When the niece of Major Allshard first dons a yellow ribbon in her hair, there is much chatter among the men at Fort Starke regarding who it is for. As lyricised in the folk song which gives this film its name, it is traditionally worn as a symbol of love and loyalty to a man fighting in war, although Olivia is not so open about the identity of her sweetheart. As such, a rivalry is born between Lieutenants Ross and Flint, incidentally tempering the harsh nature of their larger mission at hand with lighter touches of romance and humour.
For a film that places such a great emphasis on duty and honour, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is brimming with warmth in its side characters and subplots, though this should be no surprise to those familiar with John Ford’s mythos of America. After all, what are these Frontier Army troops really fighting for, if not the prosperity of their families back home? As for honourable men like Captain Nathan Brittles who have suffered great loss, grief does not wither their hearts, but rather gives them even greater reason to fight for the happiness of others. Consequently, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon meets him during a significant time of his life indeed – ruefully facing down retirement from the only thing that gives his him purpose.
A yellow ribbon in Olivia’s hair hints at a sweetheart among the young cavalrymen, weaving romance and humour into this otherwise high-stakes tale.Blue and yellow uniforms stand out against the red, earthy tones of the desert, and even more so thanks to Ford’s rigorous blocking.
Brittles’ last detail comes in the wake of 1876’s Battle of Little Big Horn, which saw Native American warriors overwhelm the United States Army and break free of their reservations. War is brewing in the West, and Fort Starke is no longer the sanctuary it once was. Not only must he and his troop of cavalry soldiers drive them back home, but they must also escort Olivia and her aunt Abby to an eastbound stagecoach, which will take them to safety. The stakes are immense, and with Brittles’ last day of service approaching, there is an acute pressure to fulfil his assignment before bidding farewell to the only life he has ever known since his wife’s passing.
Brittles’ backstory lends his final mission personal stakes, as he prepares to farewell the only life he has known since his wife’s passing.Ford and his cinematographer Winton C. Hoch are laying the groundwork for The Searchers, shooting Monument Valley in Technicolor for the first time and crafting these stunning landscapes.
Besides the native tribes and the petty divisions among his own men, there is another adversary the ageing captain must contend with, taking the form of America’s rugged wilderness. This was not the first time Ford shot among the astounding vistas of Monument Valley, and he was already well acquainted with colour filmmaking by 1949, yet She Wore a Yellow Ribbon marks the union of both. Much of the bold beauty here is thanks to the genius of cinematographer Winton C. Hoch, whose proficiency in Technicolor photography far surpassed his peers in 1940s Hollywood, though Ford’s own eye for composition should not be underrated. Blood-red sunrises silhouette the company’s bugler as plays a brassy melody to herald the new day, while the land of vast plains and towering buttes draws deep, earthy tones through the mise-en-scène, swallowing up armies of blue-uniformed specks in spectacular establishing shots.
A blazing red sunrise cuts out the bugler’s silhouette – an image of patriotism and remembrance.High horizons use the red rock valleys as mise-en-scène, here situating us behind a Native American surveying the view.Low horizons stretch the blue, cloudy skies out over the cavalrymen, putting them at the mercy of the elements.
Perhaps most breathtaking though are those visions of Monument Valley that impressionably shift with the weather, beating down the travelling cavalry beneath the scorching sun and later shrouding its rocky outcrops in grey, ghostly clouds. Even after spotting a thunderstorm brewing in the distance, Ford reportedly demanded that they continue rolling, forcing both his cast and crew to trudge through slurries of mud. It is surely no coincidence that this led to one of the film’s most memorable and visually striking scenes – there is a raw, practical authenticity to such imagery which connects Brittles’ quest to the land itself, accordingly revealing the sheer perseverance of those who seek to navigate its formidable challenges.
Fog hangs low around the buttes of Monument Valley, offering an unusually ghostly atmosphere.Lightning strikes and rain pours during this thunderstorm, yet Brittles’ men and Ford’s crew persevere through the natural challenges thrown their way.
This admirable quality is perhaps most plainly illustrated though in Brittles’ attempted peace talks, careful manoeuvring, and resistance to unnecessary bloodshed. Nonviolent offence is clearly the preferred tactic here, especially given that hostile conquest would only spur on further aggression, but even then victory is not guaranteed. The burned-out remains of another military fort shake Brittles’ men to their core, and their failure to keep firearms out of the hands of Native Americans drastically shifts the odds against them further, eventually driving the entire troop back to Fort Starke in shame-faced defeat.
