New-York tribune., 1919-07-27
By Virginia Tracy

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Two things about Grifith's Baby
Ion" strike us as magnificent-its sense
of historical perspective and the Titan
energy which created it,
Only two magnificences! Is not this
to speak grudgngly of that vast spcn-
dor which seems to span the back
ground of the world, as big and bright
as sunset? But surely two things are
quite enough for any picture to be pre-
eminent in. Beauty this one has, of
course-beauty of mass and of detail,
of space and depth and movement, of
fulness and color-but in sheer beauty
it has been equalled and surpassed in
many a picture big and little. On that
ground we would trade the whole city
for that moment in "The Birth of
Nation" when something shines among
the leaves and the white cloaks rise
from the thicket and the whole woodland
comes alive. AS to high and significant
emotion, only in the death of Belshaz-
zar and his Princess Beloved does it
even pretend to that. From end to end
it has no such moment as that when
Joan chooses between the false and the
true king, or when she sees the phan-
tom army ride through the throne room
1t employs no such richness of horror
as shudders over us when the young
priest, following Cleopatra into the
Pyramid, helps her rob the sacred
mummy of its jewels.
The Soul of City Revived
But do not think for that reason that
it is lacking in excitement. The ex-
citement lies in the movement-the
surface movements of brilliant and
gorgeous and lovely things, and under
meath this the central movement rich
~ flowing but never hurrying toward
catastrophe so thrillingly foreseen that
it is as if we were watching at once the
bridge and the gathering of the flood.
If the picture has little enough per-
sonal drama. it has that rarer thing,
its own dramatic personality. 1t car
ries, not it's own story, but its sculpt-
ured face, the personality OF Babylon.
Let us not suggest an erudition that
is far from us. What we know about
the original Babylon is less than the
dust beneath its chariot wheels, the one
single fact in its history with which
We are genuinely familiar being the
fact that it fell, unless We count
rather sketchy background of a wall
that said it was going to. But we know
q great city when we see one, teeming
with the life of an ancient and great
people. We are willing to take Mr.
Grif1ith's word for it that it is histori-
cally correct, but we are willing to pass
cur own word word for it that it is
historically representative. We may
rot be greatly concerned about the ad-
:entures of anybody in it, but to look
at it is to adventure ourselves into a
world immemorially past and yet at
ast alive.
Illusion Conveyed in Details
This is not, to our sense, accom-
2lished by the ballets and the bat
Ties, handsome as they are. Despite
the transhxed soldier, who stands
astonished-and not unreasonably--to
.ind that he has sword sticking out
of him behind and before, despite the
abruptly terminating gentleman whose
head bounces across the screen before
our eyes, the fighting does not seem
so genuinely spirited as in judith of
Bethulia" and the ballets are as other
ballets, only bigger, also, more exactly
rhythmic than most people trouble
nowadays to make them 1t is the
tangible objects in which Babylon
abounds and out Of which Babylon
grows, tie doors, ornaments, furnish
ings and friezes, the wells and gates
the bits Of corridors and turns OF
steps, as we'll as the great walls anc
towers which say to US: eve are real;
this civilization is our house; we live
In It," Stuck up in a museum they are
stu for US conventional designs otter
copied by moderns bu. never origi
mated by anybody. In Grifiths hand
they become the speech of a peopl
infinitely removed, so near that w
may almost reach out into its life.
For, in "The Fall of Babylon" tn
sense Of sight is so deeply gratiie,
as to become practically the sense O
touch. 1T is as if we laid our hand
on those brass doorways, against thos
stone arches, as if our own shoulder
could press against the wheels tha
move those ponderous gates. We d.
not mean because these things are, o
course, so intensely vivid, but becaus
they are so intensely right. Just a