The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

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Epic Possibilities of the Film 11 will shoot of life as the average group of humans lives it, there will be little need to disregard the unities; in fact, we must maintain them in these aver- age films of today or any future day. There is one exception, the spectacle film, an exception because it is apt to be of an epic quality. There Mrs. Ger- ould is entirely right. Yet even then one must hesitate be- fore a sweeping assertion. There are two kinds of spectacle films. First, that which takes place in one period of time; second, that which covers two or more periods of time. I recall The Birtji of a Nation as a convincing spec- tacle film, the unity of time main- tained, the unity of place not violated ko any noticeable degree. But I recall Intolerance as a very different matter. [True, the narrative of the former held the film together. It was a centralized story of the aftermath, in the south, of the civil war. It did not attempt to tie together four periods of history. Im- mediately the answer comes, "There is no fair comparison." No ! I admit it. But there is, if not an analogy, a lesson or two, one of them reflected in a cur- rent production which is analogous to The Birth of a Nation. The Birth of a Nation did justice to the epic quality of its story. As I re- nember it was marred only by the too persistent close up of bloody battle heaps and the inevitably sustained fight scenes of its characters against hu-. manly impossible odds. And either by the nature of its story or the intent of its director, the unities were main- tained. Intolerance, on the other hand, illustrated points good and bad. ( )f its four episodes, the Mediaeval- French, the Judean, the Babylonian and the Modern, the third named nar- rative was the most perfect from an epic standpoint. I remember the ac- curacy of its sets, the gorgeous aspects of its battle hosts, marching alive out of history, convincing shadows from two thousand years ago. Were anyone to ask me for an example of what Mrs. .Gerould meant by "the processional value of the movies" and "the picar- esque film," I would say witness the Babylon of Intolerance. That it was successful was due to a fine restraint and balanced sense of economy in the use of its mobs, its battle scenes, what Mrs. Gerould called the "thrill of the spectacular." (Were these matters managed with the same degree of careful direction in all spectacle films of the Birth of a Nation or Babylon- ian-story type, a Theodora would never happen to blur the epic quality of the movie.) As to the bad points of In- tolerance, the unity of the whole film was hopelessly broken in the use of the four narratives. They were linked by an idea symbolized. Miss Lillian Gish rocked the cradle until we rocked in protest. Symbolism—precious treas- ure of the silver sheet—was maudlin- ized to cover incoherent arrangement. For, after all, Intolerance might have been unified by the simple method of rearrangement. Instead of presenting the four narratives on an installment plan, a bit of one, a scrap of the next,