Originally posted to Facebook on 8/1/2018
The Wind was our fifth film from 1928, reuniting Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson, and director Victor Sjöström from 1926's The Scarlet Letter. All three, particularly Sjöström and Gish, had been prominent figures in the movie industry since the beginning of features, and we have seen them all multiple times. Also returning from The Scarlet Letter was Frances Marion, who wrote or adapted not only these two films, but several others we've seen, including 1917's Tillie Wakes Up, 1918's Stella Maris, 1925's Lazybones, and 1927's The Red Mill. She later went on to be nominated for three writing Oscars, winning two.
Like The Crowd last week, The Wind is a rather well-known film which, however, does not appear to have an easily obtainable English language release. I again bought a Spanish language DVD ("El Viento"), but we instead ended up watching a version DVRed off TCM, where it happened to be playing. I'd hoped that the TCM version would have featured a better print, but sadly that was not the case. Often the picture was muddy or too dark, and it could clearly use a significant restoration. TCM actually prefaced the film with a 1983 introduction by Gish herself, taped when she was almost 90. In it she tells a few stories about the making of the film -- which I thought about showing to the kids until I saw an article (https://bit.ly/1SIaaTM -- spoilers included) which convincingly debunked them.
The film itself concerns Gish traveling west alone, to live with her cousin, played by Edward Earle. Once there, she finds she is not entirely welcome, especially by his jealous wife Cora, played by Dorothy Cumming, and eventually she is kicked out of their house. At that point, the most palatable options presented to her are marrying one of two suitors -- either Sourdough, a sixty-something prospector-ish character, played by William Orlamond, or Lige, played by Hanson. She unsurprisingly chooses Hanson, despite Ben's vocal disagreement ("If you have the chance to become Mrs. Sourdough, you take it.") The movie eventually heads into rather dark, pre-code, PG-13ish territory. Among other things, Gish's character, having been not only pummeled by life, but also now living in an inhospitable climate, including the constant wind, begins to show signs of mental deterioration. She gives a very good, skittish performance, probably her best that we've seen -- similar to the martyrs she's played before, but more layered and calibrated. Sjöström's direction is characteristically assured as well -- not showy, but with personality; I suspect that personality would shown through even more strongly had we been watching a better print.
Next week's movie, our sixth from 1928, is The Cameraman, a Buster Keaton movie - the third film of his we've seen. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Showing posts with label Victor Sjöström. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Victor Sjöström. Show all posts
Saturday, June 22, 2019
Saturday, April 13, 2019
The Scarlet Letter (1926)
Originally posted to Facebook on 4/7/2018
The Scarlet Letter was our first film from 1926. We saw it at the Library of Congress's Packard campus, which is more than an hour's drive south, in Culpeper. The main reason I decided to make a trip that long with the kids was that the 1926 version of The Scarlet Letter -- despite being a well-rated and popular picture at the time -- is not easily available, either streaming or on disc. A good print exists for it, and it is occasionally shown on TCM, but for whatever reason it does not appear to be obtainable via my normal method of half-heartedly googling. By contrast, the 1934 version with Colleen Moore can be purchased from multiple sources, and I saw more than one complaint from people who thought they had ordered the earlier version and received the later. Their vocal and proportionate responses were much as you might expect.
I had never been to the Packard campus before, and did not know what to expect. As it turns out it has very much of a museum approach to screenings. No popcorn was available, for instance, much to the kids' disappointment, and we had to go through a metal detector prior to the movie. Additionally there was a short lecture before the film, which was interesting -- I did not know, for instance, that Sjöström had spent a good chunk of his childhood in the United States -- but not generally the approach we'd been taking with this project.
As with He Who Gets Slapped, this film unites director Victor Sjöström with an established Hollywood star -- in this case Lillian Gish -- whom we hadn't seen since 1920's Way Down East. It also stars Lars Hanson, another Swedish émigré, who had worked with Sjöström before coming to Hollywood, and would do so again, both in Hollywood and also after they'd both returned to Sweden.
