THE MOVIE AS A WORLD LANGUAGE
IT would be inexpedient, I believe, for me to bring this inadequate, but, I hope, more or less illuminating, investigation of the origin, present status and future possibilities of the screen to an end without going more into detail regarding what I have called the Esperanto of the Eye. That many of the ills to which flesh is heir, especially those springing from misunderstandings between races and nations, might be avoided, in great part, at least, by means of a universal language is far from being a recent idea. Like most seemingly modern generalizations, such as the theory of evolution, the law of the conservation of energy, and other apparently recent forward steps, the possibility of a tongue that should be understood of all men had come within the purview of the Greek and Roman writers of the classic period. But the intervention of the so-called Dark Ages, delaying Man’s upward progress by a thousand years, extinguished many a light which “the glory that was Greece” had given to the world, and it was not until comparatively recent times that any effort of a practical and promising nature had been made to provide the race with a poultice for healing the blows inflicted upon it at the Tower of Babel.
To-day, however, the universal language known as Esperanto, a survival of the fittest from several tongues designed in recent years for general use, is making real progress in various parts of the world. The report of the General Secretariat of the League of Nations for 1922 says: “Language is a great force, and the League of Nations has every reason to watch with particular interest the progress of the Esperanto movement, which should become more wide-spread and may one day lead to great results from the point of view of the moral unity of the world.”
The astonishing progress of Esperanto in its conquest of a polyglot globe is dealt with by John K. Mumford in a recent most readable article in the New York Herald, in which he says:
Since 1920 on an average a new book in Esperanto has appeared every other day. Text-books and dictionaries exist in French, English, Arabic, Armenian, Czech, Bulgarian, Danish, Esthonian, Finnish, German, Greek, Welsh, Hebrew, Spanish, Dutch, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Georgian, Catalonian, Chinese, Croat, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Rumanian, Russian, Ruthenian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Slovakian, Slovenian, Turkish and Visayan (Philippine Islands). Many millions of these books have been distributed.
Whatever may be one’s attitude toward the League of Nations, the advocacy of “the moral unity of the world” by that organization must meet with approval by the vast majority of right-thinking men. Through moral unification only can the human race reach that plane of civilization upon which freedom from the major ills which now afflict it can be attained. And that the Esperanto of the Tongue, a universal language that is rapidly enlarging the scope of its influence, can perform a mighty service in the cause of peace and progress can not be doubted. But compared to the Esperanto of the Eye, the universal language sprung from the screen, its conquest of the earth is painfully slow, and its final complete triumph would still leave the world-language of the eye more potent in many ways than the world-language of the tongue.
To illustrate the above, let me quote again from Mr. Mumford, who, in discussing the benefits bestowed by Esperanto upon commerce, says: “In Esperanto a business concern can get out a circular setting forth the merits of a washing machine or a face lotion so that even an Eskimo woman can read it, provided she has taken six months lessons in the universal language.” But in the twinkling of an eye this Eskimo woman could learn from the screen what it might take her half a year to glean from the advertising circular. Furthermore, for many years to come, the Eskimos, not to speak of the more highly civilized races, are more likely to be in constant touch with the Esperanto of the Screen than with the Esperanto of the Printing-Press.
Of course, what men or nations say to each other is essentially more important than the vehicle which they use for saying it. Neither the Esperanto of the Tongue nor of the Eye can be of great service to the cause of civilization unless they disseminate enlightenment rather than confusion, good rather than evil, love rather than hatred, unless they tighten rather than loosen the bonds that hold the nations together in times of peace.
But what Man may do ultimately with his new media for world-wide intercommunication can be, at this juncture, only a matter for vague, though, perhaps, hopeful, conjecture. There is one fact, however, that stands out in startling significance as we contemplate the progress which mankind is making toward the final removal of all barriers toward racial self-knowledge—namely, that humanity seems, for the first time in its career, to feel that the Sphinx whose other name is History is presently to reveal the secret which, throughout all the ages, it has managed to conceal. The disappearance of the last frontier, the solving of Earth’s ancient mysteries, the coming of the wireless and the Esperanto of the Tongue and of the Eye seem to presage some new revelation to the soul of Man that shall remove forever from the entrance to the Garden of Eden that angel with the flaming sword.
Strange, is it not, that close study of the movie and all its works, both good and bad, should intensify the optimism of one who only a few short years ago had abandoned all hope that civilization could ever again be given the opportunity to regain its higher self and fulfill the promise it had once vouchsafed to the race? One foggy morning in the Autumn of 1917 I found myself, in company with a fellow newspaper-correspondent, representing an English daily, on the French front, in the shell-torn square in front of the grand old cathedral at Rheims. That very morning high explosives from the German lines had done further damage to this ancient glory of Gothic architecture, and torn and shattered, defaced and despoiled, it limped toward Heaven, sadly crippled but forever sublime. As I stood gazing, awe-stricken and depressed at the desecrated façade, the outward and visible sign of Man’s inhumanity to God, my English companion approached me, stuck his monocle into his eye, gazed at the ruin before us, and drawled, “My word, but it has been knocked about a bit, hasn’t it?”
