Seduced and Abandoned (1964) - Directed by Pietro Germi

I must admit I’m not quite as familiar with Italian comedies as I'd like to be. If there are others as good as Seduced and Abandoned then you can consider me a fan, though. Pietro Germi’s film from 1964 is a whirling dervish of hilarious farce and satirical absurdities. And it’s all devilishly funny in a way that could only be funny coming from Italy. Somehow this film strikes me as uniquely Italian, playing on familial pride, Catholicism, and the workings and churnings of tradition. All of the comedy plays extremely effectively in the Italian language because the physicality is front and center. There’s not much subtlety here and this film is all the better for it. 

This film starts with a quick and sudden seduction of a 16 year-old girl named Agnese (Stefania Sandrelli) by her sister’s fiancé named Peppino (Aldo Puglisi). After a large meal, everyone is konked out except for Peppino and Agnese. He grabs her and takes her into a back room where unseen things take place. She is quickly thrown into a tizzy by these proceedings and her suspicious behavior is picked up by her mother….who in a fit of fearful anticipation….ahem….takes an examination of her daughter and determines, yes she has not only lost her virginity, but is also pregnant. Of course her father Don Vincenzo Ascalone (a fantastic Saro Urzi whose performance is pure brilliance) soon becomes a raging lunatic: banishing her to the basement (where she is forced to beg to use the bathroom), pursuing and threatening the sexual predator and trying to force him into marrying the girl, concocting a scam in which his other daughter can get a replacement fiancé, and generally trying to maintain some sense of rule and order within his clan.

This film is one of the best comedies that I’ve seen in sometime and it came out of nowhere for me. I had literally no expectations when sitting down to watch as I'd never heard of it. Much of the comedy comes at the satirical expense of Catholic traditions, and familial honor. The father’s sweaty, exasperated attempts to keep his daughter from ridicule and to allow the family name to have some semblance of respect is really the meat of the film. I’m sure that today, this film wouldn’t quite work in the modern sense....it's too morally antiquated for that. But seen as a nostalgic look back at a simpler time, it is really funny. Germi even includes plenty of surreal dreamlike sequences, adding a bit of the "Bunuel" to the proceedings. However the aim here is far more lowbrow and common than Bunuel. Germi is aiming at the gut.

Aiochi Parolin’s magnificent and crisp b&w cinematography adds an artistic bent, but not so much that it makes the film inaccessible. The visuals always seems at the behest of the comedy, not from any sort of artistic pretension. The use of the fish-eye camera at times adds to the circus-like proceedings. Germi, though, is careful never to dig the knife in too deeply. You can sense the affection for Italians here and he’s never particularly mean. These events are shown in a light in which the conniving and the ridiculing never quite overcome the power of the family and one comes away with an admiration for the zeal and care for which the father breaks his back for his family. His love is real and the family is the heart of the matter. What a joyful and funny film this is.

Overlord (1975) - Directed by Stuart Cooper

Stuart Cooper’s poignant and devastating anti-war film is a unique blend of surreal poetry and documentary-like realism. It is both a stark portrait of an individual obsessed with premonitions of his own death and also a gathering of the collective consciousness of war. Thus it feels like both a big picture and a very intimate one. Brought to distinctive life by director of photography John Alcott, this is one of the most stunning and visually effective war films I've ever seen. Alcott of course was cinematographer of choice for three Stanley Kubrick films. Overlord in fact recalls Kubrick’s penchant for dream-like setpieces, which of course this film is loaded with. There are non-linear and subconscious visuals interspersed throughout, becoming the central emotive device. Not to mention, there is the fusing of the narrative with actual aerial and battle footage from WWII, creating a swooning, impassioned lament for those who died in the war. 

Cooper’s film regards a young private entering basic training. We follow him from the time he leaves home, to boot camp, to special training site, to D-Day. In the hands of Cooper, Alcott, and editor Jonathan Gili, the plot is rife with moving and piercing images. Central to the film’s effectiveness is the running motif of the young private dreaming/imagining his own death. This occurs repeatedly throughout the film and although often in soft focus, these moments become glaringly clear as a foreshadowing. Several sequences near the beginning of the film actually presage Kubrick’s own Full Metal Jacket, a film that I think might be among Kubrick’s weakest. However, Cooper’s interpretation of the boot camp experience is less the opportunity for insanity to creep in (a la Kubrick), but more to allow the dread, foreboading, and certainty of death to overtake the individual. In fact the dehumanizing aspects of the war machine is better examined in Overlord than in any other film I can think of. 

