Open your history of sculpture, and dwell upon those illustrations which
are not the normal, reposeful statues, but the exceptional, such as have
been listed for this chapter. Imagine that each dancing, galloping, or
fighting figure comes down into the room life-size. Watch it against a
dark curtain. Let it go through a series of gestures in harmony with the
spirit of the original conception, and as rapidly as possible, not to
lose nobility. If you have the necessary elasticity, imagine the figures
wearing the costumes of another period, yet retaining in their motions
the same essential spirit. Combine them in your mind with one or two
kindred figures, enlarged till they fill the end of the room. You have
now created the beginning of an Action Photoplay in your own fancy.
Do this with each most energetic classic till your imagination flags. I
do not want to be too dogmatic, but it seems to me this is one way to
evolve real Action Plays. It would, perhaps, be well to substitute this
for the usual method of evolving them from old stage material or
newspaper clippings.
There is in the Metropolitan Museum a noble modern group, the Mares of
Diomedes, by the aforementioned Gutzon Borglum. It is full of material
for the meditations of a man who wants to make a film of a stampede. The
idea is that Hercules, riding his steed bareback, guides it in a circle.
He is fascinating the horses he has been told to capture. They are held
by the mesmerism of the circular path and follow him round and round till
they finally fall from exhaustion. Thus the Indians of the West capture
wild ponies, and Borglum, a far western man, imputes the method to
Hercules. The bronze group shows a segment of this circle. The whirlwind
is at its height. The mares are wild to taste the flesh of Hercules.
Whoever is to photograph horses, let him study the play of light and
color and muscle-texture in this bronze. And let no group of horses ever
run faster than these of Borglum.
An occasional hint of a Michelangelo figure or gesture appears for a
flash in the films. Young artist in the audience, does it pass you by?
Open your history of sculpture again and look at the usual list of
Michelangelo groups. Suppose the seated majesty of Moses should rise,
what would be the quality of the action? Suppose the sleeping figures of
the Medician tombs should wake, or those famous slaves should break their
bands, or David again hurl the stone. Would not their action be as heroic
as their quietness? Is it not possible to have a Michelangelo of
photoplay sculpture? Should we not look for him in the fulness of time?
His figures might come to us in the skins of the desert island solitary,
or as cave men and women, or as mermaids and mermen, and yet have a force
and grandeur akin to that of the old Italian.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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