The photoplay of the American Indian should in most instances be planned as bronze in action.  The tribes should not move so rapidly that the panther-like elasticity is lost in the riding, running, and scalping.  On the other hand, the aborigines should be far from the temperateness of marble.

Mr. Edward S. Curtis, the super-photographer, has made an Ethnological collection of photographs of our American Indians.  This work of a life-time, a supreme art achievement, shows the native as a figure in bronze.  Mr. Curtis’ photoplay, The Land of the Head Hunters (World Film Corporation), a romance of the Indians of the North-West, abounds in noble bronzes.

I have gone through my old territories as an art student, in the Chicago Art Institute and the Metropolitan Museum, of late, in special excursions, looking for sculpture, painting, and architecture that might be the basis for the photoplays of the future.

The Bacchante of Frederick MacMonnies is in bronze in the Metropolitan Museum and in bronze replica in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.  There is probably no work that more rejoices the hearts of the young art students in either city.  The youthful creature illustrates a most joyous leap into the air.  She is high on one foot with the other knee lifted.  She holds a bunch of grapes full-arm’s length.  Her baby, clutched in the other hand, is reaching up with greedy mouth toward the fruit.  The bacchante body is glistening in the light.  This is joy-in-bronze as the Sun Vow is power-in-bronze.  This special story could not be told in another medium.  I have seen in Paris a marble copy of this Bacchante.  It is as though it were done in soap.  On the other hand, many of the renaissance Italian sculptors have given us children in marble in low relief, dancing like lilies in the wind.  They could not be put into bronze.

The plot of the Action Photoplay is literally or metaphorically a chase down the road or a hurdle-race.  It might be well to consider how typical figures for such have been put into carved material.  There are two bronze statues that have their replicas in all museums.  They are generally one on either side of the main hall, towering above the second-story balustrade.  First, the statue of Gattamelata, a Venetian general, by Donatello.  The original is in Padua.  Then there is the figure of Bartolommeo Colleoni.  The original is in Venice.  It is by Verrocchio and Leopardi.  These equestrians radiate authority.  There is more action in them than in any cowboy hordes I have ever beheld zipping across the screen.  Look upon them and ponder long, prospective author-producer.  Even in a simple chase-picture, the speed must not destroy the chance to enjoy the modelling.  If you would give us mounted legions, destined to conquer, let any one section of the film, if it is stopped and studied, be grounded in the same bronze conception.  The Assyrian commanders in Griffith’s Judith would, without great embarrassment, stand this test.