This is far from an actor’s movie and in terms of character development, is almost nonexistent. We move from moment to moment through the camera lens and the blending of the documentary footage with the dramatic footage. The film is less about tangible moments and more about a feeling. If the effect Cooper was looking for was a deep melancholy and sadness, he certainly succeeded. But also one of the questions that comes up to me in films like this is should the visuals be allowed to be so beautiful in a film of such darkness and sadness? Does the beauty of the image denigrate the subject matter of the film? For me here the answer is no. I think the arresting quality of the visuals creates a deep sensory connection, pulling us into the film’s midst without the need for an emotional connection to the characters. The images are used here to replace traditional narrative and connection to individuals.

If all of this sounds rather highbrow and inaccessible, it’s not meant to appear that way. I don’t think it requires a great deal of dissection to understand this film. It is meant to be experienced from a sensory standpoint, both visually and audibly. Although originally designed to be a documentary, Cooper and Alcott seamlessly incorporated tons of actual battle footage with the narrative footage, often switching very quickly between the two without missing a beat. Their feats here create one of the greatest war films ever made. This is a unique film, containing deep meditations on the mechanics and machinations of war and also on death itself. 

Thieves' Highway (1949) - Directed by Jules Dassin

A few times a year I feel like I watch a film in which I have no idea where it’s going. Perhaps it’s the brilliant script, or maybe it’s the actors present in this film, but there is something very fresh and vital about this work. Thieves’ Highway comes in between Dassin’s other brilliant film noir works, Brute Force (1947) and Night and the City (1950). Like the others, it has an incredibly visceral quality. Dassin’s best work always seems to exert a sense of high stakes for those involved. There is also a deep fatalism and an emphasis on grittiness, sweaty palms, and heart pounding set pieces, rather than the brooding chiaroscuro and stylization of other noir directors like Tourneur, or Welles. Over the last couple years I’ve seen several Dassin films for the first time. I am more impressed with each film I view.

Part of the joy for me of watching this film was not quite knowing what was going to happen next. I really don’t want to get into too many details of the plot because in case you haven't seen it I don't want to spoil it. A short synopsis is that Nick Garcos (Richard Conte) is a war veteran who has come home from some world travels of his to see his girlfriend and family. He finds out his father (a truck driver) has been crippled and robbed of cash owed to him by a fruit vendor in San Francisco named Mike Figlia (Lee J. Cobb). Nick postpones his engagement with his sweetheart to avenge his father’s injuries and determines to get even with Figlia. Throughout the film, there are twists and turns that border on the melodramatic, but there is always a streak of violence or sensuality around the corner that keeps the film grounded.

One of the central components in the film is the relationship that Nick starts up with a prostitute named Rica (Valentina Cortese). Her attitude is completely in contrast to the stuffy, proper appearance and attitude of Nick’s sweetheart Polly. When Rica asks Nick up to her room, we understand that she has ulterior motives. What is so striking and shocking is how suddenly their sexual chemistry kicks into gear and we sense that she is more interested in Nick than just for the money. It’s palpable onscreen and comes to full bloom during a moment after Nick takes off his shirt. She and he play a teasing game of tic-tac-toe with their fingers on his chest, she using her finger nails to scratch him and wipe the game away when she loses, only to kiss him passionately in the moments that follow. It's a perfectly acted scene. Another key relationship in the film is between Nick and the manipulative fruit vendor played by Lee J. Cobb. Cobb as Figlia, using his typical bravado and vocal projection, exerts an intimidation that Richard Conte is willing to stand up to, brushing off Figlia’s wheelings and dealings with equal panache.

With a script from A. I. Bezzerides, from his novel 'Thieves’ Market", the film crackles and pops with great dialogue and one-liners and has a sense of epic importance. Even though the problems of fruit vendors seems small on paper, the film has a way of making the stakes seem incredibly high. Dassin chose to shoot many sections of the film on-site in the markets of San Francisco, giving the film a pulsing authenticity. There is a buzz to those scenes in the markets that just cannot be duplicated on a set. Although I’m sure many would not consider this film to be in the same league as Night and the City, nor Rififi (1955), I am of the inclination to believe that this film deserves recognition as one of Dassin's best and also one of the great film noirs of its era. Although it may not completely conjure film noir in all its aspects, there’s enough dark pessimism here to qualify on that basis alone. This is a tough film that doesn’t shy away from violence or sex and remains a thorough, fun surprise throughout its magnificent running time. 

