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shies at Sacripante but behaves quietly enough with Angelica, is he not re-incarnated in Tony, Tom Mix's mount ? His tricks are those of circus horses or music hall animals. How many times have we seen Tony charge and bite to defend his master. . . and then there is that scene where he unties his masters bonds with his teeth and so sets him free.
The slight of hand, horsemanship, balancing and tightrope tricks of the amusing but nevertheless serious characters in Ariosto bend in the wind of the poet's malicious imagination. (He plays the same tricks himself on a very much higher plane). Doralice's horse " or d'improvviso spicco in aria un salto — che trenta pie [fu lungo e sedici alto " (leapt suddendly to a point thirty feet distant rising sixteen feet in the air). Here between times is a vision of Paris menaced by the conquering moors. The city rises up like a ghost in the mind of the reader. He would perhaps preferred to have amused himself by thinking of a tumultuous new babel, pulsating with life even without the Eifel tower and he might have been tempted to confound the Paris of Charlemagne with that of Louis XIV or the Revolution.
Historical Films ?
The historical inaccuracies and license of the Carolingian period — Charlemagne was supposed to have conquered England before William the Conqueror for instance — allow Ariosto to create variations on the real facts in an amusing and truly cinematic manner, variations which, for the art of the theatre, are essential in anti-archaelogical historical cinema. The theatre is not obliged to respect archaeology, on the contrary the widest historical license is legitimately used on the stage today. Even tragic authors disdain to subject poetry to historic truth. The aim of the theatre is not the reconstruction of history but theatrical poetry, which for me exists not only in the spoken words but in the scenic materials, the electric lamps, the costumes and above all in the personalities of the actors. Ariosto knew this perfectly well and he cared little for the pedants.
But what are we supposed to be doing, are we examining the cinematic qualities of Ariosto or reviewing those past cinematic productions which have been made in the manner of Ariosto or in that of the old legends, sources of " Orlando " yesterday and the Cinema today ?
The fact is that the Classics of the Cinema, with the exception of the comic films of Linder and Lesque, are generally " historic ". In the Cinema,