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"ORLANDO FURIOSO", CINEMATIC POEM
by Anton Giulio Bragaglia.
Ariosto, the cineist.
Whoever has cultivated Ariosto and read his " Orlando Furioso " will certainly have remarked for himself without any suggestion on my part the truly cinematic character of this poem. For in order to do so it is only necessary to examine those qualities which literary criticism is wont to look for in this and many other chefs d'oeuvres.
As for us anti-literary gentlemen, who are content to know just enough of reading and writing to fill our immediate needs, when we read Orlando it is purely and simply for our pleasure and we feel convinced that in writing this poem Ariosto has no other end in view.
He scarcely thought of literary criticism and he was less concerned than some people may think in creating a string of allegories and attaining all those other objects with which literary cntiscism credits him. He merely wished
M. Bragaglia, with his pyrotechnical verve and with that representational sense which makes him a leader in avant-garde theatre, tells us of the cinematic temperament of Ariosto and the inexhaustible resources of " Orlando Furioso " for the daring ' Regisseur '. The same could be said of other works of Renaissance writers, so full of incomparable images so powerfully drawn that when interpreted by the pencil of Gustave Dore they find a truly extraordinary suggestive force.
We have named Dore. We may take note of his illustrations of the Divine Comedy, Don Quixote, and Gargantua, or, largely different, those of the Bible. Surely the cinematic quality of works which have inspired one artist with the force to produce so many faithful illustrations is not to be decried ?
In approaching Ariosto in this way, Bragaglia opens up a new field of artistic and in a sense educative cinema — an attractive field ; but its appeal to cineasts is almost a challenge.
Let us hope that there will be ' regisseurs ' brave and capable enough to take it up by adapting Orlando and other great works for the screen.
But there is one point in Bragaglia's article that we should like to raise, not so much with reference to Bragaglia's view-point but because we should like to see the subject discussed in the Review. Bragaglia says quite frankly that the cinema and the Theatre have nothing to do with historic truth. We know that historic truth is often too intangible a myth for us to be scandalised by his statement, however we think that at those points where it may be