Excellent blocking of actors in this expansive landscape, trailing these Native Americans along the top of a hill and against the sky.Ravaged villages and innocent lives lost – this is a mission of many failures, testing Brittles’ mettle as a leader.
Brittles’ final hours as Captain are approaching, yet the prospect of letting his men continue this mission without an effective plan or assured leadership is difficult to stomach. The silver pocket watch they gift him as a farewell present certainly doesn’t help to ease the sorrow either, earning a moment of genuine poignancy as John Wayne tears up – a rare sight to behold in any Western, let alone one directed by Ford.
Still, when else does one’s dutiful commitment shine brighter than at one’s lowest point? Against all else, this is the American ideal that She Wore a Yellow Ribbon holds in greatest esteem, especially when Brittles resolves to launch one last campaign before he is officially retired. At 12 minutes to midnight, he orders his bugler sound the charge and leads his troop into the Native American camp of renegades – not to inflict violence, but to scatter their horses into the wild. Silhouetted against the clouds of dust being kicked up behind them, Brittles’ cavalry rides swiftly with the stampede, grounding what is one of Ford’s finest set pieces in peace rather than subjugation. With no herd, these tribes have no means of mounting attacks, and are consequently forced to return to their reservations on foot rather than stoking further conflict.
A grand set piece in the dead of night – no blood is spilt as Brittles and his men drive the renegades’ horses into the wild, accomplishing their mission with peaceful diplomacy and tact.
Even in the aftermath, Ford continues to flex his mastery of sweeping landscapes as Brittles riding off into a red and purple sunset and towards new settlements in California, though this new civilian life is fleeting. As an officer delivers a letter recalling him to duty as Chief of Scouts, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon optimistically upholds that those who seek to serve their country will always find a place among the ranks of their fellow soldiers. After all, there is still much joy to be found in this community at Fort Starke, especially with Olivia and Flint finally announcing their engagement and becoming a perfect picture of an American idealism worth defending. “Wherever they rode and whatever they fought for, that place became the United States,” the closing voiceover proudly proclaims – and for all its dewy-eyed patriotism, Ford’s grand mythologising of historic archetypes cannot be criticised for a lack of sincere, rousing conviction.
Riding off into a jaw-dropping sunset, painting the frame with shades of red, orange, and purple that all bleed into each other.
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is currently available to purchase on Apple TV and Amazon Video.
So reclusive are the two fixers at the centre of Wolfs that even their names are kept from us. Their identities are their jobs, requiring them to override any moral inhibitions they might harbour to maintain a stoic, unflinching professionalism. Personal relationships are similarly out of the question, or else they might find themselves easily compromised by conflicting loyalties. According to George Clooney’s pragmatic specialist, this line of work requires a “certain level of monasticism” – so when he and Brad Pitt’s sardonic contractor are incidentally hired to handle the same job, their forced partnership threatens to steer both off track.
The snarky repartee flows freely in this buddy comedy-thriller, fuelled by a chemistry that was established between the two veteran actors long ago in Ocean’sEleven. There is no question as to the competency of these professionals, but their mutual jabs at each other’s work ethic do reveal petty egos underlying their suave composure. Unfortunately, this is not the sort of job which can handle too much distraction either. After a Manhattan District Attorney’s brief affair with a younger man ends in disaster, the mess they have been tasked with cleaning up quickly spirals out of control, leading them on a chase through New York City and into the middle of a gang war over a stolen drug shipment.
Although Austin Abrams isn’t quite Clooney and Pitt’s equal here, he injects a bewildered, guileless humour as their naïve tagalong, finding himself in over his head more than anyone else. The single night setting only elevates the farcical caper further, escalating its stakes faster than he can keep up. Even if for a brief period, an oddball family dynamic forms between these three men as Clooney and Pitt find themselves strangely protective of the ‘Kid’ and develop a begrudging respect for each other. Nowhere is this better illustrated either than their run-in with an old criminal associate from the Albanian mafia, seeing them quickly take control of the tense situation and act with perfect synchronicity to save both their necks.
Stealth, cunning, and a solid dose of charisma are clearly essential qualities for these fixers, and quite unusually for Jon Watts, Wolfs showcases a visual stylishness which matches their crafty street smarts. One might almost mistake this for a Steven Soderbergh thriller with lighting this atmospheric, spreading a clean ambience through luxurious hotel interiors and shedding dingy hues from neon signs in diners. The nightclub set piece is also a standout in this respect, flooding the dance floor and exterior with a red wash that screams danger while glass chandeliers dangle over the partying crowds. It is refreshing to see Watts flex his filmmaking talents beyond the restrictions of Marvel Studios here, and this extends to his execution of creative visual gags as well, often playing out with sharp comic timing in thoughtfully staged wide shots.
