is as logical as the awakening of the Sleeping Beauty after +the hero has explored all the charmed castle. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +FURNITURE, TRAPPINGS, AND INVENTIONS IN MOTION + + +The Action Pictures are sculpture-in-motion, the Intimate Pictures, +paintings-in-motion, the Splendor Pictures, many and diverse. It seems +far-fetched, perhaps, to complete the analogy and say they are +architecture-in-motion; yet, patient reader, unless I am mistaken, that +assumption can be given a value in time without straining your +imagination. + +Landscape gardening, mural painting, church building, and furniture +making as well, are some of the things that come under the head of +architecture. They are discussed between the covers of any architectural +magazine. There is a particular relation in the photoplay between Crowd +Pictures and landscape conceptions, between Patriotic Films and mural +paintings, between Religious Films and architecture. And there is just as +much of a relation between Fairy Tales and furniture, which same is +discussed in this chapter. + +Let us return to Moving Day, chapter four. This idea has been represented +many times with a certain sameness because the producers have not thought +out the philosophy behind it. A picture that is all action is a plague, +one that is all elephantine and pachydermatous pageant is a bore, and, +most emphatically, a film that is all mechanical legerdemain is a +nuisance. The possible charm in a so-called trick picture is in +eliminating the tricks, giving them dignity till they are no longer such, +but thoughts in motion and made visible. In Moving Day the shoes are the +most potent. They go through a drama that is natural to them. To march +without human feet inside is but to exaggerate themselves. It would not +be amusing to have them walk upside down, for instance. As long as the +worn soles touch the pavement, we unconsciously conjure up the character +of the absent owners, about whom the shoes are indeed gossiping. So let +the remainder of the furniture keep still while the shoes do their best. +Let us call to mind a classic fairy-tale involving shoes that are +magical: The Seven Leagued Boots, for example, or The Enchanted +Moccasins, or the footwear of Puss in Boots. How gorgeous and embroidered +any of these should be, and at a crisis what sly antics they should be +brought to play, without fidgeting all over the shop! Cinderella's +Slipper is not sufficiently the heroine in moving pictures of that story. +It should be the tiny leading lady of the piece, in the same sense the +mighty steam-engine is the hero of the story in chapter two. The peasants +when they used to tell the tale by the hearth fire said the shoe was made +of glass. This was in mediaeval Europe, at a time when glass was much more +of a rarity. The material was chosen to imply a sort of jewelled +strangeness from the start. When Cinderella loses it in her haste, it +should flee at once like a white mouse, to hide under the sofa. It should +be pictured there with special artifice, so that the sensuous little foot +of every girl-child in the audience will tingle to wear it. It should +move a bit when the prince comes frantically hunting his lady, and peep +out just in time for that royal personage to spy it. Even at the +coronation it should be the centre of the ritual, more gazed at than the +crown, and on as dazzling a cushion. The final taking on of the slipper +by the lady should be as stately a ceremony as the putting of the circlet +of gold on her aureole hair. So much for Cinderella. But there are novel +stories that should be evolved by preference, about new sorts of magic +shoes. + +We have not exhausted Moving Day. The chairs kept still through the +Cinderella discourse. Now let them take their innings. Instead of having +all of them dance about, invest but one with an inner life. Let its +special attributes show themselves but gradually, reaching their climax +at the highest point of excitement in the reel, and being an integral +part of that enthusiasm. Perhaps, though we be inventing a new +fairy-tale, it will resemble the Siege Perilous in the Arthurian story, +the chair where none but the perfect knight could sit. A dim row of +flaming swords might surround it. When the soul entitled to use this +throne appears, the swords might fade away and the gray cover hanging in +slack folds roll back because of an inner energy and the chair might turn +from gray to white, and with a subtle change of line become a throne. + +The photoplay imagination which is able to impart vital individuality to +furniture will not stop there. Let the buildings emanate conscious life. +The author-producer-photographer, or one or all three, will make into a +personality some place akin to the House of the Seven Gables till the +ancient building dominates the fancy as it does in Hawthorne's tale. +There are various ways to bring about this result: by having its outlines +waver in the twilight, by touches of phosphorescence, or by the passing +of inexplicable shadows or the like. It depends upon what might be called +the genius of the building. There is the Poe story of The Fall of the +House of Usher, where with the death of the last heir the castle falls +crumbling into the tarn. There are other possible tales on such terms, +never yet imagined, to be born to-morrow. Great structures may become in +sort villains, as in the old Bible narrative of the origin of the various +languages. The producer can show the impious Babel Tower, going higher +and higher into the sky, fascinating and tempting the architects till a +confusion of tongues turns those masons into quarrelling mobs that become +departing caravans, leaving her blasted and forsaken, a symbol of every +Babylon that rose after her. + +There are fables where the rocks and the mountains speak. Emerson has +given us one where the Mountain and the Squirrel had a quarrel. The +Mountain called the Squirrel "Little Prig." And then continues a clash of +personalities more possible to illustrate than at first appears. Here we +come to the second stage of the fairy-tale where the creature seems so +unmanageable in his physical aspect that some actor must be substituted +who will embody the essence of him. To properly illustrate the quarrel of +the Mountain and the Squirrel, the steep height should quiver and heave +and then give forth its personality in the figure of a vague smoky giant, +capable of human argument, but with oak-roots in his hair, and Bun, +perhaps, become a jester in squirrel's dress. + +Or it may be our subject matter is a tall Dutch clock. Father Time +himself might emerge therefrom. Or supposing it is a chapel, in a +knight's adventure. An angel should step from the carving by the door: a +design that is half angel, half flower. But let the clock first tremble a +bit. Let the carving stir a little, and then let the spirit come forth, +that there may be a fine relation between the impersonator and the thing +represented. A statue too often takes on life by having the actor +abruptly substituted. The actor cannot logically take on more personality +than the statue has. He can only give that personality expression in a +new channel. In the realm of letters, a real transformation scene, +rendered credible to the higher fancy by its slow cumulative movement, is +the tale of the change of the dying Rowena to the living triumphant +Ligeia in Poe's story of that name. Substitution is not the fairy-story. +It is transformation, transfiguration, that is the fairy-story, be it a +divine or a diabolical change. There is never more than one witch in a +forest, one Siege Perilous at any Round Table. But she is indeed a witch +and the other is surely a Siege Perilous. + +We might define Fairy Splendor as furniture transfigured, for without +transfiguration there is no spiritual motion of any kind. But the phrase +"furniture-in-motion" serves a purpose. It gets us back to the earth for +a reason. Furniture is architecture, and the fairy-tale picture should +certainly be drawn with architectural lines. The normal fairy-tale is a +sort of tiny informal child's religion, the baby's secular temple, and it +should have for the most part that touch of delicate sublimity that we +see in the mountain chapel or grotto, or fancy in the dwellings of +Aucassin and Nicolette. When such lines are drawn by the truly +sophisticated producer, there lies in them the secret of a more than +ritualistic power. Good fairy architecture amounts to an incantation in +itself. + +If it is a grown-up legend, it must be more than monumental in its lines, +like the great stone face of Hawthorne's tale. Even a chair can reach +this estate. For instance, let it be the throne of Wodin, illustrating +some passage in Norse mythology. If this throne has a language, it speaks +with the lightning; if it shakes with its threat, it moves the entire +mountain range beneath it. Let the wizard-author-producer climb up from +the tricks of Moving Day to the foot-hills where he can see this throne +against the sky, as a superarchitect would draw it. But even if he can +give this vision in the films, his task will not be worth while if he is +simply a teller of old stories. Let us have magic shoes about which are +more golden dreams than those concerning Cinderella. Let us have stranger +castles than that of Usher, more dazzling chairs than the Siege Perilous. +Let us have the throne of Liberty, not the throne of Wodin. + +There is one outstanding photoplay that I always have in mind when I +think of film magic. It illustrates some principles of this chapter and +chapter four, as well as many others through the book. It is Griffith's +production of The Avenging Conscience. It is also an example of that rare +thing, a use of old material that is so inspired that it has the dignity +of a new creation. The raw stuff of the plot is pieced together from the +story of The Tell-tale Heart and the poem Annabel Lee. It has behind it, +in the further distance, Poe's conscience stories of The Black Cat, and +William Wilson. I will describe the film here at length, and apply it to +whatever chapters it illustrates. + +An austere and cranky bachelor (well impersonated by Spottiswoode Aitken) +brings up his orphan nephew with an awkward affection. The nephew is +impersonated by Henry B. Walthall. The uncle has an ambition that the boy +will become a man of letters. In his attempts at literature the youth is +influenced by Poe. This brings about the Poe quality of his dreams at the +crisis. The uncle is silently exasperated when he sees his boy's +writing-time broken into, and wasted, as he thinks, by an affair with a +lovely Annabel (Blanche Sweet). The intimacy and confidence of the lovers +has progressed so far that it is a natural thing for the artless girl to +cross the gardens and after hesitation knock at the door. She wants to +know what has delayed her boy. She is all in a flutter on account of the +overdue appointment to go to a party together. The scene of the pretty +hesitancy on the step, her knocking, and the final impatient tapping with +her foot is one of the best illustrations of the intimate mood in +photoplay episodes. On the girl's entrance the uncle overwhelms her and +the boy by saying she is pursuing his nephew like a common woman of the +town. The words actually burst through the film, not as a melodramatic, +but as an actual insult. This is a thing almost impossible to do in the +photoplay. This outrage in the midst of an atmosphere of chivalry is one +of Griffith's master-moments. It accounts for the volcanic fury of the +nephew that takes such trouble to burn itself out afterwards. It is not +easy for the young to learn that they must let those people flay them for +an hour who have made every sacrifice for them through a life-time. + +This scene of insult and the confession scene, later in this film, moved +me as similar passages in high drama would do; and their very rareness, +even in the hands of photoplay masters, indicates that such purely +dramatic climaxes cannot be the main asset of the moving picture. Over +and over, with the best talent and producers, they fail. + +The boy and girl go to the party in spite of the uncle. It is while on +the way that the boy looks on the face of a stranger who afterwards mixes +up in his dream as the detective. There is a mistake in the printing +here. There are several minutes of a worldly-wise oriental dance to amuse +the guests, while the lovers are alone at another end of the garden. It +is, possibly, the aptest contrast with the seriousness of our hero and +heroine. But the social affair could have had a better title than the one +that is printed on the film "An Old-fashioned Sweetheart Party." Possibly +the dance was put in after the title. + +The lovers part forever. The girl's pride has had a mortal wound. About +this time is thrown on the screen the kind of a climax quite surely +possible to the photoplay. It reminds one, not of the mood of Poe's +verse, but of the spirit of the paintings of George Frederick Watts. It +is allied in some way, in my mind, with his "Love and Life," though but a +single draped figure within doors, and "Love and Life" are undraped +figures, climbing a mountain. + +The boy, having said good-by, remembers the lady Annabel. It is a crisis +after the event. In his vision she is shown in a darkened passageway, all +in white, looking out of the window upon the moonlit sky. Simple enough +in its elements, this vision is shown twice in glory. The third replica +has not the same glamour. The first two are transfigurations into +divinity. The phrase thrown on the screen is "The moon never beams +without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee." And the sense +of loss goes through and through one like a flight of arrows. Another +noble picture, more realistic, more sculpturesque, is of Annabel mourning +on her knees in her room. Her bended head makes her akin to "Niobe, all +tears." + +The boy meditating on a park-path is meanwhile watching the spider in his +web devour the fly. Then he sees the ants in turn destroy the spider. +These pictures are shown on so large a scale that the spiderweb fills the +end of the theatre. Then the ant-tragedy does the same. They can be +classed as particularly apt hieroglyphics in the sense of chapter +thirteen. Their horror and decorative iridescence are of the Poe sort. +It is the first hint of the Poe hieroglyphic we have had except the black +patch over the eye of the uncle, along with his jaundiced, cadaverous +face. The boy meditates on how all nature turns on cruelty and the +survival of the fittest. + +He passes just now an Italian laborer (impersonated by George Seigmann). +This laborer enters later into his dream. He finally goes to sleep in his +chair, the resolve to kill his uncle rankling in his heart. + +The audience is not told that a dream begins. To understand that, one +must see the film through twice. But it is perfectly legitimate to +deceive us. Through our ignorance we share the young man's +hallucinations, entering into them as imperceptibly as he does. We think +it is the next morning. Poe would start the story just here, and here the +veritable Poe-esque quality begins. + +After debate within himself as to means, the nephew murders his uncle and +buries him in the thick wall of the chimney. The Italian laborer +witnesses the death-struggle through the window. While our consciences +are aching and the world crashes round us, he levies black-mail. Then +for due compensation the Italian becomes an armed sentinel. The boy fears +detection. + +Yet the foolish youth thinks he will be happy. But every time he runs to +meet his sweetheart he is appalled by hallucinations over her shoulder. +The cadaverous ghost of the uncle is shown on the screen several times. +It is an appearance visible to the young man and the audience only. Later +the ghost is implied by the actions of the guilty one. We merely imagine +it. This is a piece of sound technique. We no more need a dray full of +ghosts than a dray full of jumping furniture. + +The village in general has never suspected the nephew. Only two people +suspect him: the broken-hearted girl and an old friend of his father. +This gentleman puts a detective on the trail. (The detective is +impersonated by Ralph Lewis.) The gradual breakdown of the victim is +traced by dramatic degrees. This is the second case of the thing I have +argued as being generally impossible in a photoplay chronicle of a +private person, and which the considerations of chapter twelve indicate +as exceptional. We trace the innermost psychology of one special citizen +step by step to the crisis, and that path is actually the primary +interest of the story. The climax is the confession to the detective. +With this self-exposure the direct Poe-quality of the technique comes to +an end. Moreover, Poe would end the story here. But the Poe-dream is set +like a dark jewel in a gold ring, of which more anon. + +Let us dwell upon the confession. The first stage of this +conscience-climax is reached by the dramatization of The Tell-tale Heart +reminiscence in the memory of the dreaming man. The episode makes a +singular application of the theories with which this chapter begins. For +furniture-in-motion we have the detective's pencil. For trappings and +inventions in motion we have his tapping shoe and the busy clock +pendulum. Because this scene is so powerful the photoplay is described in +this chapter rather than any other, though the application is more +spiritual than literal. The half-mad boy begins to divulge that he thinks +that the habitual ticking of the clock is satanically timed to the +beating of the dead man's heart. Here more unearthliness hovers round a +pendulum than any merely mechanical trick-movements could impart. Then +the merest commonplace of the detective tapping his pencil in the same +time--the boy trying in vain to ignore it--increases the strain, till the +audience has well-nigh the hallucinations of the victim. Then the bold +tapping of the detective's foot, who would do all his accusing without +saying a word, and the startling coincidence of the owl hoot-hooting +outside the window to the same measure, bring us close to the final +breakdown. These realistic material actors are as potent as the actual +apparitions of the dead man that preceded them. Those visions prepared +the mind to invest trifles with significance. The pencil and the pendulum +conducting themselves in an apparently everyday fashion, satisfy in a far +nobler way the thing in the cave-man attending the show that made him +take note in other centuries of the rope that began to hang the butcher, +the fire that began to burn the stick, and the stick that began to beat +the dog. + +Now the play takes a higher demoniacal plane reminiscent of Poe's Bells. +The boy opens the door. He peers into the darkness. There he sees them. +They are the nearest to the sinister Poe quality of any illustrations I +recall that attempt it. "They are neither man nor woman, they are neither +brute nor human; they are ghouls." The scenes are designed with the +architectural dignity that the first part of this chapter has insisted +wizard trappings should take on. Now it is that the boy confesses and the +Poe story ends. + +Then comes what the photoplay people call the punch. It is discussed at +the end of chapter nine. It is a kind of solar plexus blow to the +sensibilities, certainly by this time an unnecessary part of the film. +Usually every soul movement carefully built up to where the punch begins +is forgotten in the material smash or rescue. It is not so bad in this +case, but it is a too conventional proceeding for Griffith. + +The boy flees interminably to a barn too far away. There is a siege by a +posse, led by the detective. It is veritable border warfare. The Italian +leads an unsuccessful rescue party. The unfortunate youth finally hangs +himself. The beautiful Annabel bursts through the siege a moment too +late; then, heart broken, kills herself. These things are carried out by +good technicians. But it would have been better to have had the suicide +with but a tiny part of the battle, and the story five reels long instead +of six. This physical turmoil is carried into the spiritual world only +by the psychic momentum acquired through the previous confession scene. +The one thing with intrinsic pictorial heart-power is the death of +Annabel by jumping off the sea cliff. + +Then comes the awakening. To every one who sees the film for the first +time it is like the forgiveness of sins. The boy finds his uncle still +alive. In revulsion from himself, he takes the old man into his arms. The +uncle has already begun to be ashamed of his terrible words, and has +prayed for a contrite heart. The radiant Annabel is shown in the early +dawn rising and hurrying to her lover in spite of her pride. She will +bravely take back her last night's final word. She cannot live without +him. The uncle makes amends to the girl. The three are in the +inconsistent but very human mood of sweet forgiveness for love's sake, +that sometimes overtakes the bitterest of us after some crisis in our +days. + +The happy pair are shown, walking through the hills. Thrown upon the +clouds for them are the moods of the poet-lover's heart. They look into +the woods and see his fancies of Spring, the things that he will some day +write. These pageants might be longer. They furnish the great climax. +They make a consistent parallel and contrast with the ghoul-visions that +end with the confession to the detective. They wipe that terror from the +mind. They do not represent Poe. The rabbits, the leopard, the fairies, +Cupid and Psyche in the clouds, and the little loves from the hollow +trees are contributions to the original poetry of the eye. + +Finally, the central part of this production of the Avenging Conscience +is no dilution of Poe, but an adequate interpretation, a story he might +have written. Those who have the European respect for Poe's work will be +most apt to be satisfied with this section, including the photographic +texture which may be said to be an authentic equivalent of his prose. How +often Poe has been primly patronized for his majestic quality, the wizard +power which looms above all his method and subject-matter and furnishes +the only reason for its existence! + +For Griffith to embroider this Poe Interpretation in the centre of a +fairly consistent fabric, and move on into a radiant climax of his own +that is in organic relation to the whole, is an achievement indeed. The +final criticism is that the play is derivative. It is not built from new +material in all its parts, as was the original story. One must be a +student of Poe to get its ultimate flavor. But in reading Poe's own +stories, one need not be a reader of any one special preceding writer to +get the strange and solemn exultation of that literary enchanter. He is +the quintessence of his own lonely soul. + +Though the wizard element is paramount in the Poe episode of this film, +the appeal to the conscience is only secondary to this. It is keener than +in Poe, owing to the human elements before and after. The Chameleon +producer approximates in The Avenging Conscience the type of mystic +teacher, discussed in the twentieth chapter: "The Prophet-Wizard." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ARCHITECTURE-IN-MOTION + + +This chapter is a superstructure upon the foundations of chapters five, +six, and seven. + +I have said that it is a quality, not a defect, of the photoplays that +while the actors tend to become types and hieroglyphics and dolls, on the +other hand, dolls and hieroglyphics and mechanisms tend to become human. +By an extension of this principle, non-human tones, textures, lines, and +spaces take on a vitality almost like that of flesh and blood. It is +partly for this reason that some energy is hereby given to the matter of +reenforcing the idea that the people with the proper training to take the +higher photoplays in hand are not veteran managers of vaudeville +circuits, but rather painters, sculptors, and architects, preferably +those who are in the flush of their first reputation in these crafts. Let +us imagine the centres of the experimental drama, such as the Drama +League, the Universities, and the stage societies, calling in people of +these professions and starting photoplay competitions and enterprises. +Let the thesis be here emphasized that the architects, above all, are the +men to advance the work in the ultra-creative photoplay. "But few +architects," you say, "are creative, even in their own profession." + +Let us begin with the point of view of the highly trained pedantic young +builder, the type that, in the past few years, has honored our landscape +with those paradoxical memorials of Abraham Lincoln the railsplitter, +memorials whose Ionic columns are straight from Paris. Pericles is the +real hero of such a man, not Lincoln. So let him for the time surrender +completely to that great Greek. He is worthy of a monument nobler than +any America has set up to any one. The final pictures may be taken in +front of buildings with which the architect or his favorite master has +already edified this republic, or if the war is over, before some +surviving old-world models. But whatever the method, let him study to +express at last the thing that moves within him as a creeping fire, which +Americans do not yet understand and the loss of which makes the classic +in our architecture a mere piling of elegant stones upon one another. In +the arrangement of crowds and flow of costuming and study of tableau +climaxes, let the architect bring an illusion of that delicate flowering, +that brilliant instant of time before the Peloponnesian war. It does not +seem impossible when one remembers the achievements of the author of +Cabiria in approximating Rome and Carthage. + +Let the principal figure of the pageant be the virgin Athena, walking as +a presence visible only to us, yet among her own people, and robed and +armed and panoplied, the guardian of Pericles, appearing in those streets +that were herself. Let the architect show her as she came only in a +vision to Phidias, while the dramatic writers and mathematicians and +poets and philosophers go by. The crowds should be like pillars of +Athens, and she like a great pillar. The crowds should be like the +tossing waves of the Ionic Sea and Athena like the white ship upon the +waves. The audiences in the tragedies should be shown like wheat-fields +on the hill-sides, always stately yet blown by the wind, and Athena the +one sower and reaper. Crowds should descend the steps of the Acropolis, +nymphs and fauns and Olympians, carved as it were from the marble, yet +flowing like a white cataract down into the town, bearing with them +Athena, their soul. All this in the Photoplay of Pericles. + +No civic or national incarnation since that time appeals to the poets +like the French worship of the Maid of Orleans. In Percy MacKaye's book, +The Present Hour, he says on the French attitude toward the war:-- + + "Half artist and half anchorite, + Part siren and part Socrates, + Her face--alluring fair, yet recondite-- + Smiled through her salons and academies. + + "Lightly she wore her double mask, + Till sudden, at war's kindling spark, + Her inmost self, in shining mail and casque, + Blazed to the world her single soul--Jeanne d'Arc!" + +To make a more elaborate showing of what is meant by +architecture-in-motion, let us progress through the centuries and suppose +that the builder has this enthusiasm for France, that he is slowly +setting about to build a photoplay around the idea of the Maid. + +First let him take the mural painting point of view. Bear in mind these +characteristics of that art: it is wall-painting that is an organic part +of the surface on which it appears: it is on the same lines as the +building and adapted to the colors and forms of the structure of which it +is a part. + +The wall-splendors of America that are the most scattered about in +inexpensive copies are the decorations of the Boston Public Library. Note +the pillar-like quality of Sargent's prophets, the solemn dignity of +Abbey's Holy Grail series, the grand horizontals and perpendiculars of +the work of Puvis de Chavannes. The last is the orthodox mural painter of +the world, but the other two will serve the present purpose also. These +architectural paintings if they were dramatized, still retaining their +powerful lines, would be three exceedingly varied examples of what is +meant by architecture-in-motion. The visions that appear to Jeanne d'Arc +might be delineated in the mood of some one of these three painters. The +styles will not mix in the same episode. + +A painter from old time we mention here, not because he was orthodox, but +because of his genius for the drawing of action, and because he covered +tremendous wall-spaces with Venetian tone and color, is Tintoretto. If +there is a mistrust that the mural painting standard will tend to destroy +the sense of action, Tintoretto will restore confidence in that regard. +As the Winged Victory represents flying in sculpture, so his work is the +extreme example of action with the brush. The Venetians called him the +furious painter. One must understand a man through his admirers. So +explore Ruskin's sayings on Tintoretto. + +I have a dozen moving picture magazine clippings, which are in their +humble way first or second cousins of mural paintings. I will describe +but two, since the method of selection has already been amply indicated, +and the reader can find his own examples. For a Crowd Picture, for +instance, here is a scene at a masquerade ball. The glitter of the +costumes is an extension of the glitter of the candelabra overhead. The +people are as it were chandeliers, hung lower down. The lines of the +candelabra relate to the very ribbon streamers of the heroine, and the +massive wood-work is the big brother of the square-shouldered heroes in +the foreground, though one is a clown, one is a Russian Duke, and one is +Don Caesar De Bazan. The building is the father of the people. These +relations can be kept in the court scenes of the production of Jeanne +d'Arc. + +Here is a night picture from a war story in which the light is furnished +by two fires whose coals and brands are hidden by earth heaped in front. +The sentiment of tenting on the old camp-ground pervades the scene. The +far end of the line of those keeping bivouac disappears into the +distance, and the depths of the ranks behind them fade into the thick +shadows. The flag, a little above the line, catches the light. One great +tree overhead spreads its leafless half-lit arms through the gloom. +Behind all this is unmitigated black. The composition reminds one of a +Hiroshige study of midnight. These men are certainly a part of the +architecture of out of doors, and mysterious as the vault of Heaven. This +type of a camp-fire is possible in our Jeanne d'Arc. + +These pictures, new and old, great and unknown, indicate some of the +standards of judgment and types of vision whereby our conception of the +play is to be evolved. + +By what means shall we block it in? Our friend Tintoretto made use of +methods which are here described from one of his biographers, W. Roscoe +Osler: "They have been much enlarged upon in the different biographies as +the means whereby Tintoretto obtained his power. They constituted, +however, his habitual method of determining the effect and general +grouping of his compositions. He moulded with extreme care small models +of his figures in wax and clay. Titian and other painters as well as +Tintoretto employed this method as the means of determining the light and +shade of their design. Afterwards the later stages of their work were +painted from the life. But in Tintoretto's compositions the position and +arrangement of his figures as he began to dwell upon his great +conceptions were such as to render the study from the living model a +matter of great difficulty and at times an impossibility.... He ... +modelled his sculptures ... imparting to his models a far more complete +character than had been customary. These firmly moulded figures, +sometimes draped, sometimes free, he suspended in a box made of wood, or +of cardboard for his smaller work, in whose walls he made an aperture to +admit a lighted candle.... He sits moving the light about amidst his +assemblage of figures. Every aspect of sublimity of light suitable to a +Madonna surrounded with angels, or a heavenly choir, finds its miniature +response among the figures as the light moves. + +"This was the method by which, in conjunction with a profound study of +outward nature, sympathy with the beauty of different types of face and +varieties of form, with the many changing hues of the Venetian scene, +with the great laws of color and a knowledge of literature and history, +he was able to shadow forth his great imagery of the intuitional world." + +This method of Tintoretto suggests several possible derivatives in the +preparation of motion pictures. Let the painters and sculptors be now +called upon for painting models and sculptural models, while the +architect, already present, supplies the architectural models, all three +giving us visible scenarios to furnish the cardinal motives for the +acting, from which the amateur photoplay company of the university can +begin their interpretation. + +For episodes that follow the precedent of the simple Action Film tiny wax +models of the figures, toned and costumed to the heart's delight, would +tell the high points of the story. Let them represent, perhaps, seven +crucial situations from the proposed photoplay. Let them be designed as +uniquely in their dresses as are the Russian dancers' dresses, by Leon +Bakst. Then to alternate with these, seven little paintings of episodes, +designed in blacks, whites, and grays, each representing some elusive +point in the intimate aspects of the story. Let there be a definite +system of space and texture relations retained throughout the set. + +The models for the splendor scenes would, of course, be designed by the +architect, and these other scenes alternated with and subordinated to his +work. The effects which he would conceive would be on a grander scale. +The models for these might be mere extensions of the methods of those +others, but in the typical and highest let us imagine ourselves going +beyond Tintoretto in preparation. + +Let the principal splendor moods and effects be indicated by actual +structures, such miniatures as architects offer along with their plans of +public buildings, but transfigured beyond that standard by the light of +inspiration combined with experimental candle-light, spot-light, +sunlight, or torchlight. They must not be conceived as stage arrangements +of wax figures with harmonious and fitting backgrounds, but as +backgrounds that clamor for utterance through the figures in front of +them, as Athens finds her soul in the Athena with which we began. These +three sorts of models, properly harmonized, should have with them a +written scenario constructed to indicate all the scenes between. The +scenario will lead up to these models for climaxes and hold them together +in the celestial hurdle-race. + +We have in our museums some definite architectural suggestions as to the +style of these models. There are in Blackstone Hall in the Chicago Art +Institute several great Romanesque and Gothic portals, pillars, and +statues that might tell directly upon certain settings of our Jeanne +d'Arc pageant. They are from Notre Dame du Port at Clermont-Ferrand, the +Abbey church of St. Gilles, the Abbey of Charlieu, the Cathedral of +Amiens, Notre Dame at Paris, the Cathedral of Bordeaux, and the Cathedral +of Rheims. Perhaps the object I care for most in the Metropolitan Museum, +New York, is the complete model of Notre Dame, Paris, by M. Joly. Why was +this model of Notre Dame made with such exquisite pains? Certainly not as +a matter of mere information or cultivation. I venture the first right +these things have to be taken care of in museums is to stimulate to new +creative effort. + +I went to look over the Chicago collection with a friend and poet Arthur +Davison Ficke. He said something to this effect: "The first thing I see +when I look at these fragments is the whole cathedral in all its original +proportions. Then I behold the mediaeval marketplace hunched against the +building, burying the foundations, the life of man growing rank and +weedlike around it. Then I see the bishop coming from the door with his +impressive train. But a crusade may go by on the way to the Holy Land. A +crusade may come home battered and in rags. I get the sense of life, as +of a rapid in a river flowing round a great rock." + +The cathedral stands for the age-long meditation of the ascetics in the +midst of battling tribes. This brooding architecture has a +blood-brotherhood with the meditating, saint-seeing Jeanne d'Arc. + +There is in the Metropolitan Museum a large and famous canvas painted by +the dying Bastien-Lepage;--Jeanne Listening to the Voices. It is a +picture of which the technicians and the poets are equally enamored. The +tale of Jeanne d'Arc could be told, carrying this particular peasant girl +through the story. And for a piece of architectural pageantry akin to the +photoplay ballroom scene already described, yet far above it, there is +nothing more apt for our purpose than the painting by Boutet de Monvel +filling the space at the top of the stair at the Chicago Art Institute. +Though the Bastien-Lepage is a large painting, this is many times the +size. It shows Joan's visit at the court of Chinon. It is big without +being empty. It conveys a glitter which expresses one of the things that +is meant by the phrase: Splendor Photoplay. But for moving picture +purposes it is the Bastien-Lepage Joan that should appear here, set in +dramatic contrast to the Boutet de Monvel Court. Two valuable neighbors +to whom I have read this chapter suggest that the whole Boutet de Monvel +illustrated child's book about our heroine could be used on this grand +scale, for a background. + +The Inness room at the Chicago Art Institute is another school for the +meditative producer, if he would evolve his tribute to France on American +soil. Though no photoplay tableau has yet approximated the brush of +Inness, why not attempt to lead Jeanne through an Inness landscape? The +Bastien-Lepage trees are in France. But here is an American world in +which one could see visions and hear voices. Where is the inspired camera +that will record something of what Inness beheld? + +Thus much for the atmosphere and trappings of our Jeanne d'Arc scenario. +Where will we get our story? It should, of course, be written from the +ground up for this production, but as good Americans we would probably +find a mass of suggestions in Mark Twain's Joan of Arc. + +Quite recently a moving picture company sent its photographers to +Springfield, Illinois, and produced a story with our city for a +background, using our social set for actors. Backed by the local +commercial association for whose benefit the thing was made, the +resources of the place were at the command of routine producers. +Springfield dressed its best, and acted with fair skill. The heroine was +a charming debutante, the hero the son of Governor Dunne. The Mine +Owner's Daughter was at best a mediocre photoplay. But this type of +social-artistic event, that happened once, may be attempted a hundred +times, each time slowly improving. Which brings us to something that is +in the end very far from The Mine Owner's Daughter. By what scenario +method the following film or series of films is to be produced I will not +venture to say. No doubt the way will come if once the dream has a +sufficient hold. + +I have long maintained that my home-town should have a goddess like +Athena. The legend should be forthcoming. The producer, while not +employing armies, should use many actors and the tale be told with the +same power with which the productions of Judith of Bethulia and The +Battle Hymn of the Republic were evolved. While the following story may +not be the form which Springfield civic religion will ultimately take, it +is here recorded as a second cousin of the dream that I hope will some +day be set forth. + +Late in an afternoon in October, a light is seen in the zenith like a +dancing star. The clouds form round it in the approximation of a circle. +Now there becomes visible a group of heads and shoulders of presences +that are looking down through the ring of clouds, watching the star, like +giant children that peep down a well. The jewel descends by four +sparkling chains, so far away they look to be dewy threads of silk. As +the bright mystery grows larger it appears to be approaching the treeless +hill of Washington Park, a hill that is surrounded by many wooded ridges. +The people come running from everywhere to watch. Here indeed will be a +Crowd Picture with as many phases as a stormy ocean. Flying machines +appear from the Fair Ground north of the city, and circle round and round +as they go up, trying to reach the slowly descending plummet. + + * * * * * + +At last, while the throng cheers, one bird-man has attained it. He brings +back his message that the gift is an image, covered loosely with a +wrapping that seems to be of spun gold. Now the many aviators whirl round +the descending wonder, like seagulls playing about a ship's mast. Soon, +amid an awestruck throng, the image is on the hillock. The golden chains, +and the giant children holding them there above, have melted into threads +of mist and nothingness. The shining wrapping falls away. The people look +upon a seated statue of marble and gold. There is a branch of +wrought-gold maple leaves in her hands. Then beside the image is a +fluttering transfigured presence of which the image seems to be a +representation. This spirit, carrying a living maple branch in her hand, +says to the people: "Men and Women of Springfield, this carving is the +Lady Springfield sent by your Lord from Heaven. Build no canopy over her. +Let her ever be under the prairie-sky. Do her perpetual honor." The +messenger, who is the soul and voice of Springfield, fades into the +crowd, to emerge on great and terrible occasions. + +This is only one story. Round this public event let the photoplay +romancer weave what tales of private fortune he will, narratives bound up +with the events of that October day, as the story of Nathan and Naomi is +woven into Judith of Bethulia. + +Henceforth the city officers are secular priests of Our Lady Springfield. +Their failure in duty is a profanation of her name. A yearly pledge of +the first voters is taken in her presence like the old Athenian oath of +citizenship. The seasonal pageants march to the statue's feet, scattering +flowers. The important outdoor festivals are given on the edge of her +hill. All the roads lead to her footstool. Pilgrims come from the Seven +Seas to look upon her face that is carved by Invisible Powers. Moreover, +the living messenger that is her actual soul appears in dreams, or +visions of the open day, when the days are dark for the city, when her +patriots are irresolute, and her children are put to shame. This spirit +with the maple branch rallies them, leads them to victories like those +that were won of old in the name of Jeanne d'Arc or Pallas Athena +herself. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THIRTY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE PHOTOPLAYS AND THE STAGE + + +The stage is dependent upon three lines of tradition: first, that of +Greece and Rome that came down through the French. Second, the English +style, ripened from the miracle play and the Shakespearian stage. And +third, the Ibsen precedent from Norway, now so firmly established it is +classic. These methods are obscured by the commercialized dramas, but +they are behind them all. Let us discuss for illustration the Ibsen +tradition. + +Ibsen is generally the vitriolic foe of pageant. He must be read aloud. +He stands for the spoken word, for the iron power of life that may be +concentrated in a phrase like the "All or nothing" of Brand. Though Peer +Gynt has its spectacular side, Ibsen generally comes in through the ear +alone. He can be acted in essentials from end to end with one table and +four chairs in any parlor. The alleged punch with which the "movie" +culminates has occurred three or ten years before the Ibsen curtain goes +up. At the close of every act of the dramas of this Norwegian one might +inscribe on the curtain "This the magnificent moving picture cannot +achieve." Likewise after every successful film described in this book +could be inscribed "This the trenchant Ibsen cannot do." + +But a photoplay of Ghosts came to our town. The humor of the prospect was +the sort too deep for tears. My pastor and I reread the William Archer +translation that we might be alert for every antithesis. Together we went +to the services. Since then the film has been furiously denounced by the +literati. Floyd Dell's discriminating assault upon it is quoted in +Current Opinion, October, 1915, and Margaret Anderson prints a +denunciation of it in a recent number of The Little Review. But it is not +such a bad film in itself. It is not Ibsen. It should be advertised "The +Iniquities of the Fathers, an American drama of Eugenics, in a Palatial +Setting." + +Henry Walthall as Alving, afterward as his son, shows the men much as +Ibsen outlines their characters. Of course the only way to be Ibsen is to +be so precisely. In the new plot all is open as the day. The world is +welcome, and generally present when the man or his son go forth to see +the elephant and hear the owl. Provincial hypocrisy is not implied. But +Ibsen can scarcely exist without an atmosphere of secrecy for his human +volcanoes to burst through in the end. + +Mary Alden as Mrs. Alving shows in her intelligent and sensitive +countenance that she has a conception of that character. She does not +always have the chance to act the woman written in her face, the tart, +thinking, handsome creature that Ibsen prefers. Nigel Debrullier looks +the buttoned-up Pastor Manders, even to caricature. But the crawling, +bootlicking carpenter, Jacob Engstrand, is changed into a respectable, +guileless man with an income. And his wife and daughter are helpless, +conventional, upper-class rabbits. They do not remind one of the saucy +originals. + +The original Ibsen drama is the result of mixing up five particular +characters through three acts. There is not a situation but would go to +pieces if one personality were altered. Here are two, sadly tampered +with: Engstrand and his daughter. Here is the mother, who is only +referred to in Ibsen. Here is the elder Alving, who disappears before +the original play starts. So the twenty great Ibsen situations in the +stage production are gone. One new crisis has an Ibsen irony and psychic +tension. The boy is taken with the dreaded intermittent pains in the back +of his head. He is painting the order that is to make him famous: the +King's portrait. While the room empties of people he writhes on the +floor. If this were all, it would have been one more moving picture +failure to put through a tragic scene. But the thing is reiterated in +tableau-symbol. He is looking sideways in terror. A hairy arm with +clutching demon claws comes thrusting in toward the back of his neck. He +writhes in deadly fear. The audience is appalled for him. + +This visible clutch of heredity is the nearest equivalent that is offered +for the whispered refrain: "Ghosts," in the original masterpiece. This +hand should also be reiterated as a refrain, three times at least, before +this tableau, each time more dreadful and threatening. It appears but the +once, and has no chance to become a part of the accepted hieroglyphics of +the piece, as it should be, to realize its full power. + +The father's previous sins have been acted out. The boy's consequent +struggle with the malady has been traced step by step, so the play should +end here. It would then be a rough equivalent of the Ibsen irony in a +contrary medium. Instead of that, it wanders on through paraphrases of +scraps of the play, sometimes literal, then quite alien, on to the +alleged motion picture punch, when the Doctor is the god from the +machine. There is no doctor on the stage in the original Ghosts. But +there is a physician in the Doll's House, a scientific, quietly moving +oracle, crisp, Spartan, sophisticated. + +Is this photoplay physician such a one? The boy and his half-sister are +in their wedding-clothes in the big church. Pastor Manders is saying the +ceremony. The audience and building are indeed showy. The doctor charges +up the aisle at the moment people are told to speak or forever hold their +peace. He has tact. He simply breaks up the marriage right there. He does +not tell the guests why. But he takes the wedding party into the pastor's +study and there blazes at the bride and groom the long-suppressed truth +that they are brother and sister. Always an orotund man, he has the +Chautauqua manner indeed in this exigency. + +He brings to one's mind the tearful book, much loved in childhood, Parted +at the Altar, or Why Was it Thus? And four able actors have the task of +telling the audience by facial expression only, that they have been +struck by moral lightning. They stand in a row, facing the people, +endeavoring to make the crisis of an alleged Ibsen play out of a crashing +melodrama. + +The final death of young Alving is depicted with an approximation of +Ibsen's mood. But the only ways to suggest such feelings in silence, do +not convey them in full to the audience, but merely narrate them. +Wherever in Ghosts we have quiet voices that are like the slow drip of +hydrochloric acid, in the photoplay we have no quiet gestures that will +do trenchant work. Instead there are endless writhings and rushings +about, done with a deal of skill, but destructive of the last remnants of +Ibsen. + +Up past the point of the clutching hand this film is the prime example +for study for the person who would know once for all the differences +between the photoplays and the stage dramas. Along with it might be +classed Mrs. Fiske's decorative moving picture Tess, in which there is +every determination to convey the original Mrs. Fiske illusion without +her voice and breathing presence. To people who know her well it is a +surprisingly good tintype of our beloved friend, for the family album. +The relentless Thomas Hardy is nowhere to be found. There are two moments +of dramatic life set among many of delicious pictorial quality: when Tess +baptizes her child, and when she smooths its little grave with a