The Wind
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| The Wind | |
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 DVD cover |
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| Directed by | Victor Sjöström |
| Produced by | André Paulvé Fred Orain |
| Written by | Story: Dorothy Scarborough Screenplay: Frances Marion |
| Starring | Lilian Gish Lars Hanson Montagu Love Dorothy Cumming |
| Cinematography | John Arnold |
| Editing by | Conrad A. Nervig |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) | November 23, 1928 |
| Running time | 95 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent film English intertitles |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Wind (1928) is an American dramatic silent film directed by the Victor Sjöström. The movie was adapted by Frances Marion from the novel The Wind written by Dorothy Scarborough. It features Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson, Montagu Love, Dorothy Cumming, and others.[1]
It was one of the last silent films released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
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[edit] Plot
The silent tells the story of a sheltered woman named Letty (Gish) who lives in the East and moves to West Texas and must live with the constant blowing wind, sand, and brutal men.
[edit] Background
The film was shot partially near Bakersfield and the Mojave Desert, California.[2] The off-key happy ending of the film that was released was added at the insistence of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, who refused to approve the novel's logical ending in which Gish's character wandered into a windstorm and died.
[edit] Cast
- Lillian Gish as Letty
- Lars Hanson as Lige
- Montagu Love as Roddy
- Dorothy Cumming as Cora
- Edward Earle as Beverly
- William Orlamond as Sourdough
- Carmencita Johnson as Cora's Child
- Leon Janney as Cora's Child
- Billy Kent Schaefer as Cora's Child
[edit] Critical reception
The British newspaper, The Guardian, recently reviewed the work of director Victor Sjöström and they wrote, "And in America his three most famous works - He Who Gets Slapped (1924), The Scarlet Letter (1926) and The Wind (1928) - each dealt with human suffering. The Wind is almost certainly the best - a silent classic, revived in recent years by producer/ director Kevin Brownlow with a Carl Davis score, which gave the great Lillian Gish one of the finest parts of her career...Sjostrom treats the inevitable clash between Letty and her new surroundings with considerable realism and detail, allowing Gish as much leeway as possible to develop her performance. The entire film was shot in the Mohave Desert under conditions of great hardship and difficulty and this was probably the first 'Western' that tried for truth as well as dramatic poetry. One of its masterstrokes, which looks far less self-conscious than any description of it may seem, is the moment when Letty hallucinates in terror at the sight of the partially buried body of her attacker."[3]
In a retrospective of silent films, the Museum of Modern Art screened The Wind and included a review of the film in their program. They wrote, "What makes The Wind such an eloquent coda to its dying medium is Seastrom's and Gish's distillation of their art forms to the simplest, most elemental form: there are no frills. Seastrom was always at his best as a visual poet of natural forces impinging on human drama; in his films, natural forces convey drama and control human destiny. Gish, superficially fragile and innocent, could plumb the depths of her steely soul and find the will to prevail. The genius of both Seastrom and Gish comes to a climactic confluence in The Wind. Gish is Everywoman, subject to the most basic male brutality and yet freshly open to the possibility of romance. As a result, the film offers a quintessential cinematic moment of the rarest and most transcendentally pure art."[4]
When the film first opened in 1928, however, the press was not as kind. Mordaunt Hall, film critic for The New York Times, for example, was very critical of the film and he found it difficult to suspend his disbelief regarding the special effects and Lillian Gish's acting. He wrote, "Yesterday afternoon's rain was far more interesting than...The Wind,...The rain was real, and in spite of the lowering skies there was life and color around you. In the picture, the wind, whether it is a breeze or a cyclone, invariably seems a sham, and Lillian Gish, the stellar light in this new film, frequently poses where the wind is strongest; during one of the early episodes she does her bit to accentuate the artificiality of this tale by wearing the worst kind of hat for a wind. Victor Seastrom hammers home his points until one longs for just a suggestion of subtlety. The villain's sinister smile appears to last until his dying breath."[5]
[edit] Awards
In 1993, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] Notes
- ^ The Wind at the Internet Movie Database.
- ^ Internet Movie Database, Filming locations, ibid.
- ^ The Guardian. "Victor Sjostrom: The Wind," July 15, 1999. Last accessed: February 20, 2008.
- ^ Museum of Modern Art. MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999, p. 174. Last accessed: February 20, 2008.
- ^ Hall, Mordaunt. The New York Times, film review, November 5, 1928. Last accessed: February 20, 2008.
[edit] External links
- The Wind at the Internet Movie Database
- The Wind at Allmovie
- The Wind at the TCM Movie Database
- The Wind essay at Senses of Cinema by Adrian Danks
- The Wind film clip at You Tube
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