Lonesome (1928) - Directed by Paul Fejos

Wow is this film ever cute. I’m not ashamed to admit it. It’s unabashedly sentimental and romantic, yet the earnestness of the filmmaking propels it onward and upward. It’s also one of cinema’s great romance films, a genre that appeals to me and one I’ve written about on several occasions thus far. Romance films can be accused of being too manipulative, sentimental, and slight. True they can be. However when done right, there is usually an intelligence and a keen perception of our humanity on display. I think of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, or even Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. The two stars of Lonesome, Barbara Kent and Glenn Tryon, don’t have nearly the same cachet as other classic on-screen pairings, but they sure give it the old college try in this lively and charming, late silent film masterpiece.

Lonesome is the story of Mary (Barbara Kent) and Jim (Glenn Tryon), two lonely single people living in NYC. She is a telephone operator and he a factory worker. They both separately have the afternoon off in preparation for the 4^th of July weekend. They each decide to head to the beach and Coney Island. They each board the same shuttle car which will take them to the beach. He sees her on the car and takes a liking to her. Once off the car he pursues her. She retreats and they play a game of flirting for awhile. Then they meet each other at the beach and sparks begin to fly. They spend the entire day together, talking, laughing, and enjoying the amusements of Coney Island. That is until they are separated late in the evening and frantically search for each other, both of them realizing that they don’t know each other’s full names and that they may have lost each other for ever.

Paul Fejos is a largely forgotten director that got his start in the silent era. Although he was largely known as a director of documentaries and ethnographies, his work in Lonesome is fantastic in every way. Made in the same year as The Man With a Movie Camera (1928), the beginning of Lonesome parallels the great Vertov work, using a montage sequence of the city awakening at dawn. Fejos, as noted in an essay in the liner notes for the new Criterion DVD, has clear influences from the Russian montage and German expressionist movement. Being Hungarian born, Fejos brings a European cinematic flair to this Hollywood film, breathing tons of life into what is largely an oft-told tale. He uses tracking shots and roving camera work, superimposed images, sequences of color and even a few talking scenes within this largely silent film. There's even a great soundtrack incorporating lots of crowd noise and sound effects which blends nicely. This is a "kitchen-sink" kind of approach, but the film never devolves into distraction or abstract grandiosity. It remains grounded by its focus on the human element, always maintaining its sincerity.

What struck me about the few talking scenes that occur between Mary and Jim (which were added to take advantage of the new found appeal of sound) is something that I had never thought of before: the delineation between silent and sound cinema. When watching silent cinema, it’s very easy to allow oneself to view the proceedings and actors with a sort of distance. Because we can’t hear them speak, they somehow seem less real; they seem otherworldly and to sometimes appear to reach a sort of inhuman perfection. As an example, don't we approach the silent films of Garbo, Brooks, and Gish with a reverence? Can those actresses do any wrong in the silent medium? When I saw the first sequence in Lonesome where Mary and Jim talk with each other on the beach (with sound), they suddenly seemed very childlike and embarrassing compared to their "silent selves", perhaps even silly and sappy. They seemed flawed and human once I heard their voices. It was an interesting way for me to think about silence versus sound in cinema, as this film allows one to essentially see both types in the same film. All of this is superfluous though to how wonderful this film is. There is boundless charm and energy here. It is funny and romantic. It is sincerely acted by the two leads and directed by Fejos with great bravado. What a lovely discovery is Lonesome. 

The Steel Helmet (1951) - Directed by Samuel Fuller

Sam Fuller's career, a somewhat oddball mix of brutal violence, unsubtle drama, and social consciousness is one of the most fascinating to dissect. On one hand, his films have the tendency to appear low-budget almost to the point where continuity suffers. On the other hand, the extremely well-written scripts are rife with fascinating dialogue, characters and in many cases are socially progressive. The Steel Helmet, Fuller's first masterpiece, was a film that I had seen several years back during a retrospective on his career. Within a month's time in 2005, I saw all of these films for the first time: The Steel Helmet, Fixed Bayonets, Park Row, Underworld U.S.A., Shock Corridor, The Big Red One, and White Dog. I watched The Steel Helmet again this week and was reminded of why I love Fuller. It's the way that he blends his life experiences (War Veteran, Journalist) combined with an economy of storyline which is chock full of honesty, toughness, and strangely....a bit of sentiment. The Steel Helmet is an odd movie and one that could have only been made by its director. It is the work of a true auteur.

