 | CHAPTER VIII The art of the moving picture, |  |
CHAPTER VIII
SCULPTURE-IN-MOTION
The outline is complete. Now to reënforce
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
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.
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 Rhinemaidens
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?
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
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
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
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
æsthetic 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."
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
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
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
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,
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 VIII The art of the moving picture, | |