drama is concerned with the slow, inevitable
approaches to these intensities. On the other hand, the motion picture,
though often appearing to deal with these things, as a matter of fact
uses substitutes, many of which have been listed. But to review: its
first substitute is the excitement of speed-mania stretched on the
framework of an obvious plot. Or it deals with delicate informal anecdote
as the short story does, or fairy legerdemain, or patriotic banners, or
great surging mobs of the proletariat, or big scenic outlooks, or
miraculous beings made visible. And the further it gets from Euripides,
Ibsen, Shakespeare, or Moliere--the more it becomes like a mural painting
from which flashes of lightning come--the more it realizes its genius.
Men like Gordon Craig and Granville Barker are almost wasting their
genius on the theatre. The Splendor Photoplays are the great outlet for
their type of imagination.

The typical stage performance is from two hours and a half upward. The
movie show generally lasts five reels, that is, an hour and forty
minutes. And it should last but three reels, that is, an hour. Edgar Poe
said there was no such thing as a long poem. There is certainly no such
thing as a long moving picture masterpiece.

The stage-production depends most largely upon the power of the actors,
the movie show upon the genius of the producer. The performers and the
dumb objects are on equal terms in his paint-buckets. The star-system is
bad for the stage because the minor parts are smothered and the
situations distorted to give the favorite an orbit. It is bad for the
motion pictures because it obscures the producer. While the leading actor
is entitled to his glory, as are all the actors, their mannerisms should
not overshadow the latest inspirations of the creator of the films.

The display of the name of the corporation is no substitute for giving
the glory to the producer. An artistic photoplay is not the result of a
military efficiency system. It is not a factory-made staple article, but
the product of the creative force of one soul, the flowering of a spirit
that has the habit of perpetually renewing itself.

Once I saw Mary Fuller in a classic. It was the life and death of Mary
Queen of Scots. Not only was the tense, fidgety, over-American Mary
Fuller transformed into a being who was a poppy and a tiger-lily and a
snow-queen and a rose, but she and her company, including Marc
Macdermott, radiated the old Sco