The Steel Helmet stars Gene Evans as Sergeant Zack. Zack's entire patrol has been wiped out by North Koreans and he is all alone, hands tied behind his back. A South Korean boy finds him and unties him. Zack reluctantly allows the boy to follow him as Zack attempts to find other American soldiers. The two of them come across a black American medic who has also lost his patrol. Together, the three of them meet up with a small American patrol and form a rag-tag bunch. They all find their way to a Buddhist temple where they attempt to hide out, thinking they are safe there. Things get interesting when they find out they are not alone. There is also a climactic battle scene at the temple where the small, outnumbered group tries to out-last some North Korean soldiers. 

One of the great joys of Sam Fuller's films, and this remained fairly consistent throughout his entire career, is the fact that his films were relatively low-budget affairs. To someone who takes these films out of context, I suppose they might appear a bit hokey. I find the low budget quality to be highly endearing. The scenes filmed in the forest during the night are clearly filmed on a set. It almost feels like you can see the back wall. The long shot of the Buddhist temple is clearly a painting. The final battle sequence is filled with lots of inconsistencies....too many to count really. Somehow none of this matters because the script is so good and filled with many socially relevent topics. After the team captures a North Korean, the black medic has a conversation with the Korean about being able to buy tickets on a bus back home, but not being able to sit in front. The Korean then talks to a Japanese-American soldier (who refers to himself as American) about derogatory terms like being called a Jap. Sergeant Zack calls the young boy a "Gook" and the young boy corrects him....causing Zack to hold his tongue the next time he tries to use the term. These moments make the film feel very alive and truthful. These are flawed characters...sometimes offputting....sometimes vengeful and angry, but they feel like real people. Fuller has a knack for how people talk, and his experiences during the war certainly were used to great effect in creating a realistic vibe among the soldiers. There's a great moment when Zack is talking to a bald soldier about why he has bottles of liquid on him. The bald soldier explains that he has bought hair tonic to try to make his hair grow because he lost all his hair when he was a kid from scarlet fever. The details of Fuller's script make this film shine. It's not the action I remember here....it's the interaction.

Another reason for why the film is essential is the magnificent performance by Gene Evans as Zack. Is there a more perfect actor to play a gruff, grizzled Sergeant than this guy? His stubbly beard and greasy, balding head are almost enough to make me accept him, but what takes it over the top is the fact that he is constantly chewing on a half-smoked cigar and talking and giving orders while still chewing on the thing. It is such a perfect accessory for his character. When the young Korean boy, that he somewhat adopts along the way as his son, is shot and killed toward the end, there's a brilliant moment where Zack walks toward the camera and his eyes are closed...his face clenched in anguish. It's as much feeling as he can express in a world dominated by violence and the unknown, and Fuller takes us into that moment and brings us face to face with the anguish of the soldier's grief. His other fantastic moment is the speech he gives to Lt. Driscoll, who has asked to swap helmets with him for good luck. It is the best moment in the film. 

Driscoll- I'd like to swap helmets with ya.

Zack- Oh yeah why?

Driscoll - Sounds a little silly, but I thought maybe if I wore your helmet, it would bring me the same kind of luck it brought you.

Zack- I’d be crossin’ the army if I brought you luck to live.

Driscoll- Sergeant I’ve-a, changed my mind about a lot of things in the past hour.

Zack- You’ll have to change more than your mind to get my steel pot.

Driscoll- You’re too dumb to be an officer so ya take it out on us. You’re a sorehead and you’re jealous. That’s why you hate any officer.

Zack- Look I’ll tell you about an officer…and he wadn’t a 90-day act of congress like you. He was a Colonel and he didn’t have to be that. It was D-day at Normandy. When you were wearin’ bars in the states and we were pinned down for 3 hours by Kraut fire... this Colonel, Colonel Taylor…he got up on easy red beach…and he yelled there are two kinds of men on this beach…those who were dead and those who were about to die. So let’s get off the beach and die in-land. That officer I’d give my steel hat to anyday.

Gene Evans was the perfect choice here for this role and also had another great performance in Fuller's Fixed Bayonets (1951). Fuller's portrayal of war is anti-heroic. There is no attempt to blockbuster-ize anything here. There are no glamorous set-pieces...nothing that glorifies the act of war nor those that fight in it. It is a humble, modest, and gritty war film about people trying to stay alive. 

