nterpretation.
For episodes that follow the precedent of the simple Action Film tiny wax
models of the figures, toned and costumed to the heart's delight, would
tell the high points of the story. Let them represent, perhaps, seven
crucial situations from the proposed photoplay. Let them be designed as
uniquely in their dresses as are the Russian dancers' dresses, by Leon
Bakst. Then to alternate with these, seven little paintings of episodes,
designed in blacks, whites, and grays, each representing some elusive
point in the intimate aspects of the story. Let there be a definite
system of space and texture relations retained throughout the set.
The models for the splendor scenes would, of course, be designed by the
architect, and these other scenes alternated with and subordinated to his
work. The effects which he would conceive would be on a grander scale.
The models for these might be mere extensions of the methods of those
others, but in the typical and highest let us imagine ourselves going
beyond Tintoretto in preparation.
Let the principal splendor moods and effects be indicated by actual
structures, such miniatures as architects offer along with their plans of
public buildings, but transfigured beyond that standard by the light of
inspiration combined with experimental candle-light, spot-light,
sunlight, or torchlight. They must not be conceived as stage arrangements
of wax figures with harmonious and fitting backgrounds, but as
backgrounds that clamor for utterance through the figures in front of
them, as Athens finds her soul in the Athena with which we began. These
three sorts of models, properly harmonized, should have with them a
written scenario constructed to indicate all the scenes between. The
scenario will lead up to these models for climaxes and hold them together
in the celestial hurdle-race.
We have in our museums some definite architectural suggestions as to the
style of these models. There are in Blackstone Hall in the Chicago Art
Institute several great Romanesque and Gothic portals, pillars, and
statues that might tell directly upon certain settings of our Jeanne
d'Arc pageant. They are from Notre Dame du Port at Clermont-Ferrand, the
Abbey church of St. Gilles, the Abbey of Charlieu, the Cathedral of
Amiens, Notre Dame at Paris, the Cathedral of Bordeaux, and the Cathedral
of Rheims. Perhaps the object I care for most in the Metropolitan Museum,
New York, is the complete model of Notre Dam
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