New Britain herald., 1915-11-27
RUPERT HUGHES
 PAYS TRIBUTE TO
 BIRTH OF NATION"

When a great achievement of hu- man genius is put before us, we can become partners in 1t in way by applauding 1t with something of the enthusiasm that went into it's making 1t is that sort of collaboration that l am impelIed to attempt in what fol- lows.
 When I saw "The Birth of Ma ton" the first time, I was so over whelmed by the immensity of 1t that I said:
 Ut makes the most spectacular production of drama look like the work of village amateurs It re- duces to childishness the biggest things the theater can do.
 For here were hundreds v scenes in place of four or five; thousands of actors in place of a score; armies in landscape instead of squads of su- pers jostling on a platform among canvas screens. Here was the evo- lution of a people, the living chron- icle of a conflict of statesmen, civil war, racial problem, rising gradu- ally to a puzzle yet unsolved. Here were social pictures without number, short stories, adventures, romances, tragedies, farces. domestic comedies. Here was a whole art gallery of scenery, of humanity. of still life and life in widest career. Here were portraits of things of furniture, of streets, homes, wildernesses; pictures of conventions, cabinets, senates, mobs, armies; pictures of family life, of festivals and funerals, ballroorys and battlefelds, hospitals and flower gardens, hypocrisy and passion, ec- ,.,.,I trfo g1NI anguish, devotion and tref chery, self sacrifice and tyranny. Here were the Southrons in their wealth, with their luxury at home, their wind-swept cot ton fields; there was the ballroom with the seethe of dancers. here were the soldiers riding away to E<<T, and the soldiers trudging hcme defeated with poverty ahead of them and new and ghastly difficulties aslsing on every hand.
 Here was the epic of proud brave people beaten into the dust and re- fusing to stay there.
 The pictures shifted with intending variety from huge canvasses to ex- quisite miniatures Now 1t was a lt- tie group of refugees covering in the ruins of a home. A shift of the camera and we were looking past them into a great valley with an army fighting its way through.
 One moment we saw Abraham Lincoln breeding over his Emancipa- tion Proclamation; another, and he was yielding to a mothers tears; later we were in the crowded thea ter watching the assassin making his way to and from his awful deed.
 The leagues of film uncoiled and poured forth beauty of scene, and face and expression. beauty of fabric i and attitude and motion.
 The Birth of Nation" is a choral | symphony of light in all its magic; | the sun flashing through a bit of blown black lace and giving immortal beauty to it's pattern; or quivering in | a pair of eyes, or on a snow-drift Of bridal veil or on n moonllt brook or | a mountain side. Superb horses were 1 shown plunging and rearing or gall | Ioping with a heart-quickening glory | of speed down road and lane and ! through flying waters. Now came the | thrill of a charge, or of a plunging | steed caught back on its launches in l fl sudden arrest. Now followed the | terror of a bestial mob. the hurrah ] .or n rescue. streets filled with panic | ond with carnival. Life is motion and bore was the beautiful moving monu- ment of motion.