The Wind (1928) - Directed by Victor Sjostrom

Lillian Gish’s final silent film was a great capstone on her silent film career. It was also one of the last great silent films of the era, and in fact released on November 23rd, 1928, already more than a full year after sound had been introduced. In many people's eyes, The Wind is considered the last hurrah of the silent film era. It certainly was the last hurrah for the silent era’s greatest actress. It was purported that Gish herself had the idea to make this film and had pitched it to Irving Thalberg after reading the novel. In her introduction to the home video release in the late 1980’s, she mentions having put together a 4 page story of the film. It’s also purported that she hand-picked the director…the fabulous Victor Sjostrom (Seastrom), he of The Phantom Carriage (1921) and The Scarlet Letter (1926) (also with Gish). They would collaborate to make one of silent film’s great masterpieces.

Based on a novel written by Dorothy Scarborough in 1925, The Wind stars Gish as Letty, a woman from Virginia who is traveling cross country via train to come live with her cousin Beverly and his family who live in west Texas. On the train, she meets a man named Wirt Roddy, who begins to seduce her on the train. She also sees that the country she is moving to is windy and sandy. VERY windy. And VERY sandy. Once off the train, two men named Sourdough and Lige (Lars Hanson) pick her up to take her to her cousin’s home. Once there, Beverly’s wife Cora (A fantastic Dorothy Cumming) soon begins to suspect that Letty is out to steal her husband. She has her thrown out of the house. Letty is proposed to by both Sourdough and Lige and accepts Lige’s proposal. She moves in with Lige, struggles with her feelings and intentions toward him…..and most importantly deals day-in and day-out with the never ending….never ceasing wind and sand battering the house.

One of the interesting facets of the film is its sexual nature both from the aspects of restraint and tension. Gish, normally known for playing meek, rather pensive types, has all sorts of suitors in this film. From Sourdough and Lige proposing to her to Wirt’s sexual predation, to the odd relationship with her cousin Beverly. I’m not really sure whether we’re supposed to believe that she and her cousin have a “a thing” going on, but Cora certainly seems to think that something is in the works. When Letty accepts Lige’s proposal, we know that Letty is desperate for a place to stay. It is quite surprising though, when she refuses to consummate the marriage. Overt mentions of “women going crazy” because of the constant wind, along with the Indian folklore that is mentioned regarding the horses, (replete with imagery of a white horse running, hair blowing and nostrils flared) and the uncontrollable wind evokes a kind of raw, sexual tension. A fantastically composed sequence is when after Letty and Lige are married and they are sitting at home in bed drinking coffee. Letty’s hair is down. Lige is thinking one thing. He realizes Letty is apprehensive. He gets up and leaves the room. She looks for a key to lock the door but can’t find one. Letty stays in the bedroom pacing. Lige paces back and forth in the living room. Shots of each of them pacing and pacing again are shown. Then we see a shot of the blowing wind and sand outside. The tension is broken when Lige kicks a coffee mug and he bursts back into bedroom to kiss her. Much of this sequence is actually shown from the perspective of their feet. Another scene in the film is so magnificent it deserves its own paragraph.

The most famous scene in the film, and one of the most iconic of the silent era is the setpiece where Letty is caught alone in her house during the night when the “Norther” storm hits. This sequence overlays shots of blowing sand and wind outside... the swaying lamp from the ceiling causing shadows and light to swing across the room... stampeding cattle running past the house... images of Gish crouched in fear, her eyes wild with fright.... holes being blown in the window and side of the house... wind and sand creeping in everywhere... a loose board banging on the door... Gish suddenly becoming crazed with insanity... the wind knocking over a lamp causing a fire to start in the house... Gish becoming dizzy and woozy... the entire house seeming to sway... a pounding at the door and a poor decision... door opened to a rush of wind and sand and Gish knocked to the floor... Wirt entering the house and no one to stop him... Gish running outside into the fray, unable to stand, unable to see... image of the bounding white horse... Gish thrust back in the house fainting, carried into the bedroom by Wirt and imagery of a bucking white horse conveying what is about to happen.

If any scene demanded screen shots, it would be that one. Criminally, the film is out of print, unavailable on DVD, with some scattered availability for a steep price on VHS through Amazon or ebay. I have not been able to track down any information for why the film has not been made available by MGM. The film needs a new print badly as the old one that I watched recently on TCM is muted, murky and lacks contrast. Still it packs a wallop. It has some remarkable cinematography by John Arnold and the imagery is fantastic. I think also of the scene where after Letty shoots Wirt and buries him in the sand. She goes back into her house and watching through the window, the wind begins to erode the burial area, exposing Wirt beneath the sand with Gish’s wide eyes telling us everything we need to know. Sjostrom did marvelous work here with what is essentially a vehicle for Gish, though he was able to add lots of flourishes, bringing a more European sensibility to this Hollywood film. He would never make another Hollywood film after this one though, because of the tagged on happy-ending that the studio made him add causing him to leave Hollywood for good. Gish’s final silent role, was also her last great starring role. She would go on to have a long career of supporting roles, but this was the last time she would command the screen in her prime.  