I have never read The Scarlet Letter, nor seen any other adaptation, but I had a pretty good idea of the plot just through cultural osmosis. As an aside, the logo of a company at which I worked for several years is the word Harris, with the A in Harris dramatically drawn in red. While working there I occasionally asked what this scarlet A was meant to represent, and whether it implied that something shameful had occurred that the company was being punished for. I don't believe this ever amused anyone besides me, but it did make me think that there were probably a few layers of executive leadership who had a limited knowledge of English literature. In case any of them are reading this, Hester Prynne (played by Gish) lives in 17th century Massachusetts, and becomes pregnant through an affair with a local minister (played by Hanson.) Unwilling to expose the father, she is sentenced to wear the scarlet letter A -- for adulteress -- and she and her daughter live under that burden of shame, while the minister also, secretly, lives with similar shame and guilt. The lead role is very much on-brand for Gish, who again plays a living martyr. Additionally, though she was in her mid-thirties at this point, she credibly plays someone who I believe was supposed to be a decade younger. Hanson too, does a solid job of playing someone tormented by repression and guilt. Sjöström's direction is as good as you'd expect, though a bit more conservative than in his earlier films.
The original novel was written in 1850, and set two hundred years earlier, and the movie of course follows suit. I think, at times, setting a story in the past allows one to reflect on what has and hasn't changed -- but just as often I think it allows the audience to undeservedly congratulate themselves for living in a more enlightened age. I think that is why many films about civil rights, for instance, are set in the past, and I think that criticism could apply to this film as well. As a story about specific people, I think it works fairly well -- but I think the specific situation they find themselves in manifests itself in such an archaic way that it creates a barrier to linking it to a universal experience.
Next week we see The General, our second film from 1926, and our second Buster Keaton feature. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Scarlet Letter was our first film from 1926. We saw it at the Library of Congress's Packard campus, which is more than an hour's drive south, in Culpeper. The main reason I decided to make a trip that long with the kids was that the 1926 version of The Scarlet Letter -- despite being a well-rated and popular picture at the time -- is not easily available, either streaming or on disc. A good print exists for it, and it is occasionally shown on TCM, but for whatever reason it does not appear to be obtainable via my normal method of half-heartedly googling. By contrast, the 1934 version with Colleen Moore can be purchased from multiple sources, and I saw more than one complaint from people who thought they had ordered the earlier version and received the later. Their vocal and proportionate responses were much as you might expect.
I had never been to the Packard campus before, and did not know what to expect. As it turns out it has very much of a museum approach to screenings. No popcorn was available, for instance, much to the kids' disappointment, and we had to go through a metal detector prior to the movie. Additionally there was a short lecture before the film, which was interesting -- I did not know, for instance, that Sjöström had spent a good chunk of his childhood in the United States -- but not generally the approach we'd been taking with this project.
As with He Who Gets Slapped, this film unites director Victor Sjöström with an established Hollywood star -- in this case Lillian Gish -- whom we hadn't seen since 1920's Way Down East. It also stars Lars Hanson, another Swedish émigré, who had worked with Sjöström before coming to Hollywood, and would do so again, both in Hollywood and also after they'd both returned to Sweden.
I have never read The Scarlet Letter, nor seen any other adaptation, but I had a pretty good idea of the plot just through cultural osmosis. As an aside, the logo of a company at which I worked for several years is the word Harris, with the A in Harris dramatically drawn in red. While working there I occasionally asked what this scarlet A was meant to represent, and whether it implied that something shameful had occurred that the company was being punished for. I don't believe this ever amused anyone besides me, but it did make me think that there were probably a few layers of executive leadership who had a limited knowledge of English literature. In case any of them are reading this, Hester Prynne (played by Gish) lives in 17th century Massachusetts, and becomes pregnant through an affair with a local minister (played by Hanson.) Unwilling to expose the father, she is sentenced to wear the scarlet letter A -- for adulteress -- and she and her daughter live under that burden of shame, while the minister also, secretly, lives with similar shame and guilt. The lead role is very much on-brand for Gish, who again plays a living martyr. Additionally, though she was in her mid-thirties at this point, she credibly plays someone who I believe was supposed to be a decade younger. Hanson too, does a solid job of playing someone tormented by repression and guilt. Sjöström's direction is as good as you'd expect, though a bit more conservative than in his earlier films.
