Tol'Able David and the American Heritage
Walter R. Coppedge
I first saw Tol"able David at a film society in Princeton in 1953. It was the first silent picture I had seen: the larger-than-life acting styles, the iris shots, the sweep of narrative conveyed almost entirely in pictures—these devices unique to the silent film seemed fresh and charming. But what captivated me was something like nostalgia for a place I had never been, a time I never knew. I was watching a work which re-created the preconsumerist, preautomotive, indeed preindustrial America.