Yes—and so has our modern civilization been knocked about a bit, to state the case with typically British reserve. As with Rheims cathedral, so with the social structure Man has patiently and painfully erected through recent centuries; it must be repaired, strengthened, and, above all, defended from the iconoclasm that may menace it in the future. And for this renaissance of civilization, and its protection from the internal and external foes by which it was recently so nearly destroyed and by which it is still threatened, the cinematograph can, if God is willing and Man is wise, be of greater service than the majority of people yet fully realize.
Not a day has gone by recently when I have not come upon some new proof that the pessimism which overwhelmed me as I gazed in 1917 at the outraged façade of Rheims is not unreasonably to be replaced by an optimism begotten of the movie. I saw Man in those dark days on the French front in his iconoclastic mood, wantonly destroying the proudest relics of the creative genius of his forebears. To-day I find the screen achieving wonders in conserving, for the sake of posterity, the memory of epic, epoch-making deeds of derring-do that not only glorify our past but inspire us with hope and courage and ambition for the future.
In illustration of this, let me say something of a recent motion picture destined to win new friends for an art-form which has only of late been recognized by the more conservative of our intelligenzia as worthy of their interest and regard. The screening of Emerson Hough’s historical romance “The Covered Wagon,” which deals with the heroic achievements of the pioneers who blazed a trail, in their quest of California gold, across the prairies and the Rockies, thus conferring a priceless boon upon a nation in the making, is one of the most important milestones in the progress of the movie upward toward its highest plane of endeavor. Says Jesse L. Lasky, of the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, speaking of his organization’s splendid contribution not merely to movie fans but to those who believe that by the visual study of his past Man may find both warnings and inspirations for his future:
We did our utmost to make this the picture of a decade—a living, moving, historical spectacle which would be of great worth to the world. For the reason that we feel that our efforts have been successful we are therefore going to offer prints to the Smithsonian Institution for preservation in the archives of that institution. Probably never again will a real buffalo hunt be staged, and it is doubtful if any producers will again undertake the immense task involved in “The Covered Wagon.”
Before the actual screening of the story was begun, scouting in search of an appropriate site for the project was carried on in the states of California, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico and Arizona. A location was finally chosen in Utah, ninety miles from the nearest town and railroad station. As the instant popular success, combined with the historical importance of “The Covered Wagon,” have a direct bearing upon the prophecy and suggestion which I made in the opening chapter of this book, I shall quote at some length from Mr. James Cruze, to whose energy, enthusiasm and skill as a director the triumphant screening of Mr. Hough’s stimulating novel is largely due. Says Mr. Cruze:
Did you ever sit on the edge of a volcano expecting an eruption any instant? That was my position. Our camp was not patterned after Fifth Avenue, and I never knew when something might not break loose. One of the difficult problems was the rehearsing of the Indians for the attack on the wagon train. This had to be well timed, so that nobody would be hurt. But the Indians got so excited, whether or not the cameras were grinding, that we could hardly restrain them.
The breaking of the steers to yoke was another exciting job. Quite a number of the cowboys with us would not tackle that work, so we had to get special men. They finally accomplished this by yoking the steers together and leaving them for twenty-four hours, and then they were usually willing to stand.
Then that buffalo hunt on Antelope Island, in Great Salt Lake! I shall never forget that. It was thrilling, too; at least Karl Brown, the camera man, thought so. He wanted a close-up of a charging bull buffalo. He had photographed such gems as a hippopotamus, a rhinoceros and several other animals, even an elephant; but he found that a bull buffalo bears a distinct aversion to the camera, or something of the sort.
We had a stockade built to protect the camera men, but Brown had to get outside for this particular shot. He got it, but only a narrow shave prevented the buffalo from getting him. One of the cowboys fired in time and we had buffalo steak that night. Some people told me that Brown felt a little delicacy in the matter and would not eat any.
We forded the Kaw River with our wagon train and our horses and cattle. We—yes, we got them across. It was a frightful scramble, and all I know is that we reached the other side. In the end I was thankful, as any one can imagine, when the picture was finished. They tell me it’s good. It ought to be.
What can not Man learn eventually through the Esperanto of the Eye? History is the tale of his conflict between two elements in his nature, the constructive and the destructive. The picture whose evolution is presented in detail above preserves for posterity a thrilling record of our forebears in their Herculean task of winning a continent from savagery for civilization. It is a representation of Man under the influence of his eternal constructive impetus. Were I drawing an illustration for this chapter, I should depict Rheims cathedral shattered by high explosives beside a prairie schooner drawn by oxen and ask my readers to judge between them, to say which sketch gave us the higher opinion of humanity. Is our race to permit eventually its constructive or its destructive inclinations to dominate its fate? This is the crucial question agitating mankind to-day, and upon the answer given to it the future of all things worth while in the world depends. Who dare assert that that answer is not more likely to be what it should be because the movie is constantly displaying a fuller appreciation of the lofty mission upon earth that has been assigned to it?