The original novel was written in 1850, and set two hundred years earlier, and the movie of course follows suit. I think, at times, setting a story in the past allows one to reflect on what has and hasn't changed -- but just as often I think it allows the audience to undeservedly congratulate themselves for living in a more enlightened age. I think that is why many films about civil rights, for instance, are set in the past, and I think that criticism could apply to this film as well. As a story about specific people, I think it works fairly well -- but I think the specific situation they find themselves in manifests itself in such an archaic way that it creates a barrier to linking it to a universal experience.
Next week we see The General, our second film from 1926, and our second Buster Keaton feature. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Monday, February 18, 2019
He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
Originally posted to Facebook on 10/24/2017
Our fifth and final film from 1924 was He Who Gets Slapped, our second film starring Lon Chaney, and our fifth directed by Victor Sjöström, who had relocated to Hollywood since 1921's The Phantom Carriage. This is also the first film in which we've seen John Gilbert or Norma Shearer.
The premise of the film is that Chaney is a scientist, and his patron, Baron Regnard, conspires with Chaney's wife to take credit for his work, publicly slapping him when he confronts the Baron. Chaney then returns home, where his wife reveals her part in the plot, and slaps him as well. The film then jumps forward, and in the intervening time Chaney has become a circus clown, where he has developed a starring act in which he gets slapped repeatedly by other clowns to mass acclaim -- a bizarre development not just because of its fetishistic aspect, but also because of the vertiginous mid-career shift between research scientist and circus clown.
John Gilbert and Norma Shearer are stunt riders, apparently one of the rare non-clown positions in this particular circus. There is a slight love triangle, in that Chaney is in love with Shearer, but he recognizes that she loves Gilbert, who is closer to her in age, and, crucially, isn't a clown with severe and masochistic psychological problems. When the Baron reappears, however, and begins to pursue Shearer, it provokes in Chaney both a protective instinct, and also a desire for revenge. This revenge motive recalls the previous film in which we saw Lon Chaney, 1920's The Penalty, as does his acting style, which is forceful and charismatic in both films, though not exactly naturalistic in either (an approach that would have been difficult in full clown make-up in any case.)
And it is this performance that, I think, makes this more of a Lon Chaney film than a Victor Sjöström film. Sjöström's assured hand is still visible, but the over-the-top luridness feels much more like The Penalty than any of Sjöström's earlier films.
Next week we being 1925 with our first Russian film, a film I've been intending to watch since I saw The Untouchables more than a quarter-century ago: Battleship Potemkin. Additionally, since we are starting 1925, I've added our planned films for 1926. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Our fifth and final film from 1924 was He Who Gets Slapped, our second film starring Lon Chaney, and our fifth directed by Victor Sjöström, who had relocated to Hollywood since 1921's The Phantom Carriage. This is also the first film in which we've seen John Gilbert or Norma Shearer.
The premise of the film is that Chaney is a scientist, and his patron, Baron Regnard, conspires with Chaney's wife to take credit for his work, publicly slapping him when he confronts the Baron. Chaney then returns home, where his wife reveals her part in the plot, and slaps him as well. The film then jumps forward, and in the intervening time Chaney has become a circus clown, where he has developed a starring act in which he gets slapped repeatedly by other clowns to mass acclaim -- a bizarre development not just because of its fetishistic aspect, but also because of the vertiginous mid-career shift between research scientist and circus clown.
