Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb-Jul 1911)

96 TEE MOTION PIC TV BE STORY MAGAZINE in a hundred young minds, never to be forgotten. Joan of Arc lives before us in her maiden visions, with the white armor of her battles, and her martyrdom. Beatrice Cenci's sad eyes gaze from the screen. The fierce judgment day of the French Revolution stirs our hearts, with wild mobs screaming in tricolor and tatters, gutters a-wash with spilled wine and the blood of aristocrats. Then we see proud Marie Antoinette lashed in the rude tumbril, rattling gallowsward; and women knitting, impassive-eyed, at the foot of the guillotine. It is all history, but it is a vital, breathing history, that clamors in our memories. No books can teach it so accurately or so well. Then, too, Motion Pictures teach geography. There is no part of the world that may not be visited in this way. The Pathe Freres, in France, make some of the finest Photoplays, and we may be sure of their local color. The rugged Breton coast is here, peasants' cottages in the poppydotted Normandy fields, and Paris awhirl with fevered life. In Switzerland, the peasant players of Oberamergau move to and fro in their quaint mountain-shadowed village streets. African game trails lead thru thorny thickets, bamboo villages and strange, wild vegetation. In Japan, the waterflooded rice fields pass before us. In Italy, the winemakers gather the juicy grapes. It is but a click of the shutter from sun-scorched Mexico to Norway's chilly furs. We may travel around the world, and view the varied wonders for ten cents — surely a cheap tour, with all the discomforts of travel eliminated. Harassed teachers of English literature know how difficult it is to awaken an appreciation of the classics in minds that seem on the defensive. But translate a great novel or poem into the living wonder of a Photoplay, and immediately the children are stirred. After a class has watched Silas Marner actually counting his pitiful gold, or Ivanhoe in the lists, fighting for his lady's honor, further study of the books themselves is easy to enforce. In addition to the story-telling pictures, large numbers of purely educational films are now being produced. These show mills in action, turning out familiar articles; and some portray rubber gathering in South America, elephants in harness, in India, moving lumber and carrying huge burdens. The Panama Canal is displayed, with its giant shovels and dredges. One enterprising firm has actually photoplayed a series of medical pictures showing the action of disease germs in the body. But of more importance than the mere information that may be gained from these Motion Pictures is the quickening of the perception, the added power of grasping essential facts that is gained from close watching of the screens. Every smallest motion in the pictures has a meaning, every acr tion a purpose, and the wide-eyed child soon learns to watch and recognize the unraveling of the plot. Indeed, some children become so sharp of vision that they are able to read the lips of the characters in the pictures. There is literally no limit to the educational possibilities of these Moving Pictures. They teach painlessly, without the knowledge of the pupil, but they reach him directly thru his sense of vision, and not thru the spiritless symbols of written words. In a few years, reading, writing and arithmetic may be added to the Motion Picture curriculum, and the schoolhouses may almost close their %ors. Everywhere the white-and-gohl exteriors of the Motion Picture theaters unite the children. They hurry, ragged-shoed and out-at-knee, with their playmates with starred waists, from the schools, tugging at grown-up hands, scuffling into their places with eager feet. The shutter clicks, out go the lights, and, presto ! the miracle begins ! o> "The enemy of Art is the enemy of Nature. ' ' — Lavater.