irit
with the maple branch rallies them, leads them to victories like those
that were won of old in the name of Jeanne d'Arc or Pallas Athena
herself.

CHAPTER XII

THIRTY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE PHOTOPLAYS AND THE STAGE

The stage is dependent upon three lines of tradition: first, that of
Greece and Rome that came down through the French. Second, the English
style, ripened from the miracle play and the Shakespearian stage. And
third, the Ibsen precedent from Norway, now so firmly established it is
classic. These methods are obscured by the commercialized dramas, but
they are behind them all. Let us discuss for illustration the Ibsen
tradition.

Ibsen is generally the vitriolic foe of pageant. He must be read aloud.
He stands for the spoken word, for the iron power of life that may be
concentrated in a phrase like the "All or nothing" of Brand. Though Peer
Gynt has its spectacular side, Ibsen generally comes in through the ear
alone. He can be acted in essentials from end to end with one table and
four chairs in any parlor. The alleged punch with which the "movie"
culminates has occurred three or ten years before the Ibsen curtain goes
up. At the close of every act of the dramas of this Norwegian one might
inscribe on the curtain "This the magnificent moving picture cannot
achieve." Likewise after every successful film described in this book
could be inscribed "This the trenchant Ibsen cannot do."

But a photoplay of Ghosts came to our town. The humor of the prospect was
the sort too deep for tears. My pastor and I reread the William Archer
translation that we might be alert for every antithesis. Together we went
to the services. Since then the film has been furiously denounced by the
literati. Floyd Dell's discriminating assault upon it is quoted in
Current Opinion, October, 1915, and Margaret Anderson prints a
denunciation of it in a recent number of The Little Review. But it is not
such a bad film in itself. It is not Ibsen. It should be advertised "The
Iniquities of the Fathers, an American drama of Eugenics, in a Palatial
Setting."

Henry Walthall as Alving, afterward as his son, shows the men much as
Ibsen outlines their characters. Of course the only way to be Ibsen is to
be so precisely. In the new plot all is open as the day. The world is
welcome, and generally present when the man or his son go forth to see
the elephant and hear the owl. Provincial hypocrisy is not implied. But
Ibsen can scarce