The Scarlet Letter (1926) - Directed by Victor Sjostrom

If Lillian Gish's films with D.W. Griffith were known for the melodrama, epic scale, and a penchant for depicting Gish's saintly qualities, her films with Victor Sjostrom seemed to tip the scales in favor of naturalism, and darker elements, allowing Gish to play characters who were not so perfect. They were women who were flawed and conflicted, allowing Gish's range to extend beyond the strict formality of Griffith's films like Orphans of the Storm (1921) or Way Down East (1920). Last month, TCM aired a full day of Gish's work and I recorded nearly everything I could. There were two films that aired that day that are not available on DVD and in the case of The Scarlet Letter, has never been available either on DVD or VHS to my knowledge. It was the single film in Gish's career that I've been itching to see and have never seen before.

The Scarlet Letter has of course been filmed on numerous occasions throughout cinema's history and is based on Hawthorne's classic novel. Hester Prynne (Gish) is a seamstress living alone in Puritan Boston. She catches the eye of the local minister and begins a courtship with him. She reveals to him after some time that she is already married and has been for 7 years, but has not been able to track down her husband in that time. The minister leaves for England on a trip for several months, but comes back to find Hester has had a child (with him) and is being publicly scolded and shamed to wear an "A" on her dress from then on. She refuses to let him share in the shame of it and wants him to keep his fatherhood a secret. Their lives go on in a state of suffering for years until Hester's husband finally shows up and throws everything out of balance. The minister reveals his sin at the end to the town and joins her in the public shame that he has longed to have for years. I'm not really concerned with how this film adheres or doesn't to Hawthorne's source material, nor how it compares to other screen adaptations of the story. I'm concerned with mainly how Sjostrom turns this into a marvelous vehicle for Gish.

Sjostrom's naturalist approach allows the film to feel less formal and provides Gish with a character that, although destined by literature, feels somewhat freer than her characters created by Griffith. He achieves some of this by choosing to film some sequences outside in nature and also by employing a playful angle. I particularly enjoy the sequences where Hester is washing her underwear and the minister happens upon her. She tries to hide her underclothes, throwing them into the bushes and rushes off to catch up with him after he has walked away. There is a magnificent little tracking shot following them along the road as they walk and talk together. It's a breezy and lovely scene, playful and fun. Sjostrom allows Gish to let her hair down (literally) in a couple scenes and there's one in particular that provides some wonderful irony after Hester has taken off her bonnet and thrown down her "A" on the ground. She is reminded of her state when her daughter picks up these things and brings them back to her. Some examples of Gish's freedom as an actress here can be found inherent to Hester Prynne. Gish is required to play a character that is morally conflicted and flawed. This allows so much more nuance for Gish to play with compared to much of her work with Griffith. I enjoyed watching her in a role where she is not so much put-upon (Broken Blossoms (1919) etc.), but rather brings on her own undoing through her own choices. This requires Gish to work with a greater range of characterization.

Sjostrom's greatest achievement in this film is, as I mentioned, allowing Gish room to breathe. I tend to think that with certain actors, there is a sort of "auteurist" angle to those that have such deep, ingrained talent and screen presence as someone like Gish. Especially from this era of the star vehicle, Lillian Gish tends to make a film come across a certain way. No matter what the director, there is a certain quality to her films. What Sjostrom allowed to come across in particular is the massive amounts of subtlety that Gish was capable of. Sjostrom, even more so than Griffith, was content to let the camera rest on Gish's face and let the film roll. She has such small changes in facial features, if the camera were to cut away we would miss so many nuances. I think her work here, although not as big and iconic as her work in say, Orphans of the Storm, Way Down East, or later in Sjostrom's The Wind (1928), is as good or better than anything else she ever did. Yes the film's story is well known, but Gish makes Hester her own. She makes her flawed, conflicted, impassioned, tragic. It's a magnificent star vehicle kind of film with fine, assured direction from Sjostrom. I just wish it was more available for people to see.