The soul of the moving picture (1924)

Film Adaptation 149 sembles the roaring power of an ice-cold mountain stream as it gushes down the hillside, there was not a trace. To adapt is to use violence, to do violence. The adapter will never succeed in finding and filming the original purpose of the poet. The adaptation of Fiesko was good; it was a success; but it was not Schiller; it was not a child of his mind. And it would have been still better had it resembled Schiller even less than it did. The action should have been adapted much more to the needs of exclusive mimic portrayal. To tryto spare the poet, to hurt his feelings in no way, is to render him a disservice. It is unfortunate that productive poets can be persuaded to subject their works to the adapter only with difficulty (as Carl Mayer in the superb film Schloss Vogelod). This is true, though the thought that is required to adapt a work to the film is so great that the process in itself requires originality and reveals a spirit of the most real productivity. For it is after all easier to create a new work from the beginning than to take a finished work and transform it so completely that it meets the requirements of an entirely new and novel art. For the author the adaptation is frequently a most unsatisfactory affair. The book often leads