John Gilbert and Norma Shearer are stunt riders, apparently one of the rare non-clown positions in this particular circus. There is a slight love triangle, in that Chaney is in love with Shearer, but he recognizes that she loves Gilbert, who is closer to her in age, and, crucially, isn't a clown with severe and masochistic psychological problems. When the Baron reappears, however, and begins to pursue Shearer, it provokes in Chaney both a protective instinct, and also a desire for revenge. This revenge motive recalls the previous film in which we saw Lon Chaney, 1920's The Penalty, as does his acting style, which is forceful and charismatic in both films, though not exactly naturalistic in either (an approach that would have been difficult in full clown make-up in any case.)
And it is this performance that, I think, makes this more of a Lon Chaney film than a Victor Sjöström film. Sjöström's assured hand is still visible, but the over-the-top luridness feels much more like The Penalty than any of Sjöström's earlier films.
Next week we being 1925 with our first Russian film, a film I've been intending to watch since I saw The Untouchables more than a quarter-century ago: Battleship Potemkin. Additionally, since we are starting 1925, I've added our planned films for 1926. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Sunday, September 2, 2018
The Phantom Carriage (1921)
Originally posted to Facebook on 3/14/2017
The Phantom Carriage was our third film from from 1921, and our fourth directed by Victor Sjöström. Of all the directors of this period, I think Sjöström has the best batting average, and this film continues the pattern -- in fact it is probably the best of his films we’ve seen to date. He again plays the male lead, as was true in all but one of his previous films we’ve seen, and Hilda Borgström, who also played the title character in 1913’s Ingeborg Holm, plays his wife. What sets Sjöström apart is mostly competent and assured storytelling -- though he is as innovative and technically solid as any of his peers. For instance, in the early part of this film, Sjöström’s character begins telling a story, which switches to a flashback. During that flashback, another character begins telling a story, and the film begins showing that narrative. Perhaps that had been done previously, but it seems pretty unusual for 1921; yet it was handled as smoothly as it would be in a modern film.
Sjöström, in the film, plays a character whose alcoholism has ruined his life, and Astrid Holm plays a Salvation Army worker who attempts to save him. She is played as a virtual saint, and apparently has fallen in love with him as well, though that is never fully motivated or developed. (I pointed out to the kids that her character had more or less the same profession as the women temperancists in Intolerance, who are of course portrayed in that movie as shrewish killjoys.) When the movie opens Holm is dying of tuberculosis and wants to see Sjöström before she dies. Most of the story is told in flashbacks -- again, fairly innovative for 1921 -- led by the driver of the eponymous Phantom Carriage, who is the ghost of a man whom Sjöström’s character once knew. I think the plot probably owes something to A Christmas Carol, but it is much more focused on the specifics of Sjöström’s alcoholism than the grand sweep of his life. Another interesting bit of trivia about this film is that there is a scene where Sjöström breaks down a door with an axe, which some people have theorized was the inspiration for the similar scene in The Shining.
Our next film, the fourth from 1921, will be the iconic Rudolph Valentino film The Sheik. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Phantom Carriage was our third film from from 1921, and our fourth directed by Victor Sjöström. Of all the directors of this period, I think Sjöström has the best batting average, and this film continues the pattern -- in fact it is probably the best of his films we’ve seen to date. He again plays the male lead, as was true in all but one of his previous films we’ve seen, and Hilda Borgström, who also played the title character in 1913’s Ingeborg Holm, plays his wife. What sets Sjöström apart is mostly competent and assured storytelling -- though he is as innovative and technically solid as any of his peers. For instance, in the early part of this film, Sjöström’s character begins telling a story, which switches to a flashback. During that flashback, another character begins telling a story, and the film begins showing that narrative. Perhaps that had been done previously, but it seems pretty unusual for 1921; yet it was handled as smoothly as it would be in a modern film.