wavering +hand. But in the stage-version the dramatic poignancy begins with the +going up of the curtain, and lasts till it descends. + +The prime example of complete failure is Sarah Bernhardt's Camille. It is +indeed a tintype of the consumptive heroine, with every group entire, and +taken at full length. Much space is occupied by the floor and the +overhead portions of the stage setting. It lasts as long as would the +spoken performance, and wherever there is a dialogue we must imagine said +conversation if we can. It might be compared to watching Camille from the +top gallery through smoked glass, with one's ears stopped with cotton. + +It would be well for the beginning student to find some way to see the +first two of these three, or some other attempts to revamp the classic, +for instance Mrs. Fiske's painstaking reproduction of Vanity Fair, +bearing in mind the list of differences which this chapter now furnishes. + +There is no denying that many stage managers who have taken up photoplays +are struggling with the Shakespearian French and Norwegian traditions in +the new medium. Many of the moving pictures discussed in this book are +rewritten stage dramas, and one, Judith of Bethulia, is a pronounced +success. But in order to be real photoplays the stage dramas must be +overhauled indeed, turned inside out and upside down. The successful +motion picture expresses itself through mechanical devices that are being +evolved every hour. Upon those many new bits of machinery are founded +novel methods of combination in another field of logic, not dramatic +logic, but tableau logic. But the old-line managers, taking up +photoplays, begin by making curious miniatures of stage presentations. +They try to have most things as before. Later they take on the moving +picture technique in a superficial way, but they, and the host of +talented actors in the prime of life and Broadway success, retain the +dramatic state of mind. + +It is a principle of criticism, the world over, that the distinctions +between the arts must be clearly marked, even by those who afterwards mix +those arts. Take, for instance, the perpetual quarrel between the artists +and the half-educated about literary painting. Whistler fought that +battle in England. He tried to beat it into the head of John Bull that a +painting is one thing, a mere illustration for a story another thing. But +the novice is always stubborn. To him Hindu and Arabic are both foreign +languages, therefore just alike. The book illustration may be said to +come in through the ear, by reading the title aloud in imagination. And +the other is effective with no title at all. The scenario writer who will +study to the bottom of the matter in Whistler's Gentle Art of Making +Enemies will be equipped to welcome the distinction between the +old-fashioned stage, where the word rules, and the photoplay, where +splendor and ritual are all. It is not the same distinction, but a +kindred one. + + * * * * * + +But let us consider the details of the matter. The stage has its exits +and entrances at the side and back. The standard photoplays have their +exits and entrances across the imaginary footlight line, even in the +most stirring mob and battle scenes. In Judith of Bethulia, though the +people seem to be coming from everywhere and going everywhere, when we +watch close, we see that the individuals enter at the near right-hand +corner and exit at the near left-hand corner, or enter at the near +left-hand corner and exit at the near right-hand corner. + +Consider the devices whereby the stage actor holds the audience as he +goes out at the side and back. He sighs, gestures, howls, and strides. +With what studious preparation he ripens his quietness, if he goes out +that way. In the new contraption, the moving picture, the hero or villain +in exit strides past the nose of the camera, growing much bigger than a +human being, marching toward us as though he would step on our heads, +disappearing when largest. There is an explosive power about the mildest +motion picture exit, be the actor skilful or the reverse. The people left +in the scene are pygmies compared with each disappearing cyclops. +Likewise, when the actor enters again, his mechanical importance is +overwhelming. Therefore, for his first entrance the motion picture star +does not require the preparations that are made on the stage. The +support does not need to warm the spectators to the problem, then talk +them into surrender. + +When the veteran stage-producer as a beginning photoplay producer tries +to give us a dialogue in the motion pictures, he makes it so dull no one +follows. He does not realize that his camera-born opportunity to magnify +persons and things instantly, to interweave them as actors on one level, +to alternate scenes at the slightest whim, are the big substitutes for +dialogue. By alternating scenes rapidly, flash after flash: cottage, +field, mountain-top, field, mountain-top, cottage, we have a conversation +between three places rather than three persons. By alternating the +picture of a man and the check he is forging, we have his soliloquy. When +two people talk to each other, it is by lifting and lowering objects +rather than their voices. The collector presents a bill: the adventurer +shows him the door. The boy plucks a rose: the girl accepts it. Moving +objects, not moving lips, make the words of the photoplay. + +The old-fashioned stage producer, feeling he is getting nowhere, but +still helpless, puts the climax of some puzzling lip-debate, often the +climax of the whole film, as a sentence on the screen. Sentences should +be used to show changes of time and place and a few such elementary +matters before the episode is fully started. The climax of a motion +picture scene cannot be one word or fifty words. As has been discussed in +connection with Cabiria, the crisis must be an action sharper than any +that has gone before in organic union with a tableau more beautiful than +any that has preceded: the breaking of the tenth wave upon the sand. Such +remnants of pantomimic dialogue as remain in the main chase of the +photoplay film are but guide-posts in the race toward the goal. They +should not be elaborate toll-gates of plot, to be laboriously lifted and +lowered while the horses stop, mid-career. + +The Venus of Milo, that comes directly to the soul through the silence, +requires no quotation from Keats to explain her, though Keats is the +equivalent in verse. Her setting in the great French Museum is enough. We +do not know that her name is Venus. She is thought by many to be another +statue of Victory. We may some day evolve scenarios that will require +nothing more than a title thrown upon the screen at the beginning, they +come to the eye so perfectly. This is not the only possible sort, but +the self-imposed limitation in certain films might give them a charm akin +to that of the Songs without Words. + +The stage audience is a unit of three hundred or a thousand. In the +beginning of the first act there is much moving about and extra talk on +the part of the actors, to hold the crowd while it is settling down, and +enable the late-comer to be in his seat before the vital part of the +story starts. If he appears later, he is glared at. In the motion picture +art gallery, on the other hand, the audience is around two hundred, and +these are not a unit, and the only crime is to obstruct the line of +vision. The high-school girls can do a moderate amount of giggling +without breaking the spell. There is no spell, in the stage sense, to +break. People can climb over each other's knees to get in or out. If the +picture is political, they murmur war-cries to one another. If the film +suggests what some of the neighbors have been doing, they can regale each +other with the richest sewing society report. + +The people in the motion picture audience total about two hundred, any +time, but they come in groups of two or three at no specified hour. The +newcomers do not, as in Vaudeville, make themselves part of a jocular +army. Strictly as individuals they judge the panorama. If they +disapprove, there is grumbling under their breath, but no hissing. I have +never heard an audience in a photoplay theatre clap its hands even when +the house was bursting with people. Yet they often see the film through +twice. When they have had enough, they stroll home. They manifest their +favorable verdict by sending some other member of the family to "see the +picture." If the people so delegated are likewise satisfied, they may ask +the man at the door if he is going to bring it back. That is the moving +picture kind of cheering. + +It was a theatrical sin when the old-fashioned stage actor was rendered +unimportant by his scenery. But the motion picture actor is but the mood +of the mob or the landscape or the department store behind him, reduced +to a single hieroglyphic. + +The stage-interior is large. The motion-picture interior is small. The +stage out-of-door scene is at best artificial and little and is generally +at rest, or its movement is tainted with artificiality. The waves dash, +but not dashingly, the water flows, but not flowingly. The motion +picture out-of-door scene is as big as the universe. And only pictures of +the Sahara are without magnificent motion. + +The photoplay is as far from the stage on the one hand as it is from the +novel on the other. Its nearest analogy in literature is, perhaps, the +short story, or the lyric poem. The key-words of the stage are _passion_ +and _character_; of the photoplay, _splendor_ and _speed_. The stage in +its greatest power deals with pity for some one especially unfortunate, +with whom we grow well acquainted; with some private revenge against some +particular despoiler; traces the beginning and culmination of joy based +on the gratification of some preference, or love for some person, whose +charm is all his own. The drama is concerned with the slow, inevitable +approaches to these intensities. On the other hand, the motion picture, +though often appearing to deal with these things, as a matter of fact +uses substitutes, many of which have been listed. But to review: its +first substitute is the excitement of speed-mania stretched on the +framework of an obvious plot. Or it deals with delicate informal anecdote +as the short story does, or fairy legerdemain, or patriotic banners, or +great surging mobs of the proletariat, or big scenic outlooks, or +miraculous beings made visible. And the further it gets from Euripides, +Ibsen, Shakespeare, or Moliere--the more it becomes like a mural painting +from which flashes of lightning come--the more it realizes its genius. +Men like Gordon Craig and Granville Barker are almost wasting their +genius on the theatre. The Splendor Photoplays are the great outlet for +their type of imagination. + +The typical stage performance is from two hours and a half upward. The +movie show generally lasts five reels, that is, an hour and forty +minutes. And it should last but three reels, that is, an hour. Edgar Poe +said there was no such thing as a long poem. There is certainly no such +thing as a long moving picture masterpiece. + +The stage-production depends most largely upon the power of the actors, +the movie show upon the genius of the producer. The performers and the +dumb objects are on equal terms in his paint-buckets. The star-system is +bad for the stage because the minor parts are smothered and the +situations distorted to give the favorite an orbit. It is bad for the +motion pictures because it obscures the producer. While the leading actor +is entitled to his glory, as are all the actors, their mannerisms should +not overshadow the latest inspirations of the creator of the films. + +The display of the name of the corporation is no substitute for giving +the glory to the producer. An artistic photoplay is not the result of a +military efficiency system. It is not a factory-made staple article, but +the product of the creative force of one soul, the flowering of a spirit +that has the habit of perpetually renewing itself. + +Once I saw Mary Fuller in a classic. It was the life and death of Mary +Queen of Scots. Not only was the tense, fidgety, over-American Mary +Fuller transformed into a being who was a poppy and a tiger-lily and a +snow-queen and a rose, but she and her company, including Marc +Macdermott, radiated the old Scotch patriotism. They made the picture a +memorial. It reminded one of Maurice Hewlett's novel The Queen's Quair. +Evidently all the actors were fused by some noble managerial mood. + +There can be no doubt that so able a group have evolved many good films +that have escaped me. But though I did go again and again, never did I +see them act with the same deliberation and distinction, and I laid the +difference to a change in the state of mind of the producer. Even +baseball players must have managers. A team cannot pick itself, or it +surely would. And this rule may apply to the stage. But by comparison to +motion picture performers, stage-actors are their own managers, for they +have an approximate notion of how they look in the eye of the audience, +which is but the human eye. They can hear and gauge their own voices. +They have the same ears as their listeners. But the picture producer +holds to his eyes the seven-leagued demon spy-glass called the +kinetoscope, as the audience will do later. The actors have not the least +notion of their appearance. Also the words in the motion picture are not +things whose force the actor can gauge. The book under the table is one +word, the dog behind the chair is another, the window curtain flying in +the breeze is another. + +This chapter has implied that the performers were but paint on the +canvas. They are both paint and models. They are models in the sense that +the young Ellen Terry was the inspiration for Watts' Sir Galahad. They +resemble the persons in private life who furnish the basis for novels. +Dickens' mother was the original of Mrs. Nickleby. His father entered +into Wilkins Micawber. But these people are not perpetually thrust upon +us as Mr. and Mrs. Dickens. We are glad to find them in the Dickens +biographies. When the stories begin, it is Micawber and Mrs. Nickleby we +want, and the Charles Dickens atmosphere. + +The photoplays of the future will be written from the foundations for the +films. The soundest actors, photographers, and producers will be those +who emphasize the points wherein the photoplay is unique. What is adapted +to complete expression in one art generally secures but half expression +in another. The supreme photoplay will give us things that have been but +half expressed in all other mediums allied to it. + +Once this principle is grasped there is every reason why the same people +who have interested themselves in the advanced experimental drama should +take hold of the super-photoplay. The good citizens who can most easily +grasp the distinction should be there to perpetuate the higher welfare of +these institutions side by side. This parallel development should come, +if for no other reason, because the two arts are still roughly classed +together by the public. The elect cannot teach the public what the drama +is till they show them precisely what the photoplay is and is not. Just +as the university has departments of both History and English teaching in +amity, each one illuminating the work of the other, so these two forms +should live in each other's sight in fine and friendly contrast. At +present they are in blind and jealous warfare. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +HIEROGLYPHICS + + +I have read this chapter to a pretty neighbor who has approved of the +preceding portions of the book, whose mind, therefore, I cannot but +respect. My neighbor classes this discussion of hieroglyphics as a +fanciful flight rather than a sober argument. I submit the verdict, then +struggle against it while you read. + +The invention of the photoplay is as great a step as was the beginning of +picture-writing in the stone age. And the cave-men and women of our slums +seem to be the people most affected by this novelty, which is but an +expression of the old in that spiral of life which is going higher while +seeming to repeat the ancient phase. + +There happens to be here on the table a book on Egypt by Rawlinson that I +used to thumb long ago. A footnote says: "The font of hieroglyphic type +used in this work contains eight hundred forms. But there are many other +forms beside." There is more light on Egypt in later works than in +Rawlinson, but the statement quoted will serve for our text. + +Several complex methods of making visible scenarios are listed in this +work. Here is one that is mechanically simple. Let the man searching for +tableau combinations, even if he is of the practical commercial type, +prepare himself with eight hundred signs from Egypt. He can construct the +outlines of his scenarios by placing these little pictures in rows. It +may not be impractical to cut his hundreds of them from black cardboard +and shuffle them on his table every morning. The list will contain all +elementary and familiar things. Let him first give the most literal +meaning to the patterns. Then if he desires to rise above the commercial +field, let him turn over each cardboard, making the white undersurface +uppermost, and there write a more abstract meaning of the hieroglyphic, +one that has a fairly close relation to his way of thinking about the +primary form. From a proper balance of primary and secondary meanings +photoplays with souls could come. Not that he must needs become an expert +Egyptologist. Yet it would profit any photoplay man to study to think +like the Egyptians, the great picture-writing people. There is as much +reason for this course as for the Bible student's apprenticeship in +Hebrew. + +Hieroglyphics can prove their worth, even without the help of an Egyptian +history. Humorous and startling analogies can be pointed out by opening +the Standard Dictionary, page fifty-nine. Look under the word _alphabet_. +There is the diagram of the evolution of inscriptions from the Egyptian +and Phoenician idea of what letters should be, on through the Greek and +Roman systems. + +In the Egyptian row is the picture of a throne, [Illustration] that has +its equivalent in the Roman letter C. And a throne has as much place in +what might be called the moving-picture alphabet as the letter C has in +ours. There are sometimes three thrones in this small town of Springfield +in an evening. When you see one flashed on the screen, you know instantly +you are dealing with royalty or its implications. The last one I saw that +made any particular impression was when Mary Pickford acted in Such a +Little Queen. I only wished then that she had a more convincing throne. +Let us cut one out of black cardboard. Turning the cardboard over to +write on it the spirit-meaning, we inscribe some such phrase as The +Throne of Wisdom or The Throne of Liberty. + +Here is the hieroglyphic of a hand: [Illustration] Roman equivalent, the +letter D. The human hand, magnified till it is as big as the whole +screen, is as useful in the moving picture alphabet as the letter D in +the printed alphabet. This hand may open a lock. It may pour poison in a +bottle. It may work a telegraph key. Then turning the white side of the +cardboard uppermost we inscribe something to the effect that this hand +may write on the wall, as at the feast of Belshazzar. Or it may represent +some such conception as Rodin's Hand of God, discussed in the +Sculpture-in-motion chapter. + +Here is a duck: [Illustration] Roman equivalent, the letter Z. In the +motion pictures this bird, a somewhat z-shaped animal, suggests the +finality of Arcadian peace. It is the last and fittest ornament of the +mill-pond. Nothing very terrible can happen with a duck in the +foreground. There is no use turning it over. It would take Maeterlinck or +Swedenborg to find the mystic meaning of a duck. A duck looks to me like +a caricature of an alderman. + +Here is a sieve: [Illustration] Roman equivalent, H. A sieve placed on +the kitchen-table, close-up, suggests domesticity, hired girl humors, +broad farce. We will expect the bride to make her first cake, or the +flour to begin to fly into the face of the intrusive ice-man. But, as to +the other side of the cardboard, the sieve has its place in higher +symbolism. It has been recorded by many a sage and singer that the +Almighty Powers sift men like wheat. + +Here is the picture of a bowl: [Illustration] Roman equivalent, the +letter K. A bowl seen through the photoplay window on the cottage table +suggests Johnny's early supper of bread and milk. But as to the white +side of the cardboard, out of a bowl of kindred form Omar may take his +moonlit wine, or the higher gods may lift up the very wine of time to the +lips of men, as Swinburne sings in Atalanta in Calydon. + +Here is a lioness: [Illustration] Roman equivalent, the letter L. The +lion or lioness creeps through the photoplay jungle to give the primary +picture-word of terror in this new universal alphabet. The present writer +has seen several valuable lions unmistakably shot and killed in the +motion pictures, and charged up to profit and loss, just as +steam-engines or houses are sometimes blown up or burned down. But of +late there is a disposition to use the trained lion (or lioness) for all +sorts of effects. No doubt the king and queen of beasts will become as +versatile and humbly useful as the letter L itself: that is, in the +commonplace routine photoplay. We turn the cardboard over and the lion +becomes a resource of glory and terror, a symbol of cruel persecutions or +deathless courage, sign of the zodiac that Poe in Ulalume calls the Lair +of the Lion. + +Here is an owl: [Illustration] Roman equivalent, the letter M. The only +use of the owl I can record is to be inscribed on the white surface. In +The Avenging Conscience, as described in chapter ten, the murderer marks +the ticking of the heart of his victim while watching the swinging of the +pendulum of the old clock, then in watching the tapping of the +detective's pencil on the table, then in the tapping of his foot on the +floor. Finally a handsome owl is shown in the branches outside +hoot-hooting in time with the action of the pencil, and the pendulum, and +the dead man's heart. + +But here is a wonderful thing, an actual picture that has lived on, +retaining its ancient imitative sound and form: [Illustration] the +letter N, the drawing of a wave, with the sound of a wave still within +it. One could well imagine the Nile in the winds of the dawn making such +a sound: "NN, N, N," lapping at the reeds upon its banks. Certainly the +glittering water scenes are a dominant part of moving picture Esperanto. +On the white reverse of the symbol, the spiritual meaning of water will +range from the metaphor of the purity of the dew to the sea as a sign of +infinity. + +Here is a window with closed shutters: [Illustration] Latin equivalent, +the letter P. It is a reminder of the technical outline of this book. The +Intimate Photoplay, as I have said, is but a window where we open the +shutters and peep into some one's cottage. As to the soul meaning in the +opening or closing of the shutters, it ranges from Noah's opening the +hatches to send forth the dove, to the promises of blessing when the +Windows of Heaven should be opened. + +Here is the picture of an angle: [Illustration] Latin equivalent, Q. +This is another reminder of the technical outline. The photoplay +interior, as has been reiterated, is small and three-cornered. Here the +heroine does her plotting, flirting, and primping, etc. I will leave the +spiritual interpretation of the angle to Emerson, Swedenborg, or +Maeterlinck. + +Here is the picture of a mouth: [Illustration] Latin equivalent, the +letter R. If we turn from the dictionary to the monuments, we will see +that the Egyptians used all the human features in their pictures. We do +not separate the features as frequently as did that ancient people, but +we conventionalize them as often. Nine-tenths of the actors have faces as +fixed as the masks of the Greek chorus: they have the hero-mask with the +protruding chin, the villain-frown, the comedian-grin, the fixed +innocent-girl simper. These formulas have their place in the broad +effects of Crowd Pictures and in comedies. Then there are sudden +abandonments of the mask. Griffith's pupils, Henry Walthall and Blanche +Sweet, seem to me to be the greatest people in the photoplays: for one +reason their faces are as sensitive to changing emotion as the surfaces +of fair lakes in the wind. There is a passage in Enoch Arden where Annie, +impersonated by Lillian Gish, another pupil of Griffith, is waiting in +suspense for the return of her husband. She changes from lips of waiting, +with a touch of apprehension, to a delighted laugh of welcome, her head +making a half-turn toward the door. The audience is so moved by the +beauty of the slow change they do not know whether her face is the size +of the screen or the size of a postage-stamp. As a matter of fact it +fills the whole end of the theatre. + +Thus much as to faces that are not hieroglyphics. Yet fixed facial +hieroglyphics have many legitimate uses. For instance in The Avenging +Conscience, as the play works toward the climax and the guilty man is +breaking down, the eye of the detective is thrown on