Though the storytelling eventually gets tangled in a convoluted web of conspiracies, the development of Clooney and Pitt’s relationship maintains a brisk momentum, even adopting a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid dynamic as the unlikely partners begin to realise that they can only rely on each other. Without resorting to derivative, sentimental shortcuts, Watts’ nod to the Western classic’s iconic ending thoughtfully pays homage to one of cinema’s greatest duos, similarly offering these lone wolves a shot at redemption through genuine camaraderie before they face the fire. Clooney and Pitt can easily command the screen alone, but together they become a magnetic force of undistilled charisma, rising above stubborn independent streaks and egos to appreciate the playfully invigorating nature of companionship.
For the first half hour of Letter Never Sent, the most pressing dramas that arises on our four adventurers’ journey into the wilderness are their romantic tensions and jealousies. Tanya’s affection for Andrei particularly irritates the insecure Sergei, resulting in a physical altercation that leaves Andrei picking himself up out of a swamp, and further complicating their already challenging quest for diamonds in the secluded mountains and forests of central Siberia.
Perhaps the only level-headed member of this party is their guide, Konstantin. Unlike the others, he is not a geologist, yet he has traversed this region many times before. It is clear from the letter he is writing to his wife that their juvenile antics are of little interest to him, and instead his heart and mind linger elsewhere.
“Remembered sitting in the hallway with you. I saw love and anxiety in your eyes. But again and again some overpowering voice keeps carrying me off. I’m even glad not to have sent this letter. Now during every stop near every campfire I’ll write to you about our itinerant life in the taiga.”
Each character is beautifully established in the opening scenes, as Kalatozov creates intimate arrangements from their faces.
Konstantin knows better than anyone how unpredictable the natural world can be, though even he isn’t prepared for the overwhelming turn of events which shrinks these emotions into minor trivialities. This rugged environment does not exist to profit humans, but is indifferent to their aspirations and suffering, tenderising vulnerable minds with its unfathomable, primordial chaos before swallowing them whole.
Where Mikhail Kalatozov once dedicated his handheld camerawork and canted angles to the soul-destroying grief of war in The Cranes Are Flying, here his aesthetic revels in a maddening struggle for survival, bowing down before ravaging elemental forces. We can feel every breath and shiver through his ultra wide-angle lens, pressing intimately against actors’ faces while stretching out daunting landscapes behind their weary expressions. His shift in location away from the urban centres of Russia only further demonstrates the versatility of his high-contrast photography as well, studying the evocative textures of rippling water, fresh fallen snow, and charred forests with equal parts wonder and terror.
Textured ripples in the water – a Tarkovsky trademark here that precedes his first film by two years.Low angles as well point up at overcast skies, forming these gorgeous, minimalist compositions.Griffith, Dreyer, Bergman – Kalatozov joins that list of directors who perfected and innovated the art of the close-up.
Even before these explorers begin dropping though, Kalatozov is already wearing away at their sanity, sinking his majestic orchestral score into a crashing, dissonant cacophony of strings, woodwinds, and percussion. “We are straining ourselves to wrench out the mystery from the bowels of the earth,” Konstantin continues to write in his letter, his voiceover playing beneath a frenetic montage of the party trekking across mountains and fruitlessly hacking at the earth, while the faint, double-exposed imprint of a fire rages over the top. The foreshadowing should not go unnoted here. As if sparked by this raging delirium, the forest itself catches alight shortly after, tragically dooming Sergei to perish beneath a fallen tree.
Foreshadowing in the double exposure effect of a raging fire.
“Nature has turned herself against us,” Konstantin’s voiceover poignantly reflects, though truthfully it was never on their side. Black smoke and haze rises into the air, and Kalatozov uncharacteristically uses a telephoto lens to cut out the survivors’ silhouettes against a grey sky, creating the impression of a two-dimensional image as they vainly call for help into a radio. The smog is far too thick for even a passing search helicopter to pick them out, and so they soon find themselves isolated once again, with nothing but their wits and stamina to outlast whatever the land should throw at them next.
A rare instance of Kalatozov using a telephoto lens, pressing his actors’ silhouettes against a dark, smoky sky to create a two-dimensional effect.
The cleansing rain that falls in the wake of this devastation helps to douse the remaining embers and quench the adventurers’ thirst, though it is little more than temporary relief as they trudge through the spindly, black trees of the forest’s ashy remains. Weakened to the point of total exhaustion, Andrei’s dazed expression floats by in close-up as he is carried on a makeshift gurney, and we too take his immediate point-of-view as he gazes up at the trees in a trance. Realising the burden that he is inflicting on his companions, he decides to disappear into the misty swamp one night and, much to Tanya’s horror, becomes the second to perish.
