University of Virginia Library

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 highroad,
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 cyclopæan
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: —

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: —

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 Pathé 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, firebrands,
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."