the screen with all +else hid in shadow, a watching, relentless eye. And this suggests a +special talisman of the old Egyptians, a sign called the Eyes of Horus, +meaning the all-beholding sun. + +Here is the picture of an inundated garden: [Illustration] Latin +equivalent, the letter S. In our photoplays the garden is an ever-present +resource, and at an instant's necessity suggests the glory of nature, or +sweet privacy, and kindred things. The Egyptian lotus garden had to be +inundated to be a success. Ours needs but the hired man with the hose, +who sometimes supplies broad comedy. But we turn over the cardboard, for +the deeper meaning of this hieroglyphic. Our gardens can, as of old, run +the solemn range from those of Babylon to those of the Resurrection. + +If there is one sceptic left as to the hieroglyphic significance of the +photoplay, let him now be discomfited by page fifty-nine, Standard +Dictionary. The last letter in this list is a lasso: [Illustration]. The +equivalent of the lasso in the Roman alphabet is the letter T. The crude +and facetious would be apt to suggest that the equivalent of the lasso in +the photoplay is the word trouble, possibly for the hero, but probably +for the villain. We turn to the other side of the symbol. The noose may +stand for solemn judgment and the hangman, it may also symbolize the +snare of the fowler, temptation. Then there is the spider web, close kin, +representing the cruelty of evolution, in The Avenging Conscience. + +This list is based on the rows of hieroglyphics most readily at hand. Any +volume on Egypt, such as one of those by Maspero, has a multitude of +suggestions for the man inclined to the idea. + +If this system of pasteboard scenarios is taken literally, I would like +to suggest as a beginning rule that in a play based on twenty +hieroglyphics, nineteen should be the black realistic signs with obvious +meanings, and only one of them white and inexplicably strange. It has +been proclaimed further back in this treatise that there is only one +witch in every wood. And to illustrate further, there is but one scarlet +letter in Hawthorne's story of that name, but one wine-cup in all of +Omar, one Bluebird in Maeterlinck's play. + +I do not insist that the prospective author-producer adopt the +hieroglyphic method as a routine, if he but consents in his meditative +hours to the point of view that it implies. + +The more fastidious photoplay audience that uses the hieroglyphic +hypothesis in analyzing the film before it, will acquire a new tolerance +and understanding of the avalanche of photoplay conceptions, and find a +promise of beauty in what have been properly classed as mediocre and +stereotyped productions. + +The nineteenth chapter has a discourse on the Book of the Dead. As a +connecting link with that chapter the reader will note that one of the +marked things about the Egyptian wall-paintings, pictures on the +mummy-case wrappings, papyrus inscriptions, and architectural +conceptions, is that they are but enlarged hieroglyphics, while the +hieroglyphics are but reduced fac-similes of these. So when a few +characters are once understood, the highly colored Egyptian +wall-paintings of the same things are understood. The hieroglyphic of +Osiris is enlarged when they desire to represent him in state. The +hieroglyphic of the soul as a human-headed hawk may be in a line of +writing no taller than the capitals of this book. Immediately above may +be a big painting of the soul, the same hawk placed with the proper care +with reference to its composition on the wall, a pure decoration. + +The transition from reduction to enlargement and back again is as rapid +in Egypt as in the photoplay. It follows, among other things, that in +Egypt, as in China and Japan, literary style and mere penmanship and +brushwork are to be conceived as inseparable. No doubt the Egyptian +scholar was the man who could not only compose a poem, but write it down +with a brush. Talent for poetry, deftness in inscribing, and skill in +mural painting were probably gifts of the same person. The photoplay goes +back to this primitive union in styles. + +The stages from hieroglyphics through Phoenician and Greek letters to +ours, are of no particular interest here. But the fact that +hieroglyphics can evolve is important. Let us hope that our new +picture-alphabets can take on richness and significance, as time goes on, +without losing their literal values. They may develop into something more +all-pervading, yet more highly wrought, than any written speech. +Languages when they evolve produce stylists, and we will some day +distinguish the different photoplay masters as we now delight in the +separate tang of O. Henry and Mark Twain and Howells. When these are +ancient times, we will have scholars and critics learned in the flavors +of early moving picture traditions with their histories of movements and +schools, their grammars, and anthologies. + +Now some words as to the Anglo-Saxon language and its relation to +pictures. In England and America our plastic arts are but beginning. +Yesterday we were preeminently a word-civilization. England built her +mediaeval cathedrals, but they left no legacy among craftsmen. Art had to +lean on imported favorites like Van Dyck till the days of Sir Joshua +Reynolds and the founding of the Royal Society. Consider that the friends +of Reynolds were of the circle of Doctor Johnson. Literary tradition had +grown old. Then England had her beginning of landscape gardening. Later +she saw the rise of Constable, Ruskin, and Turner, and their iridescent +successors. Still to-day in England the average leading citizen matches +word against word,--using them as algebraic formulas,--rather than +picture against picture, when he arranges his thoughts under the eaves of +his mind. To step into the Art world is to step out of the beaten path of +British dreams. Shakespeare is still king, not Rossetti, nor yet +Christopher Wren. Moreover, it was the book-reading colonial who led our +rebellion against the very royalty that founded the Academy. The +public-speaking American wrote the Declaration of Independence. It was +not the work of the painting or cathedral-building Englishman. We were +led by Patrick Henry, the orator, Benjamin Franklin, the printer. + +The more characteristic America became, the less she had to do with the +plastic arts. The emigrant-train carried many a Bible and Dictionary +packed in beside the guns and axes. It carried the Elizabethan writers, +AEsop's Fables, Blackstone's Commentaries, the revised statutes of +Indiana, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Parson Weems' Life of Washington. +But, obviously, there was no place for the Elgin marbles. Giotto's tower +could not be loaded in with the dried apples and the seedcorn. + +Yesterday morning, though our arts were growing every day, we were still +more of a word-civilization than the English. Our architectural, +painting, and sculptural history is concerned with men now living, or +their immediate predecessors. And even such work as we have is pretty +largely a cult by the wealthy. This is the more a cause for misgiving +because, in a democracy, the arts, like the political parties, are not +founded till they have touched the county chairman, the ward leader, the +individual voter. The museums in a democracy should go as far as the +public libraries. Every town has its library. There are not twenty Art +museums in the land. + +Here then comes the romance of the photoplay. A tribe that has thought in +words since the days that it worshipped Thor and told legends of the +cunning of the tongue of Loki, suddenly begins to think in pictures. The +leaders of the people, and of culture, scarcely know the photoplay +exists. But in the remote villages the players mentioned in this work are +as well known and as fairly understood in their general psychology as any +candidates for president bearing political messages. There is many a +babe in the proletariat not over four years old who has received more +pictures into its eye than it has had words enter its ear. The young +couple go with their first-born and it sits gaping on its mother's knee. +Often the images are violent and unseemly, a chaos of rawness and squirm, +but scattered through the experience is a delineation of the world. Pekin +and China, Harvard and Massachusetts, Portland and Oregon, Benares and +India, become imaginary playgrounds. By the time the hopeful has reached +its geography lesson in the public school it has travelled indeed. Almost +any word that means a picture in the text of the geography or history or +third reader is apt to be translated unconsciously into moving picture +terms. In the next decade, simply from the development of the average +eye, cities akin to the beginnings of Florence will be born among us as +surely as Chaucer came, upon the first ripening of the English tongue, +after Caedmon and Beowulf. Sculptors, painters, architects, and park +gardeners who now have their followers by the hundreds will have admirers +by the hundred thousand. The voters will respond to the aspirations of +these artists as the back-woodsmen followed Poor Richard's Almanac, or +the trappers in their coon-skin caps were fired to patriotism by Patrick +Henry. + + * * * * * + +This ends the second section of the book. Were it not for the passage on +The Battle Hymn of the Republic, the chapters thus far might be entitled: +"an open letter to Griffith and the producers and actors he has trained." +Contrary to my prudent inclinations, he is the star of the piece, except +on one page where he is the villain. This stardom came about slowly. In +making the final revision, looking up the producers of the important +reels, especially those from the beginning of the photoplay business, +numbers of times the photoplays have turned out to be the work of this +former leading man of Nance O'Neil. + +No one can pretend to a full knowledge of the films. They come faster +than rain in April. It would take a man every day of the year, working +day and night, to see all that come to Springfield. But in the photoplay +world, as I understand it, D.W. Griffith is the king-figure. + +So far, in this work I have endeavored to keep to the established dogmas +of Art. I hope that the main lines of the argument will appeal to the +people who have classified and related the beautiful works of man that +have preceded the moving pictures. Let the reader make his own essay on +the subject for the local papers and send the clipping to me. The next +photoplay book that may appear from this hand may be construed to meet +his point of view. It will try to agree or disagree in clear language. +Many a controversy must come before a method of criticism is fully +established. + + * * * * * + + +BOOK III + +MORE PERSONAL SPECULATIONS AND AFTERTHOUGHTS NOT BROUGHT +FORWARD SO DOGMATICALLY + +At this point I climb from the oracular platform and go down through my +own chosen underbrush for haphazard adventure. I renounce the platform. +Whatever it may be that I find, pawpaw or may-apple or spray of willow, +if you do not want it, throw it over the edge of the hill, without ado, +to the birds or squirrels or kine, and do not include it in your +controversial discourse. It is not a part of the dogmatic system of +photoplay criticism. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE ORCHESTRA, CONVERSATION, AND THE CENSORSHIP + + +Whenever the photoplay is mixed in the same programme with vaudeville, +the moving picture part of the show suffers. The film is rushed through, +it is battered, it flickers more than commonly, it is a little out of +focus. The house is not built for it. The owner of the place cannot +manage an art gallery with a circus on his hands. It takes more brains +than one man possesses to pick good vaudeville talent and bring good +films to the town at the same time. The best motion picture theatres are +built for photoplays alone. But they make one mistake. + +Almost every motion picture theatre has its orchestra, pianist, or +mechanical piano. The perfect photoplay gathering-place would have no +sound but the hum of the conversing audience. If this is too ruthless a +theory, let the music be played at the intervals between programmes, +while the advertisements are being flung upon the screen, the lights are +on, and the people coming in. + +If there is something more to be done on the part of the producer to make +the film a telling one, let it be a deeper study of the pictorial +arrangement, with the tones more carefully balanced, the sculpture +vitalized. This is certainly better than to have a raw thing bullied +through with a music-programme, furnished to bridge the weak places in +the construction. A picture should not be released till it is completely +thought out. A producer with this goal before him will not have the time +or brains to spare to write music that is as closely and delicately +related to the action as the action is to the background. And unless the +tunes are at one with the scheme they are an intrusion. Perhaps the +moving picture maker has a twin brother almost as able in music, who +possesses the faculty of subordinating his creations to the work of his +more brilliant coadjutor. How are they going to make a practical national +distribution of the accompaniment? In the metropolitan theatres Cabiria +carried its own musicians and programme with a rich if feverish result. +In The Birth of a Nation, music was used that approached imitative sound +devices. Also the orchestra produced a substitute for old-fashioned stage +suspense by long drawn-out syncopations. The finer photoplay values were +thrown askew. Perhaps these two performances could be successfully +vindicated in musical policy. But such a defence proves nothing in regard +to the typical film. Imagine either of these put on in Rochester, +Illinois, population one hundred souls. The reels run through as well as +on Broadway or Michigan Avenue, but the local orchestra cannot play the +music furnished in annotated sheets as skilfully as the local operator +can turn the reel (or watch the motor turn it!). + +The big social fact about the moving picture is that it is scattered like +the newspaper. Any normal accompaniment thereof must likewise be adapted +to being distributed everywhere. The present writer has seen, here in his +home place, population sixty thousand, all the films discussed in this +book but Cabiria and The Birth of a Nation. It is a photoplay paradise, +the spoken theatre is practically banished. Unfortunately the local +moving picture managers think it necessary to have orchestras. The +musicians they can secure make tunes that are most squalid and horrible. +With fathomless imbecility, hoochey koochey strains are on the air while +heroes are dying. The Miserere is in our ears when the lovers are +reconciled. Ragtime is imposed upon us while the old mother prays for her +lost boy. Sometimes the musician with this variety of sympathy abandons +himself to thrilling improvisation. + +My thoughts on this subject began to take form several years ago, when +the film this book has much praised, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, +came to town. The proprietor of one theatre put in front of his shop a +twenty-foot sign "The Battle Hymn of the Republic, by Harriet Beecher +Stowe, brought back by special request." He had probably read Julia Ward +Howe's name on the film forty times before the sign went up. His +assistant, I presume his daughter, played "In the Shade of the Old Apple +Tree" hour after hour, while the great film was rolling by. Many old +soldiers were coming to see it. I asked the assistant why she did not +play and sing the Battle Hymn. She said they "just couldn't find it." Are +the distributors willing to send out a musician with each film? + +Many of the Springfield producers are quite able and enterprising, but +to ask for music with photoplays is like asking the man at the news stand +to write an editorial while he sells you the paper. The picture with a +great orchestra in a far-off metropolitan Opera House, may be classed by +fanatic partisanship with Grand Opera. But few can get at it. It has +nothing to do with Democracy. + +Of course people with a mechanical imagination, and no other kind, begin +to suggest the talking moving picture at this point, or the phonograph or +the mechanical piano. Let us discuss the talking moving picture only. +That disposes of the others. + +If the talking moving picture becomes a reliable mirror of the human +voice and frame, it will be the basis of such a separate art that none of +the photoplay precedents will apply. It will be the _phonoplay_, not the +photoplay. It will be unpleasant for a long time. This book is a struggle +against the non-humanness of the undisciplined photograph. Any film is +correct, realistic, forceful, many times before it is charming. The +actual physical storage-battery of the actor is many hundred miles away. +As a substitute, the human quality must come in the marks of the presence +of the producer. The entire painting must have his brushwork. If we +compare it to a love-letter it must be in his handwriting rather than +worked on a typewriter. If he puts his autograph into the film, it is +after a fierce struggle with the uncanny scientific quality of the +camera's work. His genius and that of the whole company of actors is +exhausted in the task. + +The raw phonograph is likewise unmagnetic. Would you set upon the +shoulders of the troupe of actors the additional responsibility of +putting an adequate substitute for human magnetism in the phonographic +disk? The voice that does not actually bleed, that contains no +heart-beats, fails to meet the emergency. Few people have wept over a +phonographic selection from Tristan and Isolde. They are moved at the +actual performance. Why? Look at the opera singer after the last act. His +eyes are burning. His face is flushed. His pulse is high. Reaching his +hotel room, he is far more weary than if he had sung the opera alone +there. He has given out of his brain-fire and blood-beat the same +magnetism that leads men in battle. To speak of it in the crassest terms, +this resource brings him a hundred times more salary than another man +with just as good a voice can command. The output that leaves him +drained at the end of the show cannot be stored in the phonograph +machine. That device is as good in the morning as at noon. It ticks like +a clock. + +To perfect the talking moving picture, human magnetism must be put into +the mirror-screen and into the clock. Not only is this imperative, but +clock and mirror must be harmonized, one gently subordinated to the +other. Both cannot rule. In the present talking moving picture the more +highly developed photoplay is dragged by the hair in a dead faint, in the +wake of the screaming savage phonograph. No talking machine on the market +reproduces conversation clearly unless it be elaborately articulated in +unnatural tones with a stiff interval between each question and answer. +Real dialogue goes to ruin. + +The talking moving picture came to our town. We were given for one show a +line of minstrels facing the audience, with the interlocutor repeating +his immemorial question, and the end-man giving the immemorial answer. +Then came a scene in a blacksmith shop where certain well-differentiated +rackets were carried over the footlights. No one heard the blacksmith, +unless he stopped to shout straight at us. + +The _phonoplay_ can quite possibly reach some divine goal, but it will be +after the speaking powers of the phonograph excel the photographing +powers of the reel, and then the pictures will be brought in as comment +and ornament to the speech. The pictures will be held back by the +phonograph as long as it is more limited in its range. The pictures are +at present freer and more versatile without it. If the _phonoplay_ is +ever established, since it will double the machinery, it must needs +double its prices. It will be the illustrated phonograph, in a more +expensive theatre. + +The orchestra is in part a blundering effort by the local manager to +supply the human-magnetic element which he feels lacking in the pictures +on which the producer has not left his autograph. But there is a much +more economic and magnetic accompaniment, the before-mentioned buzzing +commentary of the audience. There will be some people who disturb the +neighbors in front, but the average crowd has developed its manners in +this particular, and when the orchestra is silent, murmurs like a +pleasant brook. + +Local manager, why not an advertising campaign in your town that says: +"Beginning Monday and henceforth, ours shall be known as the +Conversational Theatre"? At the door let each person be handed the +following card:-- + +"You are encouraged to discuss the picture with the friend who +accompanies you to this place. Conversation, of course, must be +sufficiently subdued not to disturb the stranger who did not come with +you to the theatre. If you are so disposed, consider your answers to +these questions: What play or part of a play given in this theatre did +you like most to-day? What the least? What is the best picture you have +ever seen anywhere? What pictures, seen here this month, shall we bring +back?" Here give a list of the recent productions, with squares to mark +by the Australian ballot system: approved or disapproved. The cards with +their answers could be slipped into the ballot-box at the door as the +crowd goes out. + +It may be these questions are for the exceptional audiences in residence +districts. Perhaps with most crowds the last interrogation is the only +one worth while. But by gathering habitually the answers to that alone +the place would get the drift of its public, realize its genius, and +become an art-gallery, the people bestowing the blue ribbons. The +photoplay theatres have coupon contests and balloting already: the most +popular young lady, money prizes to the best vote-getter in the audience, +etc. Why not ballot on the matter in hand? + +If the cards are sent out by the big producers, a referendum could be +secured that would be invaluable in arguing down to rigid censorship, and +enable them to make their own private censorship more intelligent. +Various styles of experimental cards could be tried till the vital one is +found. + +There is growing up in this country a clan of half-formed moving picture +critics. The present stage of their work is indicated by the eloquent +notice describing Your Girl and Mine, in the chapter on "Progress and +Endowment." The metropolitan papers give their photoplay reporters as +much space as the theatrical critics. Here in my home town the twelve +moving picture places take one half a page of chaotic notices daily. The +country is being badly led by professional photoplay news-writers who do +not know where they are going, but are on the way. + +But they aptly describe the habitual attendants as moving picture fans. +The fan at the photoplay, as at the baseball grounds, is neither a +low-brow nor a high-brow. He is an enthusiast who is as stirred by the +charge of the photographic cavalry as by the home runs that he watches +from the bleachers. In both places he has the privilege of comment while +the game goes on. In the photoplay theatre it is not so vociferous, but +as keenly felt. Each person roots by himself. He has his own judgment, +and roasts the umpire: who is the keeper of the local theatre: or the +producer, as the case may be. If these opinions of the fan can be +collected and classified, an informal censorship is at once established. +The photoplay reporters can then take the enthusiasts in hand and lead +them to a realization of the finer points in awarding praise and blame. +Even the sporting pages have their expert opinions with due influence on +the betting odds. Out of the work of the photoplay reporters let a +superstructure of art criticism be reared in periodicals like The +Century, Harper's, Scribner's, The Atlantic, The Craftsman, and the +architectural magazines. These are our natural custodians of art. They +should reproduce the most exquisite tableaus, and be as fastidious in +their selection of them as they are in the current examples of the other +arts. Let them spread the news when photoplays keyed to the Rembrandt +mood arrive. The reporters for the newspapers should get their ideas and +refreshment in such places as the Ryerson Art Library of the Chicago Art +Institute. They should begin with such books as Richard Muther's History +of Modern Painting, John C. Van Dyke's Art for Art's Sake, Marquand and +Frothingham's History of Sculpture, A.D.F. Hamlin's History of +Architecture. They should take the business of guidance in this new world +as a sacred trust, knowing they have the power to influence an enormous +democracy. + +The moving picture journals and the literati are in straits over the +censorship question. The literati side with the managers, on the +principles of free speech and a free press. But few of the aesthetically +super-wise are persistent fans. They rave for freedom, but are not, as a +general thing, living back in the home town. They do not face the +exigency of having their summer and winter amusement spoiled day after +day. + +Extremists among the pious are railing against the moving pictures as +once they railed against novels. They have no notion that