Sjöström, in the film, plays a character whose alcoholism has ruined his life, and Astrid Holm plays a Salvation Army worker who attempts to save him. She is played as a virtual saint, and apparently has fallen in love with him as well, though that is never fully motivated or developed. (I pointed out to the kids that her character had more or less the same profession as the women temperancists in Intolerance, who are of course portrayed in that movie as shrewish killjoys.) When the movie opens Holm is dying of tuberculosis and wants to see Sjöström before she dies. Most of the story is told in flashbacks -- again, fairly innovative for 1921 -- led by the driver of the eponymous Phantom Carriage, who is the ghost of a man whom Sjöström’s character once knew. I think the plot probably owes something to A Christmas Carol, but it is much more focused on the specifics of Sjöström’s alcoholism than the grand sweep of his life. Another interesting bit of trivia about this film is that there is a scene where Sjöström breaks down a door with an axe, which some people have theorized was the inspiration for the similar scene in The Shining.
Our next film, the fourth from 1921, will be the iconic Rudolph Valentino film The Sheik. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Sunday, August 12, 2018
Summary 1910-1919
Originally posted to Facebook on 1/22/2017
Late last year we finished up our chronological viewing of the 1910s, and are now four films into 1920. I thought this would be a good time to single out the films that I most enjoyed or found the most interesting from that period. We watched nineteen shorts and thirty-one features, though the dividing line between the two was a little fuzzy at times, and included some ~45 minute "features." One of those shorter features that I liked was The Mystery of the Kador Cliffs [1912], directed by Léonce Perret and produced in France at Gaumont Studios. As I mentioned in the write-up, it could very easily have been adapted as an episode on the old Alfred Hitchcock show, and coming when it did at the dawn of features it seemed markedly more realistic than the shorts we'd been watching previously, which were largely melodramas or the tail-end of the Melies or Melies-inspired camera-trick films. Two other films, also from Gaumont, were the crime serials Fantomas [1913] and Judex [1916], both of which were over five hours in total length, and both of which were directed by Louis Feuillade. Judex is more consistent in tone, and is probably the better film; I could easily imagine it being rebooted for a modern audience. But Fantomas is more tongue-in-cheek, and more bizarre (for instance the drive-by attempt at murder via python, foiled only by the hero having the foresight to wear a python-proof suit.)
The two films that are likely on any in-depth film history curriculum -- and deserve to be -- are Cabiria [1914] and Intolerance [1916]. The shock of seeing the camera begin moving into a scene during Cabiria -- rather than just panning -- cannot be felt by a modern audience in the same way it must have been felt by a contemporary audience, but one can still apprehend that something new is happening. And it is has a number of elaborate and impressive set pieces as well -- including the dark and weird scenes where children are tossed into an oven embedded in the stomach of a statue of a local god. Intolerance builds upon Cabiria, and adds the famous Babylonian crane shots, as well as an insanely ambitious attempt to make a coherent movie out of four distinct time period. It doesn't completely succeed, and spends a lot of time burrowing down some weirdly misguided moral rabbit-holes, but it's an impressive film, both in its ambition, and in what it accomplishes. Both films are long, and periodically lose focus. Cabiria, though, at least, seems to always have entertainment on its mind, rather than trying to teach some questionable moral lessons.
Besides Feuillade and Leonce Perret, there were three other directors whom we saw more than once: D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, and Victor Sjöström. Victor Sjöström is the only one of the three all of whose films I liked. Probably the best of his three films we saw was Ingeborg Holm [1913]. Like The Mystery of the Kador Cliffs, it was markedly more realistic than the films we'd been seeing up until that point, and stopped short of some of the sentimental cliches it could have employed, at least up until the very end. It was Dickensian in a sense, in that it told a story about an individual's misfortunes, but also had a focus on the institutional failures that had played a role.