Letter Never Sent covers a huge range of natural environments, revealing central Siberia’s vast scope of danger.Kalatozov specifically styled these mounds for this shot – painstaking attention to detail, even when shooting in nature.
As the party’s numbers dwindle throughout Letter Never Sent, Kalatozov reveals a robust formal structure, not so concerned with narrative convention than his characters’ psychological disintegration. That each should meet their end in a totally different environment only further reveals the vast scope of the peril which encompasses them, particularly when winter falls and Tanya succumbs to the cold. As Konstantin carries her through the snow, Kalatozov recalls Andrei’s floating close-ups and point-of-view shots, though this time taking her perspective with a blurred lens that fades into a deep, empty darkness.
Horizontal close-ups and disorientated point-of-view shots formally connect these two devastatingdeaths.A lonely trudge through snowy wastelands, accompanied by a sparse quiver of strings.
By the time Konstantin is left as the party’s sole survivor, the score has settled into a sparse, lonely quiver of strings, accompanied by that constant voiceover. Unlike his companions, he was never motivated by the promise of riches – he has something far more valuable waiting for him back home, driving him to persevere against all odds.
“Vera! My darling Vera! My life doesn’t belong to me. I must deliver the map to people. I can’t die. I can’t. I must live. Too much has been lost. Too much has been found.”
Floating on a makeshift raft down an icy river, hallucinations of industrial ports, cranes, and boats entice Konstantin in haunting long dissolves, while a warm vision of Vera gently calls him back to the harsh reality he must face to survive. This is just as much a psychological struggle as it is a physical one, and only those who are prepared to fight both battles may live long enough to find salvation on the other end.
Breathtaking vistas in central Siberia as Konstantin floats down icy rapids. Hallucinations of industrial ports, cranes, and boats entice Konstantin in haunting long dissolves, evoking Murnau’s masterpiece Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans.This is as much a psychological struggle as it is a physical one, manifesting visions of Konstantin’s wife as he is on the verge of giving up.
For Konstantin, it takes reaching the brink of death for that lifeline to finally arrive, and the deep focus image of a rescue worker descending from a helicopter above his unconscious face in the foreground is all the sweeter for it. Suddenly, our weary explorer’s eyes flutter open, and Kalatozov ends his film the way it began. Flying through the air in a reverse tracking shot, all we can do is admire the terrible beauty of this desolate, untamed land, and the chilling insignificance of those who dare to challenge it.
Salvation arrives in this incredible shot, foregrounding Konstantin’s unconscious face while his rescuer descends from a helicopter in the background.Bookended helicopter tracking shots, flying out from the personal to the epic.
Letter Never Sent is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
The tension between middle-aged couple Alex and Katherine Joyce has been slowly eroding their patience throughout their vacation, so when they finally resolve to divorce on the final day, a forced, impromptu visit to Pompeii is the last thing they want. As we have witnessed during their wanderings in Journey to Italy, this land is simultaneously alive with geothermal activity and stagnant with the sombre air of history, and here at Mt Vesuvius’ dig site we see both collide in the discovery of two exhumed bodies – a man and a woman. “They have found death like this together,” the archaeologist reflects, and all at once Katherine is mournfully hit by the sorrowful impermanence of her own marriage.
What are we to do with the small amount of time we have been granted on Earth, Roberto Rossellini ponders in Journey to Italy, and how do we let that define our relationships? Turning away from the war-ravaged European cities that defined his previous films, the Italian neorealist shoots among the ancient ruins and villas of southern Italy, where the past is petrified in worn, ageing stonework. The visual metaphor here is strong, casting Alex and Katherine’s decaying marriage against crumbled walls and weathered pillars, while the bones of those who passed away millennia ago are preserved in an adoption program run at Fontanelle cemetery. Life is short, yet its remnants may survive the rise and fall of empires – so even after Katherine inevitably becomes dust one day, is her bitter contempt somehow destined to live forever?
A man and a woman exhumed from the ruins of Pompeii, their love immortalised in plaster.Rossellini uses the ancient, crumbling structures of Italian history to stand in for Alex and Katherine’s withered, destitute love.A heavy sense of mortality hangs over these characters’ journeys, morbidly represented in the cemeteries and catacombs that Katherine visits.