this +institution is penetrating to the last backwoods of our civilization, +where its presence is as hard to prevent as the rain. But some of us are +destined to a reaction, almost as strong as the obsession. The +religionists will think they lead it. They will be self-deceived. Moving +picture nausea is already taking hold of numberless people, even when +they are in the purely pagan mood. Forced by their limited purses, their +inability to buy a Ford car, and the like, they go in their loneliness to +film after film till the whole world seems to turn on a reel. When they +are again at home, they see in the dark an imaginary screen with +tremendous pictures, whirling by at a horribly accelerated pace, a +photoplay delirium tremens. Faster and faster the reel turns in the back +of their heads. When the moving picture sea-sickness is upon one, nothing +satisfies but the quietest out of doors, the companionship of the +gentlest of real people. The non-movie-life has charms such as one never +before conceived. The worn citizen feels that the cranks and legislators +can do what they please to the producers. He is through with them. + +The moving picture business men do not realize that they have to face +these nervous conditions in their erstwhile friends. They flatter +themselves they are being pursued by some reincarnations of Anthony +Comstock. There are several reasons why photoplay corporations are +callous, along with the sufficient one that they are corporations. + +First, they are engaged in a financial orgy. Fortunes are being found by +actors and managers faster than they were dug up in 1849 and 1850 in +California. Forty-niner lawlessness of soul prevails. They talk each +other into a lordly state of mind. All is dash and experiment. Look at +the advertisements in the leading moving picture magazines. They are like +the praise of oil stock or Peruna. They bawl about films founded upon +little classics. They howl about plots that are ostensibly from the +soberest of novels, whose authors they blasphemously invoke. They boo and +blow about twisted, callous scenarios that are bad imitations of the +world's most beloved lyrics. + +The producers do not realize the mass effect of the output of the +business. It appears to many as a sea of unharnessed photography: sloppy +conceptions set forth with sharp edges and irrelevant realism. The +jumping, twitching, cold-blooded devices, day after day, create the +aforesaid sea-sickness, that has nothing to do with the questionable +subject. When on top of this we come to the picture that is actually +insulting, we are up in arms indeed. It is supplied by a corporation +magnate removed from his audience in location, fortune, interest, and +mood: an absentee landlord. I was trying to convert a talented and noble +friend to the films. The first time we went there was a prize-fight +between a black and a white man, not advertised, used for a filler. I +said it was queer, and would not happen again. The next time my noble +friend was persuaded to go, there was a cock-fight, incidental to a Cuban +romance. The third visit we beheld a lady who was dying for five minutes, +rolling her eyes about in a way that was fearful to see. The convert was +not made. + +It is too easy to produce an unprovoked murder, an inexplicable arson, +neither led up to nor followed by the ordinary human history of such +acts, and therefore as arbitrary as the deeds of idiots or the insane. A +villainous hate, an alleged love, a violent death, are flashed at us, +without being in any sort of tableau logic. The public is ceaselessly +played upon by tactless devices. Therefore it howls, just as children in +the nursery do when the awkward governess tries the very thing the +diplomatic governess, in reasonable time, may bring about. + +The producer has the man in the audience who cares for the art peculiarly +at his mercy. Compare him with the person who wants to read a magazine +for an evening. He can look over all the periodicals in the local +book-store in fifteen minutes. He can select the one he wants, take this +bit of printed matter home, go through the contents, find the three +articles he prefers, get an evening of reading out of them, and be happy. +Every day as many photoplays come to our town as magazines come to the +book-store in a week or a month. There are good ones and bad ones buried +in the list. There is no way to sample the films. One has to wait through +the first third of a reel before he has an idea of the merits of a +production, his ten cents is spent, and much of his time is gone. It +would take five hours at least to find the best film in our town for one +day. Meanwhile, nibbling and sampling, the seeker would run such a +gantlet of plot and dash and chase that his eyes and patience would be +exhausted. Recently there returned to the city for a day one of +Griffith's best Biographs, The Last Drop of Water. It was good to see +again. In order to watch this one reel twice I had to wait through five +others of unutterable miscellany. + +Since the producers and theatre-managers have us at their mercy, +they are under every obligation to consider our delicate +susceptibilities--granting the proposition that in an ideal world we will +have no legal censorship. As to what to do in this actual nation, let the +reader follow what John Collier has recently written in The Survey. +Collier was the leading force in founding the National Board of +Censorship. As a member of that volunteer extra-legal board which is +independent and high minded, yet accepted by the leading picture +companies, he is able to discuss legislation in a manner which the +present writer cannot hope to match. Read John Collier. But I wish to +suggest that the ideal censorship is that to which the daily press is +subject, the elastic hand of public opinion, if the photoplay can be +brought as near to newspaper conditions in this matter as it is in some +others. + +How does public opinion grip the journalist? The editor has a constant +report from his constituency. A popular scoop sells an extra at once. An +attack on the wrong idol cancels fifty subscriptions. People come to the +office to do it, and say why. If there is a piece of real news on the +second page, and fifty letters come in about it that night, next month +when that character of news reappears it gets the front page. Some human +peculiarities are not mentioned, some phrases not used. The total +attribute of the blue-pencil man is diplomacy. But while the motion +pictures come out every day, they get their discipline months afterwards +in the legislation that insists on everything but tact. A tentative +substitute for the letters that come to the editor, the personal call and +cancelled subscription, and the rest, is the system of balloting on the +picture, especially the answer to the question, "What picture seen here +this month, or this week, shall we bring back?" Experience will teach how +to put the queries. By the same system the public might dictate its own +cut-outs. Let us have a democracy and a photoplay business working in +daily rhythm. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE SUBSTITUTE FOR THE SALOON + + +This is a special commentary on chapter five, The Picture of Crowd +Splendor. It refers as well to every other type of moving picture that +gets into the slum. But the masses have an extraordinary affinity for the +Crowd Photoplay. As has been said before, the mob comes nightly to behold +its natural face in the glass. Politicians on the platform have swayed +the mass below them. But now, to speak in an Irish way, the crowd takes +the platform, and looking down, sees itself swaying. The slums are an +astonishing assembly of cave-men crawling out of their shelters to +exhibit for the first time in history a common interest on a tremendous +scale in an art form. Below the cliff caves were bar rooms in endless +lines. There are almost as many bar rooms to-day, yet this new thing +breaks the lines as nothing else ever did. Often when a moving picture +house is set up, the saloon on the right hand or the left declares +bankruptcy. + +Why do men prefer the photoplay to the drinking place? For no pious +reason, surely. Now they have fire pouring into their eyes instead of +into their bellies. Blood is drawn from the guts to the brain. Though the +picture be the veriest mess, the light and movement cause the beholder to +do a little reptilian thinking. After a day's work a street-sweeper +enters the place, heavy as King Log. A ditch-digger goes in, sick and +surly. It is the state of the body when many men drink themselves into +insensibility. But here the light is as strong in the eye as whiskey in +the throat. Along with the flare, shadow, and mystery, they face the +existence of people, places, costumes, utterly novel. Immigrants are +prodded by these swords of darkness and light to guess at the meaning of +the catch-phrases and headlines that punctuate the play. They strain to +hear their neighbors whisper or spell them out. + +The photoplays have done something to reunite the lower-class families. +No longer is the fire-escape the only summer resort for big and little +folks. Here is more fancy and whim than ever before blessed a hot night. +Here, under the wind of an electric fan, they witness everything, from a +burial in Westminster to the birthday parade of the ruler of the land of +Swat. + +The usual saloon equipment to delight the eye is one so-called "leg" +picture of a woman, a photograph of a prize-fighter, and some colored +portraits of goats to advertise various brands of beer. Many times, no +doubt, these boys and young men have found visions of a sordid kind while +gazing on the actress, the fighter, or the goats. But what poor material +they had in the wardrobes of memory for the trimmings and habiliments of +vision, to make this lady into Freya, this prize-fighter into Thor, these +goats into the harnessed steeds that drew his chariot! Man's dreams are +rearranged and glorified memories. How could these people reconstruct the +torn carpets and tin cans and waste-paper of their lives into mythology? +How could memories of Ladies' Entrance squalor be made into Castles in +Granada or Carcassonne? The things they drank to see, and saw but +grotesquely, and paid for terribly, now roll before them with no after +pain or punishment. The mumbled conversation, the sociability for which +they leaned over the tables, they have here in the same manner with far +more to talk about. They come, they go home, men and women together, as +casually and impulsively as the men alone ever entered a drinking-place, +but discoursing now of far-off mountains and star-crossed lovers. As +Padraic Colum says in his poem on the herdsman:-- + + "With thoughts on white ships + And the King of Spain's Daughter." + +This is why the saloon on the right hand and on the left in the slum is +apt to move out when the photoplay moves in. + +But let us go to the other end of the temperance argument. I beg to be +allowed to relate a personal matter. For some time I was a field-worker +for the Anti-Saloon League of Illinois, being sent every Sunday to a new +region to make the yearly visit on behalf of the league. Such a visitor +is apt to speak to one church in a village, and two in the country, on +each excursion, being met at the station by some leading farmer-citizen +of the section, and driven to these points by him. The talk with this man +was worth it all to me. + +The agricultural territory of the United States is naturally dry. This is +because the cross-roads church is the only communal institution, and the +voice of the cross-roads pastor is for teetotalism. The routine of the +farm-hand, while by no means ideal in other respects, keeps him from +craving drink as intensely as other toilers do. A day's work in the open +air fills his veins at nightfall with an opiate of weariness instead of a +high-strung nervousness. The strong men of the community are church +elders, not through fanaticism, but by right of leadership. Through their +office they are committed to prohibition. So opposition to the temperance +movement is scattering. The Anti-Saloon League has organized these +leaders into a nation-wide machine. It sees that they get their weekly +paper, instructing them in the tactics whereby local fights have been +won. A subscription financing the State League is taken once a year. It +counts on the regular list of church benevolences. The state officers +come in to help on the critical local fights. Any country politician +fears their non-partisan denunciation as he does political death. The +local machines thus backed are incurable mugwumps, hold the balance of +power, work in both parties, and have voted dry the agricultural +territory of the United States everywhere, by the township, county, or +state unit. + +The only institutions that touch the same territory in a similar way are +the Chautauquas in the prosperous agricultural centres. These, too, by +the same sign are emphatically anti-saloon in their propaganda, serving +to intellectualize and secularize the dry sentiment without taking it out +of the agricultural caste. + +There is a definite line between our farm-civilization and the rest. When +a county goes dry, it is generally in spite of the county-seat. Such +temperance people as are in the court-house town represent the +church-vote, which is even then in goodly proportion a retired-farmer +vote. The larger the county-seat, the larger the non-church-going +population and the more stubborn the fight. The majority of miners and +factory workers are on the wet side everywhere. The irritation caused by +the gases in the mines, by the dirty work in the blackness, by the +squalor in which the company houses are built, turns men to drink for +reaction and lamplight and comradeship. The similar fevers and +exasperations of factory life lead the workers to unstring their tense +nerves with liquor. The habit of snuggling up close in factories, +conversing often, bench by bench, machine by machine, inclines them to +get together for their pleasures at the bar. In industrial America there +is an anti-saloon minority in moral sympathy with the temperance wave +brought in by the farmers. But they are outstanding groups. Their +leadership seldom dries up a factory town or a mining region, with all +the help the Anti-Saloon League can give. + +In the big cities the temperance movement is scarcely understood. The +choice residential districts are voted dry for real estate reasons. The +men who do this, drink freely at their own clubs or parties. The +temperance question would be fruitlessly argued to the end of time were +it not for the massive agricultural vote rolling and roaring round each +metropolis, reawakening the town churches whose vote is a pitiful +minority but whose spokesmen are occasionally strident. + +There is a prophecy abroad that prohibition will be the issue of a +national election. If the question is squarely put, there are enough +farmers and church-people to drive the saloon out of legal existence. The +women's vote, a little more puritanical than the men's vote, will make +the result sure. As one anxious for this victory, I have often speculated +on the situation when all America is nominally dry, at the behest of the +American farmer, the American preacher, and the American woman. When the +use of alcohol is treason, what will become of those all but unbroken +lines of slum saloons? No lesser force than regular troops could dislodge +them, with yesterday's intrenchment. + +The entrance of the motion picture house into the arena is indeed +striking, the first enemy of King Alcohol with real power where that king +has deepest hold. If every one of those saloon doors is nailed up by the +Chautauqua orators, the photoplay archway will remain open. The people +will have a shelter where they can readjust themselves, that offers a +substitute for many of the lines of pleasure in the groggery. And a whole +evening costs but a dime apiece. Several rounds of drinks are expensive, +but the people can sit through as many repetitions of this programme as +they desire, for one entrance fee. The dominant genius of the moving +picture place is not a gentleman with a red nose and an eye like a dead +fish, but some producer who, with all his faults, has given every person +in the audience a seven-leagued angel-and-demon telescope. + +Since I have announced myself a farmer and a puritan, let me here list +the saloon evils not yet recorded in this chapter. They are separate from +the catalogue of the individualistic woes of the drunkard that are given +in the Scripture. The shame of the American drinking place is the +bar-tender who dominates its thinking. His cynical and hardened soul +wipes out a portion of the influence of the public school, the library, +the self-respecting newspaper. A stream rises no higher than its source, +and through his dead-fish eye and dead-fish brain the group of tired men +look upon all the statesmen and wise ones of the land. Though he says +worse than nothing, his furry tongue, by endless reiteration, is the +American slum oracle. At the present the bar-tender handles the +neighborhood group, the ultimate unit in city politics. + +So, good citizen, welcome the coming of the moving picture man as a local +social force. Whatever his private character, the mere formula of his +activities makes him a better type. He may not at first sway his group in +a directly political way, but he will make himself the centre of more +social ideals than the bar-tender ever entertained. And he is beginning +to have as intimate a relation to his public as the bar-tender. In many +cases he stands under his arch in the sheltered lobby and is on +conversing terms with his habitual customers, the length of the afternoon +and evening. + +Voting the saloon out of the slums by voting America dry, does not, as of +old, promise to be a successful operation that kills the patient. In the +past some of the photoplay magazines have contained denunciations of the +temperance people for refusing to say anything in behalf of the greatest +practical enemy of the saloon. But it is not too late for the dry forces +to repent. The Anti-Saloon League officers and the photoplay men should +ask each other to dinner. More moving picture theatres in doubtful +territory will help make dry voters. And wet territory voted dry will +bring about a greatly accelerated patronage of the photoplay houses. +There is every strategic reason why these two forces should patch up a +truce. + +Meanwhile, the cave-man, reader of picture-writing, is given a chance to +admit light into his mind, whatever he puts to his lips. Let us look for +the day, be it a puritan triumph or not, when the sons and the daughters +of the slums shall prophesy, the young men shall see visions, the old men +dream dreams. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +CALIFORNIA AND AMERICA + + +The moving picture captains of industry, like the California gold finders +of 1849, making colossal fortunes in two or three years, have the same +glorious irresponsibility and occasional need of the sheriff. They are +Californians more literally than this. Around Los Angeles the greatest +and most characteristic moving picture colonies are being built. Each +photoplay magazine has its California letter, telling of the +putting-up of new studios, and the transfer of actors, with much +slap-you-on-the-back personal gossip. This is the outgrowth of the fact +that every type of the photoplay but the intimate is founded on some +phase of the out-of-doors. Being thus dependent, the plant can best be +set up where there is no winter. Besides this, the Los Angeles region has +the sea, the mountains, the desert, and many kinds of grove and field. +Landscape and architecture are sub-tropical. But for a description of +California, ask any traveller or study the background of almost any +photoplay. + +If the photoplay is the consistent utterance of its scenes, if the actors +are incarnations of the land they walk upon, as they should be, +California indeed stands a chance to achieve through the films an +utterance of her own. Will this land furthest west be the first to +capture the inner spirit of this newest and most curious of the arts? It +certainly has the opportunity that comes with the actors, producers, and +equipment. Let us hope that every region will develop the silent +photographic pageant in a local form as outlined in the chapter on +Progress and Endowment. Already the California sort, in the commercial +channels, has become the broadly accepted if mediocre national form. +People who revere the Pilgrim Fathers of 1620 have often wished those +gentlemen had moored their bark in the region of Los Angeles rather than +Plymouth Rock, that Boston had been founded there. At last that landing +is achieved. + +Patriotic art students have discussed with mingled irony and admiration +the Boston domination of the only American culture of the nineteenth +century, namely, literature. Indianapolis has had her day since then, +Chicago is lifting her head. Nevertheless Boston still controls the +text-book in English and dominates our high schools. Ironic feelings in +this matter on the part of western men are based somewhat on envy and +illegitimate cussedness, but are also grounded in the honest hope of a +healthful rivalry. They want new romanticists and artists as indigenous +to their soil as was Hawthorne to witch-haunted Salem or Longfellow to +the chestnuts of his native heath. Whatever may be said of the +patriarchs, from Oliver Wendell Holmes to Amos Bronson Alcott, they were +true sons of the New England stone fences and meeting houses. They could +not have been born or nurtured anywhere else on the face of the earth. + +Some of us view with a peculiar thrill the prospect that Los Angeles may +become the Boston of the photoplay. Perhaps it would be better to say the +Florence, because California reminds one of colorful Italy more than of +any part of the United States. Yet there is a difference. + +The present-day man-in-the-street, man-about-town Californian has an +obvious magnificence about him that is allied to the eucalyptus tree, +the pomegranate. California is a gilded state. It has not the sordidness +of gold, as has Wall Street, but it is the embodiment of the natural ore +that the ragged prospector finds. The gold of California is the color of +the orange, the glitter of dawn in the Yosemite, the hue of the golden +gate that opens the sunset way to mystic and terrible Cathay and +Hindustan. + +The enemy of California says the state is magnificent but thin. He +declares it is as though it were painted on a Brobdingnagian piece of +gilt paper, and he who dampens his finger and thrusts it through finds an +alkali valley on the other side, the lonely prickly pear, and a heap of +ashes from a deserted camp-fire. He says the citizens of this state lack +the richness of an aesthetic and religious tradition. He says there is no +substitute for time. But even these things make for coincidence. This +apparent thinness California has in common with the routine photoplay, +which is at times as shallow in its thought as the shadow it throws upon +the screen. This newness California has in common with all photoplays. It +is thrillingly possible for the state and the art to acquire spiritual +tradition and depth together. + +Part of the thinness of California is not only its youth, but the result +of the physical fact that the human race is there spread over so many +acres of land. They try not only to count their mines and enumerate their +palm trees, but they count the miles of their sea-coast, and the acres +under cultivation and the height of the peaks, and revel in large +statistics and the bigness generally, and forget how a few men rattle +around in a great deal of scenery. They shout their statistics across the +Rockies and the deserts to New York. The Mississippi Valley is +non-existent to the Californian. His fellow-feeling is for the opposite +coast-line. Through the geographical accident of separation by mountain +and desert from the rest of the country, he becomes a mere shouter, +hurrahing so assiduously that all variety in the voice is lost. Then he +tries gestures, and becomes flamboyant, rococo. + +These are the defects of the motion picture qualities also. Its panoramic +tendency runs wild. As an institution it advertises itself with the +sweeping gesture. It has the same passion for coast-line. These are not +the sins of New England. When, in the hands of masters, they become +sources of strength, they will be a different set of virtues from those +of New England. + +There is no more natural place for the scattering of confetti than this +state, except the moving picture scene itself. Both have a genius for +gardens and dancing and carnival. + +When the Californian relegates the dramatic to secondary scenes, both in +his life and his photoplay, and turns to the genuinely epic and lyric, he +and this instrument may find their immortality together as New England +found its soul in the essays of Emerson. Tide upon tide of Spring comes +into California through all four seasons. Fairy beauty overwhelms the +lumbering grand-stand players. The tiniest garden is a jewelled pathway +of wonder. But the Californian cannot shout "orange blossoms, orange +blossoms; heliotrope, heliotrope!" He cannot boom forth "roseleaves, +roseleaves" so that he does their beauties justice. Here is where the +photoplay can begin to give him a more delicate utterance. And he can go +on into stranger things and evolve all the Splendor Films into higher +types, for the very name of California is splendor. The California +photo-playwright can base his Crowd Picture upon the city-worshipping +mobs of San Francisco. He can derive his Patriotic and Religious +Splendors from something older and more magnificent than the aisles of +the Romanesque, namely: the groves of the giant redwoods. + +The campaign for a beautiful nation could very well emanate from the west +coast, where with the slightest care grow up models for all the world of +plant arrangement and tree-luxury. Our mechanical East is reproved, our +tension is relaxed, our ugliness is challenged every time we look upon +those garden paths and forests. + +It is possible for Los Angeles to lay hold of the motion picture as our +national text-book in Art as Boston appropriated to herself the +guardianship of the national text-books of Literature. If California has +a shining soul, and not merely a golden body, let her forget her +seventeen-year-old melodramatics, and turn to her poets who understand +the heart underneath the glory. Edwin Markham, the dean of American +singers, Clark Ashton Smith, the young star treader, George Sterling, +that son of Ancient Merlin, have in their songs the seeds of better +scenarios than California has sent us. There are two poems by George +Sterling that I have had in mind for many a day as conceptions that +should inspire mystic films akin to them. These poems are The Night +Sentries and Tidal King of Nations. + +But California can tell us stories that are grim children of the tales of +the wild Ambrose Bierce. Then there is the lovely unforgotten Nora May +French and the austere Edward Rowland Sill. + +Edison is the new Gutenberg. He has invented the new printing. The state +that realizes this may lead the soul of America, day after to-morrow. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +PROGRESS AND ENDOWMENT + + +The moving picture goes almost as far as journalism into the social +fabric in some ways, further in others. Soon, no doubt, many a little +town will have its photographic news-press. We have already the weekly +world-news films from the big centres. + +With local journalism will come devices for advertising home enterprises. +Some staple products will be made attractive by having film-actors show +their uses. The motion pictures will be in the public schools to stay. +Text-books in geography, history, zoology, botany, physiology, and other +sciences will be illustrated by standardized films. Along with these +changes, there will be available at certain centres collections of films +equivalent to the Standard Dictionary and the Encyclopaedia Britannica. + +And sooner or later we will have a straight-out capture of a complete +film expression by the serious forces of civilization. The merely +impudent motion picture will be relegated to the leisure hours with +yellow journalism. Photoplay libraries are inevitable, as active if not +as multitudinous as the book-circulating libraries. The oncoming +machinery and expense of the motion picture is immense. Where will the +money come from? No one knows. What the people want they will get. The +race of man cannot afford automobiles, but has them nevertheless. We +cannot run away into non-automobile existence or non-steam-engine or +non-movie life long at a time. We must conquer this thing. While the more +stately scientific and educational aspects just enumerated are slowly on +their way, the artists must be up and about their ameliorative work. + +Every considerable effort to develop a noble idiom will count in the +final result, as the writers of early English made possible the language +of the Bible, Shakespeare, and Milton. We are perfecting a medium to be +used as long as Chinese ideographs have been. It will no doubt, like the +Chinese language, record in the end massive and classical treatises, +imperial chronicles, law-codes, traditions, and religious admonitions. +All this by the _motion picture_ as a recording instrument, not +necessarily the _photoplay_, a much more limited thing, a form of art. + +What shall be done in especial by this generation of idealists, whose +flags rise and go down, whose battle line wavers and breaks a thousand +times? What is the high quixotic splendid call? We know of a group of +public-spirited people who advocate, in endowed films, "safety first," +another that champions total abstinence. Often their work seems lost in +the mass of commercial production, but it is a good beginning. Such +citizens take an established studio for a specified time and at the end +put on the market a production that backs up their particular idea. There +are certain terms between the owners of the film and the proprietors of +the studio for the division of the income, the profits of the cult being +spent on further propaganda. The product need not necessarily be the type +outlined in chapter two, The Photoplay of Action. Often some other sort +might establish the cause more deeply. But most of the propaganda films +are of the action variety, because of the dynamic character of the people +who produce them. Fired by fanatic zeal, the auto speeds faster, the +rescuing hero runs harder, the stern policeman and sheriff become more +jumpy, all that the audience may be converted. Here if anywhere +meditation on the actual resources of charm and force in the art is a +fitting thing. The crusader should realize that it is not a good Action +Play nor even a good argument unless it is indeed the Winged Victory +sort. The gods are not always on the side of those who throw fits. + +There is here appended a newspaper description of a crusading film, that, +despite the implications of the notice, has many passages of charm. It is +two-thirds Action Photoplay, one-third Intimate-and-friendly. The notice +does not imply that at times the story takes pains to be gentle. This bit +of writing is all too typical of film journalism. + +"Not only as an argument for suffrage but as a play with a story, a +punch, and a mission, 'Your Girl and Mine' is produced under the +direction of the National Woman's Suffrage Association at the Capitol +to-day. + +"Olive Wyndham forsook the legitimate stage for the time to pose as the +heroine of the play. Katherine Kaelred, leading lady of 'Joseph and his +Brethren,' took the part of a woman lawyer battling for the right. +Sydney Booth, of the 'Yellow Ticket' company posed as the hero of the +experiment. John Charles and Katharine Henry played the villain and the +honest working girl. About three hundred secondaries were engaged along +with the principals. + +"It is melodrama of the most thrilling sort, in spite of the fact that +there is a moral concealed in the very title of the play. But who is +worried by a moral in a play which has an exciting hand-to-hand fight +between a man and a woman in one of the earliest acts, when the quick +march of events ranges from a wedding to a murder and an automobile +abduction scene that breaks all former speed-records. 'The Cause' comes +in most symbolically and poetically, a symbolic figure that 'fades out' +at critical periods in the plot. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, the famous +suffrage leader, appears personally in the film. + +"'Your Girl and Mine' is a big play with a big mission built on a big +scale. It is a whole evening's entertainment, and a very interesting +evening at that." Here endeth the newspaper notice. Compare it with the +Biograph advertisement of Judith in chapter six. + +There is nothing in the film that rasps like this account of it. The +clipping serves to give the street-atmosphere through which our Woman's +Suffrage Joan of Arcs move to conquest and glory with unstained banners. + +The obvious amendments to the production as an instrument of persuasion +are two. Firstly there should be five reels instead of six, every scene +shortened a bit to bring this result. Secondly, the lieutenant governor +of the state, who is the Rudolf Rassendyll of the production, does not +enter the story soon enough, and is too James K. Hacketty all at once. We +are jerked into admiration of him, rather than ensnared. But after that +the gentleman behaves more handsomely than any of the distinguished +lieutenant governors in real life the present writer happens to remember. +The figure of Aunt Jane, the queenly serious woman of affairs, is one to +admire and love. Her effectiveness without excess or strain is in itself +an argument for giving woman the vote. The newspaper notice does not +state the facts in saying the symbolical figure "fades out" at critical +periods in the plot. On the contrary, she appears at critical periods, +clothed in white, solemn and royal. She comes into the groups with an +adequate allurement, pointing the moral of each situation while she +shines brightest. The two children for whom the contest is fought are +winsome little girls. By the side of their mother in the garden or in the +nursery they are a potent argument for the natural rights of femininity. +The film is by no means ultra-aesthetic. The implications of the clipping +are correct to that degree. But the resources of beauty within the ready +command of the advising professional producer are used by the women for +all they are worth. It could not be asked of them that they evolve +technical novelties. + +Yet the figures of Aunt Jane and the Goddess of Suffrage are something +new in their fashion. Aunt Jane is a spiritual sister to that +unprecedented woman, Jane Addams, who went to the Hague conference for +Peace in the midst of war, which heroic action the future will not +forget. Aunt Jane does justice to that breed of women amid the sweetness +and flowers and mere scenario perils of the photoplay story. The presence +of the "Votes for Women" figure is the beginning of a line of photoplay +goddesses that serious propaganda in the new medium will make part of the +American Spiritual Hierarchy. In the imaginary film of Our Lady +Springfield, described in the chapter on Architecture-in-Motion, a +kindred divinity is presumed to stand by the side of the statue when it +first reaches the earth. + +High-minded graduates of university courses in sociology and schools of +philanthropy, devout readers of The Survey, The Chicago Public, The +Masses, The New Republic, La Follette's, are going to advocate +increasingly, their varied and sometimes contradictory causes, in films. +These will generally be produced by heroic exertions in the studio, and +much passing of the subscription paper outside. + +Then there are endowments already in existence that will no doubt be +diverted to the photoplay channel. In every state house, and in +Washington, D.C., increasing quantities of dead printed matter have been +turned out year after year. They have served to kindle various furnaces +and feed the paper-mills a second time. Many of these routine reports +will remain in innocuous desuetude. But one-fourth of them, perhaps, are +capable of being embodied in films. If they are scientific +demonstrations, they can be made into realistic motion picture records. +If they are exhortations, they can be transformed into plays with a +moral, brothers of the film Your Girl and Mine. The appropriations for +public printing should include such work hereafter. + +The scientific museums distribute routine pamphlets that would set the +whole world right on certain points if they were but read by said world. +Let them be filmed and started. Whatever the congressman is permitted to +frank to his constituency, let him send in the motion picture form when +it is the expedient and expressive way. + +When men work for the high degrees in the universities, they labor on a +piece of literary conspiracy called a thesis which no one outside the +university hears of again. The gist of this research work that is dead to +the democracy, through the university merits of thoroughness, moderation +of statement, and final touch of discovery, would have a chance to live +and grip the people in a motion picture transcript, if not a photoplay. +It would be University Extension. The relentless fire of criticism which +the heads of the departments would pour on the production before they +allowed it to pass would result in a standardization of the sense of +scientific fact over the land. Suppose the film has the coat of arms of +the University of Chicago along with the name of the young graduate whose +thesis it is. He would have a chance to reflect credit on the university +even as much as a foot-ball player. + +Large undertakings might be under way, like those described in the +chapter on Architecture-in-Motion. But these would require much more than +the ordinary outlay for thesis work, less, perhaps, than is taken for +Athletics. Lyman Howe and several other world-explorers have already set +the pace in the more human side of the educative film. The list of Mr. +Howe's offerings from the first would reveal many a one that would have +run the gantlet of a university department. He points out a new direction +for old energies, whereby professors may become citizens. + +Let the cave-man, reader of picture-writing, be allowed to ponder over +scientific truth. He is at present the victim of the alleged truth of the +specious and sentimental variety of photograph. It gives the precise +edges of the coat or collar of the smirking masher and the exact fibre in +the dress of the jumping-jack. The eye grows weary of sharp points and +hard edges that mean nothing. All this idiotic precision is going to +waste. It should be enlisted in the cause of science and abated +everywhere else. The edges in art are as mysterious as in science they +are exact. + +Some of the higher forms of the Intimate Moving Picture play should be +endowed by local coteries representing their particular region. Every +community of fifty thousand has its group of the cultured who have +heretofore studied and imitated things done in the big cities. Some of +these coteries will in exceptional cases become creative and begin to +express their habitation and name. The Intimate Photoplay is capable of +that delicacy and that informality which should characterize neighborhood +enterprises. + +The plays could be acted by the group who, season after season, have +secured the opera house for the annual amateur show. Other dramatic +ability could be found in the high-schools. There is enough talent in any +place to make an artistic revolution, if once that region is aflame with +a common vision. The spirit that made the Irish Players, all so racy of +the soil, can also move the company of local photoplayers in Topeka, or +Indianapolis, or Denver. Then let them speak for their town, not only in +great occasional enterprises, but steadily, in little fancies, genre +pictures, developing a technique that will finally make magnificence +possible. + +There was given not long ago, at the Illinois Country Club here, a +performance of The Yellow Jacket by the Coburn Players. It at once seemed +an integral part of this chapter. + +The two flags used for a chariot, the bamboo poles for oars, the red sack +for a decapitated head, etc., were all convincing, through a direct +resemblance as well as the passionate acting. They suggest a possible +type of hieroglyphics to be developed by the leader of the local group. + +Let the enthusiast study this westernized Chinese play for primitive +representative methods. It can be found in book form, a most readable +work. It is by G.C. Hazelton, Jr., and J.H. Benrimo. The resemblance +between the stage property and the thing represented is fairly close. The +moving flags on each side of the actor suggest the actual color and +progress of the chariot, and abstractly suggest its magnificence. The red +sack used for a bloody head has at least the color and size of one. The +dressed-up block of wood used for a child is the length of an infant of +the age described and wears the general costume thereof. The farmer's +hoe, though exaggerated, is still an agricultural implement. + +The evening's list of properties is economical, filling one wagon, rather +than three. Photographic realism is splendidly put to rout by powerful +representation. When the villager desires to embody some episode that if +realistically given would require a setting beyond the means of the +available endowment, and does not like the near-Egyptian method, let him +evolve his near-Chinese set of symbols. + +The Yellow Jacket was written after long familiarity with the Chinese +Theatre in San Francisco. The play is a glory to that city as well as to +Hazelton and Benrimo. But every town in the United States has something +as striking as the Chinese Theatre, to the man who keeps the eye of his +soul open. It has its Ministerial Association, its boys' secret society, +its red-eyed political gang, its grubby Justice of the Peace court, its +free school for the teaching of Hebrew, its snobbish chapel, its +fire-engine house, its milliner's shop. All these could be made visible +in photoplays as flies are preserved in amber. + +Edgar Lee Masters looked about him and discovered the village graveyard, +and made it as wonderful as Noah's Ark, or Adam naming the animals, by +supplying honest inscriptions to the headstones. Such stories can be told +by the Chinese theatrical system as well. As many different films could +be included under the general title: "Seven Old Families, and Why they +Went to Smash." Or a less ominous series would be "Seven Victorious +Souls." For there are triumphs every day under the drab monotony of an +apparently defeated town: conquests worthy of the waving of sun-banners. +Above all, The Yellow Jacket points a moral for this chapter because +there was conscience behind it. First: the rectitude of the Chinese +actors of San Francisco who kept the dramatic tradition alive, a +tradition that was bequeathed from the ancient generations. Then the +artistic integrity of the men who readapted the tradition for western +consumption, and their religious attitude that kept the high teaching and +devout feeling for human life intact in the play. Then the zeal of the +Drama League that indorsed it for the country. Then the earnest work of +the Coburn Players who embodied it devoutly, so that the whole company +became dear friends forever. + +By some such ladder of conscience as this can the local scenario be +endowed, written, acted, filmed, and made a real part of the community +life. The Yellow Jacket was a drama, not a photoplay. This chapter does +not urge that it be readapted for a photoplay in San Francisco or +anywhere else. But a kindred painting-in-motion, something as beautiful +and worthy and intimate, in strictly photoplay terms, might well be the +flower of the work of the local groups of film actors. + +Harriet Monroe's magazine, "Poetry" (Chicago), has given us a new sect, +the Imagists:--Ezra Pound, Richard Aldington, John Gould Fletcher, Amy +Lowell, F.S. Flint, D.H. Lawrence, and others. They are gathering +followers and imitators. To these followers I would say: the Imagist +impulse need not be confined to verse. Why would you be imitators of +these leaders when you might be creators in a new medium? There is a +clear parallelism between their point of view in verse and the +Intimate-and-friendly Photoplay, especially when it is developed from the +standpoint of the last part of chapter nine, _space measured without +sound plus time measured without sound_. + +There is no clan to-day more purely devoted to art for art's sake than +the Imagist clan. An Imagist film would offer a noble challenge to the +overstrained emotion, the over-loaded splendor, the mere repetition of +what are at present the finest photoplays. Now even the masterpieces are +incontinent. Except for some of the old one-reel Biographs of Griffith's +beginning, there is nothing of Doric restraint from the best to the +worst. Read some of the poems of the people listed above, then imagine +the same moods in the films. Imagist photoplays would be Japanese prints +taking on life, animated Japanese paintings, Pompeian mosaics in +kaleidoscopic but logical succession, Beardsley drawings made into actors +and scenery, Greek vase-paintings in motion. + +Scarcely a photoplay but hints at the Imagists in one scene. Then the +illusion is lost in the next turn of the reel. Perhaps it would be a +sound observance to confine this form of motion picture to a half reel or +quarter reel, just as the Imagist poem is generally a half or quarter +page. A series of them could fill a special evening. + +The Imagists are colorists. Some people do not consider that photographic +black, white, and gray are color. But here for instance are seven colors +which the Imagists might use: (1) The whiteness of swans in the light. +(2) The whiteness of swans in a gentle shadow. (3) The color of a +sunburned man in the light. (4) His color in a gentle shadow. (5) His +color in a deeper shadow. (6) The blackness of black velvet in the light. +(7) The blackness of black velvet in a deep shadow. And to use these +colors with definite steps from one to the other does not militate +against an artistic mystery of edge and softness in the flow of line. +There is a list of possible Imagist textures which is only limited by the +number of things to be seen in the world. Probably only seven or ten +would be used in one scheme and the same list kept through one +production. + +The Imagist photoplay will put discipline into the inner ranks of the +enlightened and remind the sculptors, painters, and architects of the +movies that there is a continence even beyond sculpture and that seas of +realism may not have the power of a little well-considered elimination. + +The use of the scientific film by established institutions like schools +and state governments has been discussed. Let the Church also, in her own +way, avail herself of the motion picture, whole-heartedly, as in +mediaeval time she took over the marvel of Italian painting. There was a +stage in her history when religious representation was by Byzantine +mosaics, noble in color, having an architectural use, but curious indeed +to behold from the standpoint of those who crave a sensitive emotional +record. The first paintings of Cimabue and Giotto, giving these formulas +a touch of life, were hailed with joy by all Italy. Now the Church +Universal has an opportunity to establish her new painters if she will. +She has taken over in the course of history, for her glory, miracle +plays, Romanesque and Gothic architecture, stained glass windows, and the +music of St. Cecilia's organ. Why not this new splendor? The Cathedral of +St. John the Divine, on Morningside Heights, should establish in its +crypt motion pictures as thoroughly considered as the lines of that +building, if possible designed by the architects thereof, with the same +sense of permanency. + +This chapter does not advocate that the Church lay hold of the photoplays +as one more medium for reillustrating the stories of the Bible as they +are given in the Sunday-school papers. It is not pietistic simpering that +will feed the spirit of Christendom, but a steady church-patronage of +the most skilful and original motion picture artists. Let the Church +follow the precedent which finally gave us Fra Angelico, Botticelli, +Andrea del Sarto, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Correggio, +Titian, Paul Veronese, Tintoretto, and the rest. + +Who will endow the successors of the present woman's suffrage film, and +other great crusading films? Who will see that the public documents and +university researches take on the form of motion pictures? Who will endow +the local photoplay and the Imagist photoplay? Who will take the first +great measures to insure motion picture splendors in the church? + +Things such as these come on the winds of to-morrow. But let the crusader +look about him, and where it is possible, put in the diplomatic word, and +cooeperate with the Gray Norns. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +ARCHITECTS AS CRUSADERS + + +Many a worker sees his future America as a Utopia, in which his own +profession, achieving dictatorship, alleviates the ills of men. The +militarist grows dithyrambic in showing how war makes for the blessings +of peace. The economic teacher argues that if we follow his political +economy, none of us will have to economize. The church-fanatic says if +all churches will merge with his organization, none of them will have to +try to behave again. They will just naturally be good. The physician +hopes to abolish the devil by sanitation. We have our Utopias. Despite +levity, the present writer thinks that such hopes are among the most +useful things the earth possesses. + +A normal man in the full tide of his activities finds that a +world-machinery could logically be built up by his profession. At least +in the heyday of his working hours his vocation satisfies his heart. So +he wants the entire human race to taste that satisfaction. Approximate +Utopias have been built from the beginning. Many civilizations have had +some dominant craft to carry them the major part of the way. The priests +have made India. The classical student has preserved Old China to its +present hour of new life. The samurai knights have made Japan. Sailors +have evolved the British Empire. One of the enticing future Americas is +that of the architect. Let the architect appropriate the photoplay as his +means of propaganda and begin. From its intrinsic genius it can give his +profession a start beyond all others in dominating this land. Or such is +one of many speculations of the present writer. + +The photoplay can speak the language of the man who has a mind World's +Fair size. That we are going to have successive generations of such +builders may be reasonably implied from past expositions. Beginning with +Philadelphia in 1876, and going on to San Francisco and San Diego in +1915, nothing seems to stop us from the habit. Let us enlarge this +proclivity into a national mission in as definite a movement, as +thoroughly thought out as the evolution of the public school system, the +formation of the Steel Trust, and the like. After duly weighing all the +world's fairs, let our architects set about making the whole of the +United States into a permanent one. Supposing the date to begin the +erection be 1930. Till that time there should be tireless if indirect +propaganda that will further the architectural state of mind, and later +bring about the elucidation of the plans while they are being perfected. +For many years this America, founded on the psychology of the Splendor +Photoplay, will be evolving. It might be conceived as a going concern at +a certain date within the lives of men now living, but it should never +cease to develop. + +To make films of a more beautiful United States is as practical and worth +while a custom as to make military spy maps of every inch of a neighbor's +territory, putting in each fence and cross-roads. Those who would satisfy +the national pride with something besides battle flags must give our +people an objective as shining and splendid as war when it is most +glittering, something Napoleonic, and with no outward pretence of +excessive virtue. We want a substitute as dramatic internationally, yet +world-winning, friend making. If America is to become the financial +centre through no fault of her own, that fact must have a symbol other +than guns on the sea-coast. + +If it is inexpedient for the architectural patriarchs and their young +hopefuls to take over the films bodily, let a board of strategy be formed +who make it their business to eat dinner with the scenario writers, +producers, and owners, conspiring with them in some practical way. + +Why should we not consider ourselves a deathless Panama-Pacific +Exposition on a coast-to-coast scale? Let Chicago be the transportation +building, Denver the mining building. Let Kansas City be the agricultural +building and Jacksonville, Florida, the horticultural building, and so +around the states. + +Even as in mediaeval times men rode for hundreds of miles through perils +to the permanent fairs of the free cities, the world-travellers will +attend this exhibit, and many of them will in the end become citizens. +Our immigration will be something more than tide upon tide of raw labor. +The Architects would send forth publicity films which are not only +delineations of a future Cincinnati, Cleveland, or St. Louis, but whole +counties and states and groups of states could be planned at one time, +with the development of their natural fauna, flora, and forestry. +Wherever nature has been rendered desolate by industry or mere haste, +there let the architect and park-architect proclaim the plan. Wherever +she is still splendid and untamed, let her not be violated. + +America is in the state of mind where she must visualize herself again. +If it is not possible to bring in the New Jerusalem to-day, by public +act, with every citizen eating bread and honey under his vine and +fig-tree, owning forty acres and a mule, singing hymns and saying prayers +all his leisure hours, it is still reasonable to think out tremendous +things the American people can do, in the light of what they have done, +without sacrificing any of their native cussedness or kick. It was +sprawling Chicago that in 1893 achieved the White City. The automobile +routes bind the states together closer than muddy counties were held in +1893. A "Permanent World's Fair" may be a phrase distressing to the +literal mind. Perhaps it would be better to say "An Architect's America." + +Let each city take expert counsel from the architectural demigods how to +tear out the dirty core of its principal business square and erect a +combination of civic centre and permanent and glorious bazaar. Let the +public debate the types of state flower, tree, and shrub that are +expedient, the varieties of villages and middle-sized towns, farm-homes, +and connecting parkways. + +Sometimes it seems to me the American expositions are as characteristic +things as our land has achieved. They went through without hesitation. +The difficulties of one did not deter the erection of the next. The +United States may be in many things slack. Often the democracy looks +hopelessly shoddy. But it cannot be denied that our people have always +risen to the dignity of these great architectural projects. + +Once the population understand they are dealing with the same type of +idea on a grander scale, they will follow to the end. We are not +proposing an economic revolution, or that human nature be suddenly +altered. If California can remain in the World's Fair state of mind for +four or five years, and finally achieve such a splendid result, all the +states can undertake a similar project conjointly, and because of the +momentum of a nation moving together, remain in that mind for the length +of the life of a man. + +Here we have this great instrument, the motion picture, the fourth +largest industry in the United States, attended daily by ten million +people, and in ten days by a hundred million, capable of interpreting the +largest conceivable ideas that come within the range of the plastic arts, +and those ideas have not been supplied. It is still the plaything of +newly rich vaudeville managers. The nation goes daily, through intrinsic +interest in the device, and is dosed with such continued stories as the +Adventures of Kathlyn, What Happened to Mary, and the Million Dollar +Mystery, stretched on through reel after reel, week after week. Kathlyn +had no especial adventures. Nothing in particular happened to Mary. The +million dollar mystery was: why did the millionaires who owned such a +magnificent instrument descend to such silliness and impose it on the +people? Why cannot our weekly story be henceforth some great plan that is +being worked out, whose history will delight us? For instance, every +stage of the building of the Panama Canal was followed with the greatest +interest in the films. But there was not enough of it to keep the films +busy. + +The great material projects are often easier to realize than the little +moral reforms. Beautiful architectural undertakings, while appearing to +be material, and succeeding by the laws of American enterprise, bring +with them the healing hand of beauty. Beauty is not directly pious, but +does more civilizing in its proper hour than many sermons or laws. + +The world seems to be in the hands of adventurers. Why not this for the +adventure of the American architects? If something akin to this plan does +not come to pass through photoplay propaganda, it means there is no +American builder with the blood of Julius Caesar in his veins. If there is +the old brute lust for empire left in any builder, let him awake. The +world is before him. + +As for the other Utopians, the economist, the physician, the puritan, as +soon as the architects have won over the photoplay people, let these +others take sage counsel and ensnare the architects. Is there a reform +worth while that cannot be embodied and enforced by a builder's +invention? A mere city plan, carried out, or the name or intent of a +quasi-public building and the list of offices within it may bring about +more salutary economic change than all the debating and voting +imaginable. So without too much theorizing, why not erect our new America +and move into it? + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +ON COMING FORTH BY DAY + + +If he will be so indulgent with his author, let the reader approach the +photoplay theatre as though for the first time, having again a new point +of view. Here the poorest can pay and enter from the glaring afternoon +into the twilight of an Ali Baba's cave. The dime is the single +open-sesame required. The half-light wherein the audience is seated, by +which they can read in an emergency, is as bright and dark as that of +some candle-lit churches. It reveals much in the faces and figures of the +audience that cannot be seen by common day. Hard edges are the main +things that we lose. The gain is in all the delicacies of modelling, +tone-relations, form, and color. A hundred evanescent impressions come +and go. There is often a tenderness of appeal about the most rugged face +in the assembly. Humanity takes on its sacred aspect. It is a crude mind +that would insist that these appearances are not real, that the eye does +not see them when all eyes behold them. To say dogmatically that any new +thing seen by half-light is an illusion, is like arguing that a discovery +by the telescope or microscope is unreal. If the appearances are +beautiful besides, they are not only facts, but assets in our lives. + +Book-reading is not done in the direct noon-sunlight. We retire to the +shaded porch. It takes two more steps toward quietness of light to read +the human face and figure. Many great paintings and poems are records of +things discovered in this quietness of light. + +It is indeed ironical in our Ali Baba's cave to see sheer everydayness +and hardness upon the screen, the audience dragged back to the street +they have escaped. One of the inventions to bring the twilight of the +gathering into brotherhood with the shadows on the screen is a simple +thing known to the trade as the fadeaway, that had its rise in a +commonplace fashion as a method of keeping the story from ending with the +white glare of the empty screen. As a result of the device the figures in +the first episode emerge from the dimness and in the last one go back +into the shadow whence they came, as foam returns to the darkness of an +evening sea. In the imaginative pictures the principle begins to be +applied more largely, till throughout the fairy story the figures float +in and out from the unknown, as fancies should. This method in its +simplicity counts more to keep the place an Ali Baba's cave than many a +more complicated procedure. In luxurious scenes it brings the soft edges +of Correggio, and in solemn ones a light and shadow akin to the effects +of Rembrandt. + +Now we have a darkness on which we can paint, an unspoiled twilight. We +need not call it the Arabian's cave. There is a tomb we might have +definitely in mind, an Egyptian burying-place where with a torch we might +enter, read the inscriptions, and see the illustrations from the Book of +the Dead on the wall, or finding that ancient papyrus in the mummy-case, +unroll it and show it to the eager assembly, and have the feeling of +return. Man is an Egyptian first, before he is any other type of +civilized being. The Nile flows through his heart. So let this cave be +Egypt, let us incline ourselves to revere the unconscious memories that +echo within us when we see the hieroglyphics of Osiris, and Isis. Egypt +was our long brooding youth. We built the mysteriousness of the Universe +into the Pyramids, carved it into every line of the Sphinx. We thought +always of the immemorial. + +The reel now before us is the mighty judgment roll dealing with the +question of our departure in such a way that any man who beholds it will +bear the impress of the admonition upon his heart forever. Those Egyptian +priests did no little thing, when amid their superstitions they still +proclaimed the Judgment. Let no one consider himself ready for death, +till like the men by the Nile he can call up every scene, face with +courage every exigency of the ordeal. + +There is one copy of the Book of the Dead of especial interest, made for +the Scribe Ani, with exquisite marginal drawings. Copies may be found in +our large libraries. The particular fac-simile I had the honor to see was +in the Lenox Library, New York, several years ago. Ani, according to the +formula of the priesthood, goes through the adventures required of a +shade before he reaches the court of Osiris. All the Egyptian pictures on +tomb-wall and temple are but enlarged picture-writing made into tableaus. +Through such tableaus Ani moves. The Ani manuscript has so fascinated +some of the Egyptologists that it is copied in figures fifteen feet high +on the walls of two of the rooms of the British Museum. And you can read +the story eloquently told in Maspero. + +Ani knocks at many doors in the underworld. Monstrous gatekeepers are +squatting on their haunches with huge knives to slice him if he cannot +remember their names or give the right password, or by spells the priests +have taught him, convince the sentinels that he is Osiris himself. To +further the illusion the name of Osiris is inscribed on his breast. While +he is passing these perils his little wife is looking on by a sort of +clairvoyant sympathy, though she is still alive. She is depicted mourning +him and embracing his mummy on earth at the same time she accompanies him +through the shadows. + +Ani ploughs and sows and reaps in the fields of the underworld. He is +carried past a dreadful place on the back of the cow Hathor. After as +many adventures as Browning's Childe Roland he steps into the +judgment-hall of the gods. They sit in majestic rows. He makes the proper +sacrifices, and advances to the scales of justice. There he sees his own +heart weighed against the ostrich-feather of Truth, by the jackal-god +Anubis, who has already presided at his embalming. His own soul, in the +form of a human-headed hawk, watches the ceremony. His ghost, which is +another entity, looks through the door with his little wife. Both of them +watch with tense anxiety. The fate of every phase of his personality +depends upon the purity of his heart. + +Lying in wait behind Anubis is a monster, part crocodile, part lion, part +hippopotamus. This terror will eat the heart of Ani if it is found +corrupt. At last he is declared justified. Thoth, the ibis-headed God of +Writing, records the verdict on his tablet. The justified Ani moves on +past the baffled devourer, with the mystic presence of his little wife +rejoicing at his side. They go to the awful court of Osiris. She makes +sacrifice with him there. The God of the Dead is indeed a strange deity, +a seated semi-animated mummy, with all the appurtenances of royalty, and +with the four sons of Horus on a lotus before him, and his two wives, +Isis and Nephthys, standing behind his throne with their hands on his +shoulders. + +The justified soul now boards the boat in which the sun rides as it +journeys through the night. He rises a glorious boatman in the morning, +working an oar to speed the craft through the high ocean of the noon sky. +Henceforth he makes the eternal round with the sun. Therefore in Ancient +Egypt the roll was called, not the Book of the Dead, but _The Chapters on +Coming Forth by Day_. + +This book on motion pictures does not profess to be an expert treatise on +Egyptology as well. The learned folk are welcome to amend the modernisms +that have crept into it. But the fact remains that something like this +story in one form or another held Egypt spell-bound for many hundred +years. It was the force behind every mummification. It was the reason for +the whole Egyptian system of life, death, and entombment, for the man not +embalmed could not make the journey. So the explorer finds the Egyptian +with a roll of this papyrus as a guide-book on his mummy breast. The soul +needed to return for refreshment periodically to the stone chamber, and +the mummy mutilated or destroyed could not entertain the guest. Egypt +cried out through thousands of years for the ultimate resurrection of the +whole man, his _coming forth by day_. + +We need not fear that a story that so dominated a race will be lost on +modern souls when vividly set forth. Is it too much to expect that some +American prophet-wizard of the future will give us this film in the +spirit of an Egyptian priest? + +The Greeks, the wisest people in our limited system of classics, bowed +down before the Egyptian hierarchy. That cult must have had a fine +personal authority and glamour to master such men. The unseen mysteries +were always on the Egyptian heart as a burden and a consolation, and +though there may have been jugglers in the outer courts of these temples, +as there have been in the courts of all temples, no mere actor could make +an Egyptian priest of himself. Their very alphabet has a regal +enchantment in its lines, and the same aesthetic-mystical power remains in +their pylons and images under the blaze of the all-revealing noonday sun. + +Here is a nation, America, going for dreams into caves as shadowy as the +tomb of Queen Thi. There they find too often, not that ancient priestess +and ruler, nor any of her kin, nor yet Ani the scribe, nor yet any of the +kings, but shabby rags of fancy, or circuses that were better in the +street. + +Because ten million people daily enter into the cave, something akin to +Egyptian wizardry, certain national rituals, will be born. By studying +the matter of being an Egyptian priest for a little while, the +author-producer may learn in the end how best to express and satisfy the +spirit-hungers that are peculiarly American. It is sometimes out of the +oldest dream that the youngest vision is born. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE PROPHET-WIZARD + + +The whirlwind of cowboys and Indians with which the photoplay began, came +about because this instrument, in asserting its genius, was feeling its +way toward the most primitive forms of life it could find. + +Now there is a tendency for even wilder things. We behold the half-draped +figures living in tropical islands or our hairy fore-fathers acting out +narratives of the stone age. The moving picture conventionality permits +an abbreviation of drapery. If the primitive setting is convincing, the +figure in the grass-robe or buffalo hide at once has its rights over the +healthful imagination. + +There is in this nation of moving-picture-goers a hunger for tales of +fundamental life that are not yet told. The cave-man longs with an +incurable homesickness for his ancient day. One of the fine photoplays of +primeval life is the story called Man's Genesis, described in chapter +two. + +We face the exigency the world over of vast instruments like national +armies being played against each other as idly and aimlessly as the +checker-men on the cracker-barrels of corner groceries. And this +invention, the kinetoscope, which affects or will affect as many people +as the guns of Europe, is not yet understood in its powers, particularly +those of bringing back the primitive in a big rich way. The primitive is +always a new and higher beginning to the man who understands it. Not yet +has the producer learned that the feeling of the crowd is patriarchal, +splendid. He imagines the people want nothing but a silly lark. + +All this apparatus and opportunity, and no immortal soul! Yet by faith +and a study of the signs we proclaim that this lantern of wizard-drama is +going to give us in time the visible things in the fulness of their +primeval force, and some that have been for a long time invisible. To +speak in a metaphor, we are going to have the primitive life of Genesis, +then all that evolution after: Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, +Joshua, Judges, and on to a new revelation of St. John. In this +adolescence of Democracy the history of man is to be retraced, the same +round on a higher spiral of life. + +Our democratic dream has been a middle-class aspiration built on a bog of +toil-soddened minds. The piles beneath the castle of our near-democratic +arts were rotting for lack of folk-imagination. The Man with the Hoe had +no spark in his brain. But now a light is blazing. We can build the +American soul broad-based from the foundations. We can begin with dreams +the veriest stone-club warrior can understand, and as far as an appeal to +the eye can do it, lead him in fancy through every phase of life to the +apocalyptic splendors. + +This progress, according to the metaphor of this chapter, will be led by +prophet-wizards. These were the people that dominated the cave-men of +old. But what, more specifically, are prophet-wizards? + +Let us consider two kinds of present-day people: scientific inventors, on +the one hand, and makers of art and poetry and the like, on the other. +The especial producers of art and poetry that we are concerned with in +this chapter we will call prophet-wizards: men like Albert Duerer, +Rembrandt, Blake, Elihu Vedder, Watts, Rossetti, Tennyson, Coleridge, +Poe, Maeterlinck, Yeats, Francis Thompson. + +They have a certain unearthly fascination in some one or many of their +works. A few other men might be added to the list. Most great names are +better described under other categories, though as much beloved in their +own way. But these are especially adapted to being set in opposition to a +list of mechanical inventors that might be called realists by contrast: +the Wright brothers, and H. Pierpont Langley, Thomas A. Edison, Charles +Steinmetz, John Hays Hammond, Hudson Maxim, Graham Bell. + +The prophet-wizards are of various schools. But they have a common +tendency and character in bringing forth a type of art peculiarly at war +with the realistic civilization science has evolved. It is one object of +this chapter to show that, when it comes to a clash between the two +forces, the wizards should rule, and the realists should serve them. + +The two functions go back through history, sometimes at war, other days +in alliance. The poet and the scientist were brethren in the centuries of +alchemy. Tennyson, bearing in mind such a period, took the title of +Merlin in his veiled autobiography, Merlin and the Gleam. + +Wizards and astronomers were one when the angels sang in Bethlehem, +"Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men." There came magicians, saying, "Where +is he that is born king of the Jews, for we have seen his star in the +east and have come to worship him?" The modern world in its gentler +moments seems to take a peculiar thrill of delight from these travellers, +perhaps realizing what has been lost from parting with such gentle seers +and secular diviners. Every Christmas half the magazines set them forth +in richest colors, riding across the desert, following the star to the +same manger where the shepherds are depicted. + +Those wizard kings, whatever useless charms and talismans they wore, +stood for the unknown quantity in spiritual life. A magician is a man who +lays hold on the unseen for the mere joy of it, who steals, if necessary, +the holy bread and the sacred fire. He is often of the remnant of an +ostracized and disestablished priesthood. He is a free-lance in the +soul-world, owing final allegiance to no established sect. The fires of +prophecy are as apt to descend upon him as upon members of the +established faith. He loves the mysterious for the beauty of it, the +wildness and the glory of it, and not always to compel stiff-necked +people to do right. + +It seems to me that the scientific and poetic functions of society should +make common cause again, if they are not, as in Merlin's time, combined +in one personality. They must recognize that they serve the same society, +but with the understanding that the prophetic function is the most +important, the wizard vocation the next, and the inventors' and realists' +genius important indeed, but the third consideration. The war between the +scientists and the prophet-wizards has come about because of the +half-defined ambition of the scientists to rule or ruin. They give us the +steam-engine, the skyscraper, the steam-heat, the flying machine, the +elevated railroad, the apartment house, the newspaper, the breakfast +food, the weapons of the army, the weapons of the navy, and think that +they have beautified our existence. + +Moreover some one rises at this point to make a plea for the scientific +imagination. He says the inventor-scientists have brought us the mystery +of electricity, which is no hocus-pocus, but a special manifestation of +the Immanent God within us and about us. He says the student in the +laboratory brought us the X-ray, the wireless telegraph, the mystery of +radium, the mystery of all the formerly unharnessed power of God which +man is beginning to gather into the hollow of his hand. + +The one who pleads for the scientific imagination points out that Edison +has been called the American Wizard. All honor to Edison and his kind. +And I admit specifically that Edison took the first great mechanical step +to give us the practical kinetoscope and make it possible that the +photographs, even of inanimate objects thrown upon the mirror-screen, may +become celestial actors. But the final phase of the transfiguration is +not the work of this inventor or any other. As long as the photoplays are +in the hands of men