The Art of the Moving Picture | Page 7

of America to the other, and really gorgeous Ford garages.
Our Union depots and our magazine stands in the leading hotels, and
our big Soda fountains are more and more attractive all the time.
Having recited of late about twice around the United States and,
continuing the pilgrimage, I can testify that they are all alike from New
York to San Francisco. One has to ask the hotel clerk to find out
whether it is New York or ----. And the motion picture discipline of the
American eye has had a deal to do with this increasing tendency to
news-stand and architectural standardization and architectural thinking,

such as it is. But I meant this suggestion to go further, and to be taken
in a higher sense, so I ask these people to read this chapter again. I have
carried out the idea, in a parable, perhaps more clearly in The Golden
Book of Springfield, when I speak of the World's Fair of the University
of Springfield, to be built one hundred years hence. And I would
recommend to those who have already taken seriously chapter eighteen,
to reread it in two towns, amply worth the car fare it costs to go to both
of them. First, Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the end of the Santa Fe Trail,
the oldest city in the United States, the richest in living traditions, and
with the oldest and the newest architecture in the United States; not a
stone or a stick of it standardized, a city with a soul, Jerusalem and
Mecca and Benares and Thebes for any artist or any poet of America's
future, or any one who would dream of great cities born of great
architectural photoplays, or great photoplays born of great cities. And
the other city, symbolized by The Golden Rain Tree in The Golden
Book of Springfield, is New Harmony, Indiana. That was the
Greenwich Village of America more than one hundred years ago, when
it was yet in the heart of the wilderness, millions of miles from the sea.
It has a tradition already as dusty and wonderful as Abydos and Gem
Aten. And every stone is still eloquent of individualism, and
standardization has not yet set its foot there. Is it not possible for the
architects to brood in such places and then say to one another:--"Build
from your hearts buildings and films which shall be your individual
Hieroglyphics, each according to his own loves and fancies?"
Chapter XIX
--On Coming Forth by Day. This is the second Egyptian chapter. It has
its direct relation to the Hieroglyphic chapter, page 171. I note that I
say here it costs a dime to go to the show. Well, now it costs around
thirty cents to go to a good show in a respectable suburb, sometimes
fifty cents. But we will let that dime remain there, as a matter of
historic interest, and pass on, to higher themes.
Certainly the Hieroglyphic chapter is in words of one syllable and any
kindergarten teacher can understand it. Chapter nineteen adds a bit to
the idea. I do not know how warranted I am in displaying Egyptian

learning. Newspaper reporters never tire of getting me to talk about
hieroglyphics in their relation to the photoplays, and always give me
respectful headlines on the theme. I can only say that up to this hour,
every time I have toured art museums, I have begun with the Egyptian
exhibit, and if my patient guest was willing, lectured on every period
on to the present time, giving a little time to the principal exhibits in
each room, but I have always found myself returning to Egypt as a
standard. It seems my natural classic land of art. So when I took up
hieroglyphics more seriously last summer, I found them extraordinarily
easy as though I were looking at a "movie" in a book. I think Egyptian
picture-writing came easy because I have analyzed so many hundreds
of photoplay films, merely for recreation, and the same style of
composition is in both. Any child who reads one can read the other. But
of course the literal translation must be there at hand to correct all
wrong guesses. I figure that in just one thousand years I can read
hieroglyphics without a pony. But meanwhile, I tour museums and I
ride Pharaoh's "horse," and suggest to all photoplay enthusiasts they do
the same. I recommend these two books most heartily: Elementary
Egyptian Grammar, by Margaret A. Murray, London, Bernard Quaritch,
11 Grafton Street, Bond Street, W., and the three volumes of the Book
of the Dead, which are, indeed, the Papyrus of Ani, referred to in this
chapter, pages 255-258. It is edited, translated, and reproduced in
fac-simile by the keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in