Moving Picture World (Jul-Sep 1911)

1 88 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD Dante's "I/Inferno" It is the best type of the new and highest moving picture. By XV. Stephen Bush. The reproduction in moving pictures of Dante's "Inferno" by the Milano Films Company well warrants the praise so generously bestowed upon it by the critics on the other side of the water. In my review of the comments of the Italian press I said in the .Moving Picture World of July 8th: "We have implicit faith in the correctness of the Italian estimate of the artistic merits and powers of the film. The press agent in Italy is a distinct exotic, and could not thrive on the soil that has been hallowed by centuries of the life of noblest art." This faith was not ill-placed. I know of no higher commendation of the work than mention of the fact that the film-makers have been exceedingly faithful to the words of the poet. They have followed, in letter and in spirit, his conceptions. They have sat like docile scholars at the feet of the master, conscientiously and to the best of their ability obeying every suggestion of his genius, knowing no inspiration, except such as came from the fountain head. Great indeed has been their reward. They have made Dante intelligible to the masses. The immortal work, whose beauties until now were accessible only to a small band of scholars, has now after a sleep of more than six centuries become the property of mankind. Where shall we find a more eloquent testimonial to the "psychic force and value of the moving picture" and the incalculable benefits it brings in its train ? No man, woman or child has ever read and understood one line of Dante's but has derived from it some good, a drop at least, however small, of balm to the doubting heart. This ennobling influence of the great work will now tell upon "millions. All that is commonplace, vulgar, low or base takes flight at the approach of Dante's spirit. What the art of the printer failed to accomplish has been wonderfully wrought by the moving picture. Thanks to the moving picture, here at least the library as an educational and enlightening force must yield the palm to the theatre. To the artists, who have given us this visualization, we owe a debt of gratitude second only to that due to the great poet himself. The eternal wonder of Dante's art is nowhere in the entire "Commedia" exterted with greater power than in the first canto of the Inferno. Its spell is immediate and irresistible. When I saw how completely the film-maker had caught the spirit of the canto, how he had indeed "risen to the height of that great argument," I realized that the same perfection would prevail throughout. The ' first canto offered difficulties that seemed insurmountable. How was it possible to convey in pictures all the subtle meaning of the printed words, to follow the dangers by which Dante was beset in the dark and gloomy forest, to show the "light panther," which barred the way and would not move; the lion, of which the "air itself was afraid"; the famished wolf, whose "hunger was greater after its maw was gorged with food" ; how was the meeting between Dante and Virgil to be made probable and intelligible in pictures? Oh. men of little faith! It was all done with a power and skill that defies description and before the spectator realized it he was following from afar, but with intensest interest the Pagan and the Christian poet in their perilous wanderings through the "country around the valley," across the river Acheron into the presence of Minos, the dreaded judge, to the Stygean lake, into the "valley of the Abyss" and through all the pits and circles of the City of Dis and Malebolge, until the stars guide them out of the endless night of Cocytus into the blessed light of day. It cannot be attempted within the prescribed limits of this hasty article to give even a condensed synopsis of the Inferno. I must be satisfied with the faint and brief outlines just drawn in the preceding words. The fate of this great work now rests largely in the hands of the exhibitors themselves. There is no limit to the possibilities of the film as an artistic and theatrical attraction. There is no show-house anywhere in the world, no matter how high its standing, which could not gain renewed prestige through a proper presentation of this work upon its stage. It simply depends on the "proper" presentation. Rushed through the machine at lightning speed, with the idea of getting as many "shows" out of it as possible, without careful rehearsal, without music and without lecture, the work is sure to be degraded into a horrible farce. A disposition to look upon the film as merely a classic chamber of horrors and to treat it as such in the advertising or lecturing would be an error scarcely less fatal to the success of the work than the first. The financial profits of this enterprise are not to be gathered by "crowding them in" as fast as possible and then "chasing them out" again, but by a substantial advance in the prices. The hackneyed objection that the public will not spend money on a "moving picture" and is unable to dissociate the picture from the small currency of the Republic is not well taken. In the first place travelogues with moving pictures have brought good prices, but that is the minor reason. The better answer to the objection is that Dante's Inferno is indeed a "different kind of moving picture." The attempt to get substantial prices need only be made to be successful. The high prices, however, must be followed by a corresponding artistic standard. It is the duty of the exhibitor by proper advertising to let the public know of the higher standard and then live up to that standard in the performance with scrupulous honesty. Lithographs are good and useful, but there is such a thing as a lithographic debauch, and with the variety of posters at the exhibitor's disposal it is well to avoid the loud and the purely sensational, else the public will be justified in believing it's "just a picture show." Let the difference between the ordinary picture and such genuine works of art in four and five reels be emphasized in every particular. A comparison is invited by certain apparent points of similarity between the Passion Play and the Inferno. The points of resemblance are only apparent. The Passion Play was subject to a weakness from which the Inferno is entirely free. Many of the most intelligent and cultured classes were repelled rather than attracted by the Passion Play because a visualization of the gospel story seemed to them to smack of irreverence. We may disagree with them, but their tastes and beliefs in such a matter are important to the man who wishes to attract the most and the best of the people. No one can urge any such objection against the Inferno. If the exhibitor will try, he should have no trouble in enlisting on his side two important factors : first the Dante scholars, who in almost every city are organized in Dante Societies ( there are very strong and numerous Dante societies in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, St. Louis). Few cities in the United States are without such a society. The Milano production is so excellent that it will arouse the enthusiasm of such scholars, and while they them