like Edison they are mere voodooism. We have nothing +but Moving Day, as heretofore described. It is only in the hands of the +prophetic photo-playwright and allied artists that the kinetoscope reels +become as mysterious and dazzling to the thinking spirit as the wheels of +Ezekiel in the first chapter of his prophecy. One can climb into the +operator's box and watch the sword-like stream of light till he is as +dazzled in flesh and spirit as the moth that burns its wings in the +lamp. But this is while a glittering vision and not a mere invention is +being thrown upon the screen. + +The scientific man can explain away the vision as a matter of the +technique of double exposure, double printing, trick-turning, or stopping +down. And having reduced it to terms and shown the process, he expects us +to become secular and casual again. But of course the sun itself is a +mere trick of heat and light, a dynamo, an incandescent globe, to the man +in the laboratory. To us it must be a fire upon the altar. + +Transubstantiation must begin. Our young magicians must derive strange +new pulse-beats from the veins of the earth, from the sap of the trees, +from the lightning of the sky, as well as the alchemical acids, metals, +and flames. Then they will kindle the beginning mysteries for our cause. +They will build up a priesthood that is free, yet authorized to freedom. +It will be established and disestablished according to the intrinsic +authority of the light revealed. + +Now for a closer view of this vocation. + +The picture of Religious Splendor has its obvious form in the +delineation of Biblical scenes, which, in the hands of the best +commercial producers, can be made as worth while as the work of men like +Tissot. Such films are by no means to be thought of lightly. This sort of +work will remain in the minds of many of the severely orthodox as the +only kind of a religious picture worthy of classification. But there are +many further fields. + +Just as the wireless receiving station or the telephone switchboard +become heroes in the photoplay, so Aaron's rod that confounded the +Egyptians, the brazen serpent that Moses up-lifted in the wilderness, the +ram's horn that caused the fall of Jericho, the mantle of Elijah +descending upon the shoulders of Elisha from the chariot of fire, can +take on a physical electrical power and a hundred times spiritual meaning +that they could not have in the dead stage properties of the old miracle +play or the realism of the Tissot school. The waterfall and the tossing +sea are dramatis personae in the ordinary film romance. So the Red Sea +overwhelming Pharaoh, the fires of Nebuchadnezzar's furnace sparing and +sheltering the three holy children, can become celestial actors. And +winged couriers can appear, in the pictures, with missions of import, +just as an angel descended to Joshua, saying, "As captain of the host of +the Lord am I now come." + +The pure mechanic does not accept the doctrine. "Your alleged +supernatural appearance," he says, "is based on such a simple fact as +this: two pictures can be taken on one film." + +But the analogy holds. Many primitive peoples are endowed with memories +that are double photographs. The world faiths, based upon centuries of +these appearances, are none the less to be revered because machine-ridden +men have temporarily lost the power of seeing their thoughts as pictures +in the air, and for the time abandoned the task of adding to tradition. + +Man will not only see visions again, but machines themselves, in the +hands of prophets, will see visions. In the hands of commercial men they +are seeing alleged visions, and the term "_vision_" is a part of +moving-picture studio slang, unutterably cheapening religion and +tradition. When Confucius came, he said one of his tasks was the +rectification of names. The leaders of this age should see that this word +"_vision_" comes to mean something more than a piece of studio slang. If +it is the conviction of serious minds that the mass of men shall never +again see pictures out of Heaven except through such mediums as the +kinetoscope lens, let all the higher forces of our land courageously lay +hold upon this thing that saves us from perpetual spiritual blindness. + +When the thought of primitive man, embodied in misty forms on the +landscape, reached epic proportions in the Greek, he saw the Olympians +more plainly than he beheld the Acropolis. Myron, Polykleitos, Phidias, +Scopas, Lysippus, Praxiteles, discerned the gods and demigods so clearly +they afterward cut them from the hard marble without wavering. Our +guardian angels of to-day must be as clearly seen and nobly hewn. + +A double mental vision is as fundamental in human nature as the double +necessity for air and light. It is as obvious as that a thing can be both +written and spoken. We have maintained that the kinetoscope in the hands +of artists is a higher form of picture writing. In the hands of +prophet-wizards it will be a higher form of vision-seeing. + +I have said that the commercial men are seeing alleged visions. Take, for +instance, the large Italian film that attempts to popularize Dante. +Though it has a scattering of noble passages, and in some brief episodes +it is an enhancement of Gustave Dore, taking it as a whole, it is a false +thing. It is full of apparitions worked out with mechanical skill, yet +Dante's soul is not back of the fires and swords of light. It gives to +the uninitiated an outline of the stage paraphernalia of the Inferno. It +has an encyclopaedic value. If Dante himself had been the high director in +the plenitude of his resources, it might still have had that hollowness. +A list of words making a poem and a set of apparently equivalent pictures +forming a photoplay may have an entirely different outcome. It may be +like trying to see a perfume or listen to a taste. Religion that comes in +wholly through the eye has a new world in the films, whose relation to +the old is only discovered by experiment and intuition, patience and +devotion. + +But let us imagine the grandson of an Italian immigrant to America, a +young seer, trained in the photoplay technique by the high American +masters, knowing all the moving picture resources as Dante knew Italian +song and mediaeval learning. Assume that he has a genius akin to that of +the Florentine. Let him be a Modernist Catholic if you will. Let him +begin his message in the timber lands of Minnesota or the forests of +Alaska. "In midway of this our mortal life I found me in a gloomy wood +astray." Then let him paint new pictures of just punishment beyond the +grave, and merciful rehabilitation and great reward. Let his Hell, +Purgatory, and Paradise be built of those things which are deepest and +highest in the modern mind, yet capable of emerging in picture-writing +form. + +Men are needed, therefore they will come. And lest they come weeping, +accursed, and alone, let us ask, how shall we recognize them? There is no +standard by which to discern the true from the false prophet, except the +mood that is engendered by contemplating the messengers of the past. +Every man has his own roll call of noble magicians selected from the +larger group. But here are the names with which this chapter began, with +some words on their work. + +Albert Duerer is classed as a Renaissance painter. Yet his art has its +dwelling-place in the early Romanesque savageness and strangeness. And +the reader remembers Duerer's brooding muse called Melancholia that so +obsessed Kipling in The Light that Failed. But the wonder-quality went +into nearly all the Duerer wood-cuts and etchings. Rembrandt is a +prophet-wizard, not only in his shadowy portraits, but in his etchings of +holy scenes even his simplest cobweb lines become incantations. Other +artists in the high tides of history have had kindred qualities, but +coming close to our day, Elihu Vedder, the American, the illustrator of +the Rubaiyat, found it a poem questioning all things, and his very +illustrations answer in a certain fashion with winds of infinity, and +bring the songs of Omar near to the Book of Job. Vedder's portraits of +Lazarus and Samson are conceptions that touch the hem of the unknown. +George Frederick Watts was a painter of portraits of the soul itself, as +in his delineations of Burne-Jones and Morris and Tennyson. + +It is a curious thing that two prophet-wizards have combined pictures and +song. Blake and Rossetti, whatever the failure of their technique, never +lacked in enchantment. Students of the motion picture side of poetry +would naturally turn to such men for spiritual precedents. Blake, that +strange Londoner, in his book of Job, is the paramount example of the +enchanter doing his work with the engraving tool in his hand. + +Rossetti's Dante's Dream is a painting on the edge of every poet's +paradise. As for the poetry of these two men, there are Blake's Songs of +Innocence, and Rossetti's Blessed Damozel and his Burden of Nineveh. + +As for the other poets, we have Coleridge, the author of Christabel, that +piece of winter witchcraft, Kubla Khan, that oriental dazzlement, and the +Ancient Mariner, that most English of all this list of enchantments. Of +Tennyson's work, besides Merlin and the Gleam, there are the poems when +the mantle was surely on his shoulders: The Lady of Shalott, The Lotus +Eaters, Sir Galahad, and St. Agnes' Eve. + +Edgar Poe, always a magician, blends this power with the prophetical note +in the poem, The Haunted Palace, and in the stories of William Wilson, +The Black Cat and The Tell-tale Heart. This prophet-wizard side of a man +otherwise a wizard only, has been well illustrated in The Avenging +Conscience photoplay. + +From Maeterlinck we have The Bluebird and many another dream. I devoutly +hope I will never see in the films an attempt to paraphrase this master. +But some disciple of his should conquer the photoplay medium, giving us +great original works. + +Yeats has bestowed upon us The Land of Heart's Desire, The Secret Rose, +and many another piece of imaginative glory. Let us hope that we may be +spared any attempts to hastily paraphrase his wonders for the motion +pictures. But the man that reads Yeats will be better prepared to do his +own work in the films, or to greet the young new masters when they come. + +Finally, Francis Thompson, in The Hound of Heaven, has written a song +that the young wizard may lean upon forevermore for private guidance. It +is composed of equal parts of wonder and conscience. With this poem in +his heart, the roar of the elevated railroad will be no more in his ears, +and he will dream of palaces of righteousness, and lead other men to +dream of them till the houses of mammon fade away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD + + +Without airing my private theology I earnestly request the most sceptical +reader of this book to assume that miracles in a Biblical sense have +occurred. Let him take it for granted in the fashion of the strictly +aesthetic commentator who writes in sympathy with a Fra Angelico painting, +or as that great modernist, Paul Sabatier, does as he approaches the +problems of faith in the life of St. Francis. Let him also assume, for +the length of time that he is reading this chapter if no longer, that +miracles, in a Biblical sense, as vivid and as real to the body of the +Church, will again occur two thousand years in the future: events as +wonderful as those others, twenty centuries back. Let us anticipate that +many of these will be upon American soil. Particularly as sons and +daughters of a new country it is a spiritual necessity for us to look +forward to traditions, because we have so few from the past identified +with the six feet of black earth beneath us. + +The functions of the prophet whereby he definitely painted future +sublimities have been too soon abolished in the minds of the wise. Mere +forecasting is left to the weather bureau so far as a great section of +the purely literary and cultured are concerned. The term prophet has +survived in literature to be applied to men like Carlyle: fiery spiritual +leaders who speak with little pretence of revealing to-morrow. + +But in the street, definite forecasting of future events is still the +vulgar use of the term. Dozens of sober historians predicted the present +war with a clean-cut story that was carried out with much faithfulness of +detail, considering the thousand interests involved. They have been +called prophets in a congratulatory secular tone by the man in the +street. These felicitations come because well-authorized merchants in +futures have been put out of countenance from the days of Jonah and +Balaam till now. It is indeed a risky vocation. Yet there is an +undeniable line of successful forecasting by the hardy, to be found in +the Scripture and in history. In direct proportion as these men of fiery +speech were free from sheer silliness, their outlook has been considered +and debated by the gravest people round them. The heart of man craves the +seer. Take, for instance, the promise of the restoration of Jerusalem in +glory that fills the latter part of the Old Testament. It moves the +Jewish Zionist, the true race-Jew, to this hour. He is even now +endeavoring to fulfil the prophecy. + +Consider the words of John the Baptist, "One mightier than I cometh, the +latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you +with the Holy Ghost and with fire." A magnificent foreshadowing, being +both a spiritual insight and the statement of a great definite event. + +The heeded seers of the civilization of this our day have been secular in +their outlook. Perhaps the most striking was Karl Marx, in the middle of +the capitalistic system tracing its development from feudalism and +pointing out as inevitable, long before they came, such modern +institutions as the Steel Trust and the Standard Oil Company. It remains +to be seen whether the Marxian prophecy of the international alliance of +workingmen that is obscured by the present conflict in Europe, and other +of his forecastings, will be ultimately verified. + +There have been secular teachers like Darwin, who, by a scientific +reconstruction of the past, have implied an evolutionary future based on +the biological outlook. Deductions from the teachings of Darwin are said +to control those who mould the international doings of Germany and Japan. + +There have been inventor-seers like Jules Verne. In Twenty Thousand +Leagues under the Sea he dimly discerned the submarine. There is a type +of social prophet allied to Verne. Edward Bellamy, in Looking Backward, +reduced the world to a matter of pressing the button, turning on the +phonograph. It was a combination of glorified department-store and Coney +Island, on a cooperative basis. A seventeen-year-old boy from the +country, making his first visit to the Woolworth building in New York, +and riding in the subway when it is not too crowded, might be persuaded +by an eloquent city relative that this is Bellamy's New Jerusalem. + +A soul with a greater insight is H.G. Wells. But he too, in spite of his +humanitarian heart, has, in a great mass of his work, the laboratory +imagination. Serious Americans pronounce themselves beneficiaries of +Wells' works, and I confess myself edified and thoroughly grateful. +Nevertheless, one smells chemicals in the next room when he reads most of +Wells' prophecies. The X-ray has moved that Englishman's mind more +dangerously than moonlight touches the brain of the chanting witch. One +striking and typical story is The Food of the Gods. It is not only a fine +speculation, but a great parable. The reader may prefer other tales. Many +times Wells has gone into his laboratory to invent our future, in the +same state of mind in which an automobile manufacturer works out an +improvement in his car. His disposition has greatly mellowed of late, in +this respect, but underneath he is the same Wells. + +Citizens of America, wise or foolish, when they look into the coming +days, have the submarine mood of Verne, the press-the-button complacency +of Bellamy, the wireless telegraph enthusiasm of Wells. If they express +hopes that can be put into pictures with definite edges, they order +machinery piled to the skies. They see the redeemed United States running +deftly in its jewelled sockets, ticking like a watch. + +This, their own chosen outlook, wearies the imaginations of our people, +they do not know why. It gives no full-orbed apocalyptic joy. Only to the +young mechanical engineer does such a hope express real Utopia. He can +always keep ahead of the devices that herald its approach. No matter what +day we attain and how busy we are adjusting ourselves, he can be moving +on, inventing more to-morrows; ruling the age, not being ruled by it. + +Because this Utopia is in the air, a goodly portion of the precocious +boys turn to mechanical engineering. Youths with this bent are the most +healthful and inspiring young citizens we have. They and their like will +fulfil a multitude of the hopes of men like Verne, Bellamy, and Wells. + +But if every mechanical inventor on earth voiced his dearest wish and +lived to see it worked out, the real drama of prophecy and fulfilment, as +written in the imagination of the human race, would remain uncompleted. + +As Mrs. Browning says in Lady Geraldine's Courtship:-- + + If we trod the deeps of ocean, if we struck the stars in rising, + If we wrapped the globe intensely with one hot electric breath, + 'Twere but power within our tether, no new spirit-power comprising, + And in life we were not greater men, nor bolder men in death. + +St. John beheld the New Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven prepared as a +bride adorned for her husband, not equipped as a touring car varnished +for its owner. + +It is my hope that the moving picture prophet-wizards will set before the +world a new group of pictures of the future. The chapter on The Architect +as a Crusader endeavors to show how, by proclaiming that America will +become a permanent World's Fair, she can be made so within the lives of +men now living, if courageous architects have the campaign in hand. There +are other hopes that look a long way further. They peer as far into the +coming day as the Chinese historian looks into the past. And then they +are but halfway to the millennium. + +Any standard illustrator could give us Verne or Bellamy or Wells if he +did his best. _But we want pictures beyond the skill of any delineator in +the old mediums, yet within the power of the wizard photoplay producer_. +Oh you who are coming to-morrow, show us everyday America as it will be +when we are only halfway to the millennium yet thousands of years in the +future! Tell what type of honors men will covet, what property they will +still be apt to steal, what murders they will commit, what the law court +and the jail will be or what will be the substitutes, how the newspaper +will appear, the office, the busy street. + +Picture to America the lovers in her half-millennium, when usage shall +have become iron-handed once again, when noble sweethearts must break +beautiful customs for the sake of their dreams. Show us the gantlet of +strange courtliness they must pass through before they reach one another, +obstacles brought about by the immemorial distinctions of scholarship +gowns or service badges. + +Make a picture of a world where machinery is so highly developed it +utterly disappeared long ago. Show us the antique United States, with ivy +vines upon the popular socialist churches, and weather-beaten images of +socialist saints in the niches of the doors. Show us the battered +fountains, the brooding universities, the dusty libraries. Show us houses +of administration with statues of heroes in front of them and gentle +banners flowing from their pinnacles. Then paint pictures of the oldest +trees of the time, and tree-revering ceremonies, with unique costumes and +a special priesthood. + +Show us the marriage procession, the christening, the consecration of the +boy and girl to the state. Show us the political processions and election +riots. Show us the people with their graceful games, their religious +pantomimes. Show us impartially the memorial scenes to celebrate the +great men and women, and the funerals of the poor. And then moving on +toward the millennium itself, show America after her victories have been +won, and she has grown old, as old as the Sphinx. Then give us the Dragon +and Armageddon and the Lake of Fire. + +Author-producer-photographer, who would prophesy, read the last book in +the Bible, not to copy it in form and color, but that its power and grace +and terror may enter into you. Delineate in your own way, as you are led +on your own Patmos, the picture of our land redeemed. After fasting and +prayer, let the Spirit conduct you till you see in definite line and form +the throngs of the brotherhood of man, the colonnades where the arts are +expounded, the gardens where the children dance. + +That which man desires, that will man become. He largely fulfils his own +prediction and vision. Let him therefore have a care how he prophesies +and prays. We shall have a tin heaven and a tin earth, if the scientists +are allowed exclusive command of our highest hours. + +Let us turn to Luke iv. 17. + +"And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And +when he had opened the book he found the place where it was written:-- + +"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach +the Gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to +preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, +to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of +the Lord. + +"And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat +down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened +on him. And he began to say unto them: 'This day is this Scripture +fulfilled in your ears.' + +"And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which +proceeded out of his mouth. And they said: 'Is not this Joseph's son?'" + +I am moved to think Christ fulfilled that prophecy because he had read it +from childhood. It is my entirely personal speculation, not brought forth +dogmatically, that Scripture is not so much inspired as it is curiously +and miraculously inspiring. + +If the New Isaiahs of this time will write their forecastings in +photoplay hieroglyphics, the children in times to come, having seen those +films from infancy, or their later paraphrases in more perfect form, can +rise and say, "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." But +without prophecy there is no fulfilment, without Isaiah there is no +Christ. + +America is often shallow in her dreams because she has no past in the +European and Asiatic sense. Our soil has no Roman coin or buried altar or +Buddhist tope. For this reason multitudes of American artists have moved +to Europe, and only the most universal of wars has driven them home. Year +after year Europe drained us of our beauty-lovers, our highest painters +and sculptors and the like. They have come pouring home, confused +expatriates, trying to adjust themselves. It is time for the American +craftsman and artist to grasp the fact that we must be men enough to +construct a to-morrow that grows rich in forecastings in the same way +that the past of Europe grows rich in sweet or terrible legends as men go +back into it. + + * * * * * + +Scenario writers, producers, photoplay actors, endowers of exquisite +films, sects using special motion pictures for a predetermined end, all +you who are taking the work as a sacred trust, I bid you God-speed. Let +us resolve that whatever America's to-morrow may be, she shall have a day +that is beautiful and not crass, spiritual, not material. Let us resolve +that she shall dream dreams deeper than the sea and higher than the +clouds of heaven, that she shall come forth crowned and transfigured with +her statesmen and wizards and saints and sages about her, with magic +behind her and miracle before her. + +Pray that you be delivered from the temptation to cynicism and the +timidities of orthodoxy. Pray that the workers in this your glorious new +art be delivered from the mere lust of the flesh and pride of life. Let +your spirits outflame your burning bodies. + +Consider what it will do to your souls, if you are true to your trust. +Every year, despite earthly sorrow and the punishment of your mortal +sins, despite all weakness and all of Time's revenges upon you, despite +Nature's reproofs and the whips of the angels, new visions will come, new +prophecies will come. You will be seasoned spirits in the eyes of the +wise. The record of your ripeness will be found in your craftsmanship. +You will be God's thoroughbreds. + + * * * * * + +It has come then, this new weapon of men, and the face of the whole earth +changes. In after centuries its beginning will be indeed remembered. + +It has come, this new weapon of men, and by faith and a study of the +signs we proclaim that it will go on and on in immemorial wonder. + +VACHEL LINDSAY. + +SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, + +Nov. 1, 1915. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ART OF THE MOVING PICTURE*** + + +******* This file should be named 13029.txt or 13029.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/0/2/13029 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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