Paradise Lost would make a far better film than Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman, though Borkman is a dramatic masterpiece, and Milton could not write an effective play." Note in especial what Shaw says about narrative, epic, and Paradise Lost.
He has in mind, no doubt, the pouring hosts of demons and angels.

This is one kind of a Crowd Picture.
There is another sort to be seen where George Beban impersonates The Italian in a film of that title, by Thomas H.Ince and G.Gardener Sullivan.

The first part, taken ostensibly in Venice, delineates the festival spirit of the people on the bridges and in gondolas.

It gives out the atmosphere of town-crowd happiness.

Then comes the vineyard, the crowd sentiment of a merry grape-harvest, then the massed emotion of many people embarking on an Atlantic liner telling good-by to their kindred on the piers, then the drama of arrival in New York.