Chapter X--Furniture, Trappings, and Inventions in Motion, being a
continuation of the chapter on Fairy Splendor. In this field we find one
of the worst failures of the commercial films, and their utterly
unimaginative corporation promoters. Again I must refer them to such
fairy books as those of Padraic Colum, where neither sword nor wing nor
boat is found to move, except for a fairy reason.

I have just returned this very afternoon from a special showing of the
famous imported film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Some of the earnest
spirits of the Denver Art Association, finding it was in storage in the
town, had it privately brought forth to study it with reference to its
bearing on their new policies. What influence it will have in that most
vital group, time will show.

Meanwhile it is a marvellous illustration of the meaning of this chapter
and the chapter on Fairy Splendor, though it is a diabolical not a
beneficent vitality that is given to inanimate things. The furniture,
trappings, and inventions are in motion to express the haunted mind, as
in Griffith's Avenging Conscience, described pages 121 through 132. The
two should be shown together in the same afternoon, in the Art Museum
study rooms. Caligari is undoubtedly the most important imported film
since that work of D'Annunzio, Cabiria, described pages 55 through 57.
But it is the opposite type of film. Cabiria is all out-doors and
splendor on the Mediterranean scale. In general, imported films do not
concern Americans, for we have now a vast range of technique. All we lack
is the sense to use it.

The cabinet of Caligari is indeed a cabinet, and the feeling of being in
a cell, and smothered by all the oppressions of a weary mind, does not