The final feature I'll mention was the one that I personally found the most entertaining from this period: the Douglas Fairbanks feature When the Clouds Roll By [1919], directed by Victor Fleming. It was the funniest of the various comedies we'd seen -- including the films we saw by the canonical three silent comedians -- Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd. To be fair to those three, all of their greatest work came in the twenties, and only Chaplin was making features in the 1910-1919 period. Fairbanks, too, probably did his major work in the twenties, but by 1919 he was already well established, and this film features his typical athleticism along with some intricate stunts and some fancy editing. Also it helps that he and his leading lady actually seem to like each other, always helpful in a romantic comedy, and surprisingly missing in a lot of the films we saw from this period (and even today, really.)
As far as shorts are concerned, I can't say there was anything that really stood out for me. Griffith's The Girl and Her Trust [1912] was a good short from the period just prior to features becoming common. I understand there were several other versions with a similar story that Griffith and others shot, but this was the one we saw, and it was a good straight-forward western, sort of a natural evolution of The Great Train Robbery. The Immigrant [1917] was probably the best of the Chaplin shorts we saw, especially the first half which was set shipboard. From Hand to Mouth [1919] by Harold Lloyd was also intermittently amusing. Lloyd's films don't have the touch of obsesssiveness that Chaplin's and Keaton's do, but he does have more of an everyman quality that makes his protagonists a little more sympathetic.
So that's it for the teens for a while -- probably forever in that concentrated a dosage. I'm looking forward to the twenties quite a bit, because I'm expecting the films to be better and stranger and more ambitious, which certainly seems to be the case four films in.
The two films that are likely on any in-depth film history curriculum -- and deserve to be -- are Cabiria [1914] and Intolerance [1916]. The shock of seeing the camera begin moving into a scene during Cabiria -- rather than just panning -- cannot be felt by a modern audience in the same way it must have been felt by a contemporary audience, but one can still apprehend that something new is happening. And it is has a number of elaborate and impressive set pieces as well -- including the dark and weird scenes where children are tossed into an oven embedded in the stomach of a statue of a local god. Intolerance builds upon Cabiria, and adds the famous Babylonian crane shots, as well as an insanely ambitious attempt to make a coherent movie out of four distinct time period. It doesn't completely succeed, and spends a lot of time burrowing down some weirdly misguided moral rabbit-holes, but it's an impressive film, both in its ambition, and in what it accomplishes. Both films are long, and periodically lose focus. Cabiria, though, at least, seems to always have entertainment on its mind, rather than trying to teach some questionable moral lessons.
Besides Feuillade and Leonce Perret, there were three other directors whom we saw more than once: D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, and Victor Sjöström. Victor Sjöström is the only one of the three all of whose films I liked. Probably the best of his three films we saw was Ingeborg Holm [1913]. Like The Mystery of the Kador Cliffs, it was markedly more realistic than the films we'd been seeing up until that point, and stopped short of some of the sentimental cliches it could have employed, at least up until the very end. It was Dickensian in a sense, in that it told a story about an individual's misfortunes, but also had a focus on the institutional failures that had played a role.
The final feature I'll mention was the one that I personally found the most entertaining from this period: the Douglas Fairbanks feature When the Clouds Roll By [1919], directed by Victor Fleming. It was the funniest of the various comedies we'd seen -- including the films we saw by the canonical three silent comedians -- Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd. To be fair to those three, all of their greatest work came in the twenties, and only Chaplin was making features in the 1910-1919 period. Fairbanks, too, probably did his major work in the twenties, but by 1919 he was already well established, and this film features his typical athleticism along with some intricate stunts and some fancy editing. Also it helps that he and his leading lady actually seem to like each other, always helpful in a romantic comedy, and surprisingly missing in a lot of the films we saw from this period (and even today, really.)
