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THE THEATRICAL STORY 217
ingful stories after the manner of the theater or the novel. An academician wrote the scenario of this ambitious film; actors of the Comedie-Frangaise impersonated its historical characters; and dramatic critics of high repute published enthusiastic reviews. From the lower depths the cinema thus rose to the regions of literature and theatrical art. Cultured people could no longer look down on a medium engaged in such noble pursuits.
Due de Guise, then, aimed at rehabilitating the cinema in the name of Art. And since its authors were saturated with stage traditions, it was natural for them to believe that, to be art, the cinema would have to evolve along much the same lines as the theater. The action of Due de Guise is strongly reminiscent of historical dramas, as they unfold on the stage. And so is the mise-en-scene . Melies's insistence on advancing the narrative with the aid of specifically cinematic devices seems forgotten; instead an immobile camera captures the drama from the angle of the spectator in the pit. The camera is the spectator. And the characters themselves move in settings which for all their realism never let you ignore that they are painted canvas— a Chateau de Blois intended to impress the theatergoer, not the moviegoer, as the real thing.1
It should be noted, though, that, its theatricality notwithstanding, Due de Guise testifies to a certain awareness of the differences between the two media. The story of the conspiracy against the Duke and his ultimate liquidation appears to have been fashioned with a view to acclimatizing theatrical art to the screen. In any case, the jerky succession of isolated tableaux vivants, customary then, is here superseded by a sort of pictorial continuity which does not depend upon lengthy captions to make itself understood. Also, the actors play their parts with a sense of detailed characterization and a minimum of gestures, thus breaking away from stage conventions.2
A tremendous success, Due de Guise fathered hosts of period pictures and "highly cultured dramas'' in France. America followed suit. D. W. Griffith let himself be inspired by this first film d'art; and Adolph Zukor began to feature "famous players in famous plays." Producers, distributors, and exhibitors were quick to realize that Art meant big business. Films capitalizing on the prestige of literary works or imitating them attracted the culture-minded bourgeoisie which had shunned the moviehouscs before. The moviehouses themselves became more and more sumptuous in the process.3 Their cheap, if expensive, glamour was a condoning factor in as much as it denounced the falsity of these cultural aspirations. (Yet in stigmatizing the commercialization of art, the discerning critic will have to acknowledge that it does not necessarily do away with art. Many a commercial film or television production is a genuine achievement besides be