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24
MOTOGRAPHY
Vol. V, No. 4.
Classical Pictures as a Special Field
European Art in Adaptation
WHAT is a classical photoplay? Everybody knows, but it is hard to define. Properly speaking, the term should mean a photoplay that is an adaptation of a literary or dramatic masterpiece ; but it has come to have a much wider significance than that. Any photoplay that deals with a bygone era in an elevated and poetic way has come to be called a classical production. It tends toward idealism and away from realism. The term vaguely suggests all that is ambitious, artistic and difficult.
A firm which, like Gaumont, makes a specialty of classical productions, deserves the highest admiration. Attempting subjects of superlative difficulty, success should bring superlative praise. That the Gaumont attempts are attended with success, a long line of classical masterpieces proves beyond doubt or challenge. "The Fall of Babylon," "The Life of Moliere," and "Israel in Egypt" are still mentioned with awe by all connoisseurs of the photoplay. "The Atonement of Thais" just the other day set new standards
of poetic suggestion through the medium of setting and pantomime. Looking back down the vista of motion picture history, the peaks of perfection are generally seen to be surmounted by the Gaumont pennant.
Within the next month Gaumont will release two classics which will certainly go down in history along with their famous predecessors. They bear the titles, "A Priestess of Carthage" and "In the Days of Nero." To say that they are beautifully acted, beautifully mounted, beautifully photographed, beautifully colored, is hardly necessary. To intimate that they are on Gaumont's highest plane implies all the rest.
"A Priestess of Carthage" finds its historical setting about 150 years before the Christian era when the glory of Carthage was falling into a decline and the Carthaginians were hard pressed by the forces of Rome. Many of the barbarous tribes surrounding the Carthaginian domain had become allies of Rome, and poor Carthage was harassed upon every side. The story relates how Arizath, a beautiful high priestess