Do this with each most energetic classic till your imagination flags.  I do not want to be too dogmatic, but it seems to me this is one way to evolve real Action Plays.  It would, perhaps, be well to substitute this for the usual method of evolving them from old stage material or newspaper clippings.

There is in the Metropolitan Museum a noble modern group, the Mares of Diomedes, by the aforementioned Gutzon Borglum.  It is full of material for the meditations of a man who wants to make a film of a stampede.  The idea is that Hercules, riding his steed bareback, guides it in a circle.  He is fascinating the horses he has been told to capture.  They are held by the mesmerism of the circular path and follow him round and round till they finally fall from exhaustion.  Thus the Indians of the West capture wild ponies, and Borglum, a far western man, imputes the method to Hercules.  The bronze group shows a segment of this circle.  The whirlwind is at its height.  The mares are wild to taste the flesh of Hercules.  Whoever is to photograph horses, let him study the play of light and color and muscle-texture in this bronze.  And let no group of horses ever run faster than these of Borglum.

An occasional hint of a Michelangelo figure or gesture appears for a flash in the films.  Young artist in the audience, does it pass you by?  Open your history of sculpture again and look at the usual list of Michelangelo groups.  Suppose the seated majesty of Moses should rise, what would be the quality of the action?  Suppose the sleeping figures of the Medician tombs should wake, or those famous slaves should break their bands, or David again hurl the stone.  Would not their action be as heroic as their quietness?  Is it not possible to have a Michelangelo of photoplay sculpture?  Should we not look for him in the fulness of time?  His figures might come to us in the skins of the desert island solitary, or as cave men and women, or as mermaids and mermen, and yet have a force and grandeur akin to that of the old Italian.

Rodin’s famous group of the citizens of Calais is an example of the expression of one particular idea by a special technical treatment.  The producer who tells a kindred story to that of the siege of Calais, and the final going of these humble men to their doom, will have a hero-tale indeed.  It will be not only sculpture-in-action, but a great Crowd Picture.  It begins to be seen that the possibilities of monumental achievement in the films transcend the narrow boundaries of the Action Photoplay.  Why not conceptions as heroic as Rodin’s Hand of God, where the first pair are clasped in the gigantic fingers of their maker in the clay from which they came?

Finally, I desire in moving pictures, not the stillness, but the majesty of sculpture.  I do not advocate for the photoplay the mood of the Venus of Milo.  But let us turn to that sister of hers, the great Victory of Samothrace, that spreads her wings at the head of the steps of the Louvre, and in many an art gallery beside.  When you are appraising a new film, ask yourself:  “Is this motion as rapid, as godlike, as the sweep of the wings of the Samothracian?” Let her be the touchstone of the Action Drama, for nothing can be more swift than the winged Gods, nothing can be more powerful than the oncoming of the immortals.