University of Virginia Library

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
coöperating, themselves take over this medium,
not gingerly, but whole-heartedly, as in mediæval
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, Cæsar
and his rivals for fame; mediæval 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 reënforce the heads of these first
discourses. Further comment on the Religious
Photoplay may be found in the eleventh chapter,
entitled "Architecture-in-Motion."