As far as shorts are concerned, I can't say there was anything that really stood out for me. Griffith's The Girl and Her Trust [1912] was a good short from the period just prior to features becoming common. I understand there were several other versions with a similar story that Griffith and others shot, but this was the one we saw, and it was a good straight-forward western, sort of a natural evolution of The Great Train Robbery. The Immigrant [1917] was probably the best of the Chaplin shorts we saw, especially the first half which was set shipboard. From Hand to Mouth [1919] by Harold Lloyd was also intermittently amusing. Lloyd's films don't have the touch of obsesssiveness that Chaplin's and Keaton's do, but he does have more of an everyman quality that makes his protagonists a little more sympathetic.
So that's it for the teens for a while -- probably forever in that concentrated a dosage. I'm looking forward to the twenties quite a bit, because I'm expecting the films to be better and stranger and more ambitious, which certainly seems to be the case four films in.
Sunday, July 15, 2018
The Outlaw and His Wife (1918)
Originally posted to Facebook on 11/1/2016
The Outlaw and His Wife was our third film from 1918, and also the third film we’ve seen directed by Victor Sjöström. He stars as well, just as he did in 1917’s A Man There Was. This is a more conventional film than the earlier one -- but it is surprisingly grim. It’s a little amusing to see the stereotype of gloomy Swedish films played out this early, especially since that stereotype is most often associated with Ingmar Bergman, who was born the year this film was released. Given the title, I think I can say without spoiling anything that the central character is an escaped outlaw, who begins working on a large farm under an alias, and there falls in love with the proprietress (played by Edith Erastoff) before his true identity is discovered. They decide to get married, and flee the authorities -- and things do not go well. It is apparently based on a play about a real couple from the eighteenth century. The movie, though, is anything but stage-bound, and has many scenes of majestic outdoor vistas. I don’t know that it is completely psychologically realistic, but it certainly tries to wrestle with human desperation in a sincere way, which shows more ambition than most of the films we’ve seen.
The next film we’ll see is our last from 1918, and is called The Bluebird, and looks quite eccentric and surreal. Our list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
The Outlaw and His Wife was our third film from 1918, and also the third film we’ve seen directed by Victor Sjöström. He stars as well, just as he did in 1917’s A Man There Was. This is a more conventional film than the earlier one -- but it is surprisingly grim. It’s a little amusing to see the stereotype of gloomy Swedish films played out this early, especially since that stereotype is most often associated with Ingmar Bergman, who was born the year this film was released. Given the title, I think I can say without spoiling anything that the central character is an escaped outlaw, who begins working on a large farm under an alias, and there falls in love with the proprietress (played by Edith Erastoff) before his true identity is discovered. They decide to get married, and flee the authorities -- and things do not go well. It is apparently based on a play about a real couple from the eighteenth century. The movie, though, is anything but stage-bound, and has many scenes of majestic outdoor vistas. I don’t know that it is completely psychologically realistic, but it certainly tries to wrestle with human desperation in a sincere way, which shows more ambition than most of the films we’ve seen.
The next film we’ll see is our last from 1918, and is called The Bluebird, and looks quite eccentric and surreal. Our list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
A Man There Was (1917)
Originally posted to Facebook on 10/7/2016
A Man There Was was our last film from 1917, and the second film we’ve seen directed by Victor Sjöström, the first being Ingeborg Holm, from 1913. In some ways that earlier film seemed more like a conventional feature than this one -- even though it was made at the very beginning of commercial feature films. This one is based on a poem by Ibsen, and the title cards are apparently excerpts from that poem -- a rhymed translation into English in the version we saw. It is set during the Napoleonic wars -- fifty years before the poem was written, a century before the movie, and two centuries from the present day. The lead character, played by Sjöström, is a sailor who, I hope I can say without spoilers, suffers tragedy and seeks revenge. It reminded me a little of a Griffith short we saw earlier this year called The Unchanging Sea (also based on a poem), but is significantly darker and more intense. In some ways this movie is closer to an illustrated version of the poem than what one might expect from a feature, and as a result it is fairly single-minded about telling its story, with few extraneous details, and a running time of less than an hour. It has some strong imagery as well, of the sea and the coast, and the aging protagonist. It is perhaps a bit melodramatic, but with a certain sense of heightened reality.
