The San Francisco call., 1908-10-11
THE LCVEUIcNo .K0MlEC

plays, perhaps, that the Objectionable
features and the handicaps of film in
depreciation are most pronounced. As
has been suggested. 1t is very difficult.
at least at this stage OF experiment.
to get much beyond the husk of the
plays and to master their real spirit
essence. They are bound to have a
somewhat primitive smack.
Sometimes this inability to tone down
the raw facts, to modify them with
those artful qualifications which
Shakespeare used to tone down the
otherwise brutal aspect of some of his
plays, is productive of very CORY re-
suit in kinetoscopic dramatization.
A production of Macbeth" in Chi
cago a short time ago was accounted
by the police of that city so objection
ably brutal that they stopped the play
and forbade its continuance. In ex-
planation the officer of the law is
quoted as having said: Shakespeare
never looked into the future and saw
that his plays were going to be in
terpreted for the five cent theater He
has way of making CORY things en-
durable; because there is mucn of art
and finish to modify the brutal fact, but
we (the cinematograph) can not repro
duce that. When it gets on canvas it
is worse than the bloodiest melodrama
ever
In the play. and its production on
the legitimate stage, the stabbing of
Duncan by Macbeth is not a predomi-
nant part. the preceding and subse-
quent distractions of the lines Serving
somewhat to minimize the horror of
the act. But in the moving picture
production the focus of the attention
on the stabbing is too powerfully
brought about; one sees but the naked
fact of the dagger in the hands of a
frightened yet exultant murderer.
plunge to it's vile deed and the quick
stain of the blood following its with
drawal. And blood and the struggles
of death can be made very real in the
animated picture story. So real at
times that it elicits involuntary groans
of horror from the more sensitive and
impressionable among the audience.
This characterization of the more
grewsome details in the picture story,
a result greatly. due to the immature
thought and haste with which they are
created for the clamoring nickelodeon
public, will, however. be short lived.
Although lsuch details are at present
iextreme I'm their realism, a few such
pointed and concrete criticisms as that
of the police authorities above cited
will bring about a greater regard for
the sensibilities OF the spectator. These
shocking accents are but a part of the
crude, experimental beginnings of pan
tomimic drama; they will go as soon
as playwrights and a class of higher
grade cinema actors can be developed
who will understand that shadings of
emotion and reserve not only can be
accomplished in the language of ges-
fure, but that a discriminating public
is already demanding this refinement
in the art of pantomime.
Hamlet-A Study of Madness
In Hamlet we have, perhaps, with
the possible exception of Romeo and
Juliet" the most satisfactory rendering
of the Shakespearean plays thus far
arranged for the nickelodeon. 1t is
said TO have been staged and photo
graphed on the very Danish ground
where the original action of the story
took place, whether this be a particular
virtue or not This silent phantom
quiver of speeding film. projecting the
gloomy court scenes through which the
young prince. Hamlet, moved; the brut-