Who killed Cock Robin? Not I. I had not heard that the Comédie-Française was seriously affected by the activities of Pathé Frères. I have yet to learn that music has been driven into hiding by the movies, although I have heard that the ride of the Valkyries is more familiarly known to-day as the “Klan-theme” from The Birth. Didn’t your theatre die—if it has died—because it stifled itself? Hadn’t you noticed the decline ten years ago?
W. P. E.
I am not blaming the movie. I am deploring it. I do not think that it is good for people to be eternally fed on whatever is cheapest, nearest, easiest of comprehension. I object to it all the more when something high and fine is butchered to make a movie holiday.
D. G.
I deplore that as much as you. I do not think that Cabiria was cheap, or easy of comprehension. There was enough on the surface to make it popular. But there was also enough in the depths to make it grand.
W. P. E.
The movie is still two-dimensional, Mr Griffith. Can we speak of depths?
D. G.
Ah, you say “still”! Then we have a future. In the theatre there was a long succession of little known men, and then came the men whose plays made these stones sacred to you. There were many Elizabethans before Shakespeare. Will you call me the Marlowe of the movies? I believe in them enough to hope for a Shakespeare. But don’t you see that we are young; we are without conventions—
W. P. E.