Next week we begin 1918 with Stella Maris, our second film starring Mary Pickford. I’ve also added our planned films for 1919 to the spreadsheet, which is linked here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
A Man There Was was our last film from 1917, and the second film we’ve seen directed by Victor Sjöström, the first being Ingeborg Holm, from 1913. In some ways that earlier film seemed more like a conventional feature than this one -- even though it was made at the very beginning of commercial feature films. This one is based on a poem by Ibsen, and the title cards are apparently excerpts from that poem -- a rhymed translation into English in the version we saw. It is set during the Napoleonic wars -- fifty years before the poem was written, a century before the movie, and two centuries from the present day. The lead character, played by Sjöström, is a sailor who, I hope I can say without spoilers, suffers tragedy and seeks revenge. It reminded me a little of a Griffith short we saw earlier this year called The Unchanging Sea (also based on a poem), but is significantly darker and more intense. In some ways this movie is closer to an illustrated version of the poem than what one might expect from a feature, and as a result it is fairly single-minded about telling its story, with few extraneous details, and a running time of less than an hour. It has some strong imagery as well, of the sea and the coast, and the aging protagonist. It is perhaps a bit melodramatic, but with a certain sense of heightened reality.
Next week we begin 1918 with Stella Maris, our second film starring Mary Pickford. I’ve also added our planned films for 1919 to the spreadsheet, which is linked here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
Thursday, June 7, 2018
Ingeborg Holm (1913)
Originally posted to Facebook on 4/4/2016
We finished off 1913 in our chronological movie viewing with Ingeborg Holm. This film was directed by Victor Sjöström (later Victor Seastrom after moving to Hollywood.) He directed many other famous films, including The Phantom Carriage, He Who Gets Slapped, and The Wind, and also was the lead actor in Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries in 1958. But that was almost half-a-century after he directed this film, which is probably the most naturalistic we’ve seen to date. The plot revolves around the title character (played by Hilda Borgström), whose husband has just taken out a loan to open a general store. Unfortunately he falls ill and dies a few scenes after prominently coughing, and she loses everything and is forced to enter a workhouse, and place her children into foster homes. And then things get worse from there. (“I hope this never happens to us,” said Alli.) It’s played less sentimentally than it sounds, at least through the first three-quarters, and is probably the best film we’ve seen from 1913 (though the first few episodes of Fantomas were more entertaining.)
Next week we start 1914 with D.W. Griffith’s first full-length feature: Judith of Bethulia. I’ve also added a slate of films representing 1915 to the spreadsheet, which takes us out through late May. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
We finished off 1913 in our chronological movie viewing with Ingeborg Holm. This film was directed by Victor Sjöström (later Victor Seastrom after moving to Hollywood.) He directed many other famous films, including The Phantom Carriage, He Who Gets Slapped, and The Wind, and also was the lead actor in Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries in 1958. But that was almost half-a-century after he directed this film, which is probably the most naturalistic we’ve seen to date. The plot revolves around the title character (played by Hilda Borgström), whose husband has just taken out a loan to open a general store. Unfortunately he falls ill and dies a few scenes after prominently coughing, and she loses everything and is forced to enter a workhouse, and place her children into foster homes. And then things get worse from there. (“I hope this never happens to us,” said Alli.) It’s played less sentimentally than it sounds, at least through the first three-quarters, and is probably the best film we’ve seen from 1913 (though the first few episodes of Fantomas were more entertaining.)
Next week we start 1914 with D.W. Griffith’s first full-length feature: Judith of Bethulia. I’ve also added a slate of films representing 1915 to the spreadsheet, which takes us out through late May. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
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