This trip from England to Naples makes for a powerful framing device in Journey to Italy, tearing this rocky marriage away from its routines, and forcing husband and wife to navigate unfamiliar territory together. The death of Uncle Homer has left his villa in their possession, and now as they venture far out of their comfort zone with the intent to sell it, Katherine’s sensitivity and Alex’s bluntness begin to amplify each other. “How can they believe in that? They’re like a bunch of children,” he disdainfully remarks upon encountering a religious street procession, to which she gives a simple, sentimental response.
“Children are happy.”
Majesty and authenticity in Italy’s architecture, setting this relationship breakdown against cultural and historical landmarks.
This trip is the first time they have been alone since they were married, Katherine reflects, though given the harsh visual divide Rossellini draws between them through the car windscreen, clearly their shared isolation also extends to them as individuals. From within the silence, insecurities emerge as savage barbs, and her popularity among the locals only inflames Alex’s jealousy. “It’s a long time since I’ve seen you in such a good mood,” he spitefully remarks, and soon enough they are at each other’s throats, fuelled by the ferocious strength of Rossellini and Vitaliano Brancati’s cynical screenplay.
Divisions in framing, slicing this beam in the car windscreen right down the middle of the argumentative couple.Conflict carries through into the blocking, here splitting Alex and Katherine between background and foreground, top and bottom of the frame.
Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders are magnificent in their natural rapport, revealing years of resentment in offhand reactions and pointed jabs, and sustaining their commanding screen presences even when they briefly go their separate ways. Uninterested in the museums and historical sites that Katherine wishes to explore, Alex seeks out the company of women on the island of Capri, starting with one beautiful local. A short walk by the rugged coastline seems to be the perfect romantic setting, but when she begins to speak of her absent husband and his return that evening, Alex’s interest fades. Perhaps then the prostitute he picks up off the street corner will fulfil his longing for companionship, yet her depression and open confession of suicidal thoughts only deepen his own malaise.
Alex seeks the company of other women, yet finds only disappointment, even when he approaches a street prostitute.Tremendous, introspective acting from Ingrid Bergman studying the faces of history with mystique and awe.
While Sanders’ performance coasts along waves of perpetual disappointment, Bergman is entranced by the mystique of Italy’s history and geography, her silent expressions reflecting a melancholy, existential awe. As a tour guide at the Naples Museum provides commentary on each exhibit, Rossellini’s camera glides across the marble faces of legendary figures, and later the Cave of Sibyl arches high over her path into the subterranean complex. “Temple of the spirit. No longer bodies, but pure, ascetic images,” her internal voiceover ponders as she wanders its rough-hewn tunnels, recalling the words of an old poet friend who passed away far too soon. Cinematographer Enzo Serafin’s gorgeous location shooting may offer her journey a raw authenticity, though this obsession with the mystical also lifts it into a spiritual realm, summoning memories of those whose spirits linger in the land of the living.
The Cave of Sibyl arches high over its visitors, transporting its visitors back in time – excellent architecture in location shooting.Even this simple conversation between spouses is set lower down in the shot, allowing for this volcano in the distance to rise up behind them – always the threat of eruption.
The parallels to Michelangelo Antonioni’s drifting, existential dramas are evident here, reflecting the forlorn lives of privileged characters through the architecture that surrounds them. Rossellini’s blocking too is an extension of that loneliness that constantly keeps Alex and Katherine at least an arm’s length away from each other, and which finally manifests their separation as they are physically pulled apart within a frenzied crowd. Suddenly feeling the reality of their impending divorce, Alex’s usually cold demeanour dissipates. Pushing through the current, he takes her in his arms and immediately denounces his callous behaviour.
“Catherine, what’s wrong with us? Why do we torture one another?”
Alex and Katherine’s separation manifests as she is carried away by the crowd, forcing them to face the reality of their impending divorce.
Their reconciliation is moving, if a little sudden, perhaps belonging more in a classical Hollywood melodrama than a naturalistic study of marriage and death. Even if their problems aren’t so easily resolved though, this acknowledgement of love’s endurance through adversity and estrangement is a touching final grasp at that which transcends life itself. Nowhere is its value more evident than here in the land of the dead, and as Rossellini’s reflections upon his own complicated relationship with Bergman so poignantly reveal, nowhere is one’s mortality felt more deeply than in the throes of nostalgic longing.
Rossellini’s camera lifts above the crowd as lovers reconcile – a slightly contrived Hollywood-style ending, but not a major point of contention.
Journey to Italy is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
Flora and Miles may only be children, but by the time Miss Giddens meets them in the opening of The Innocents, they have already suffered more than most their age. Besides being orphaned as infants, their uncle and legal guardian prefers to keep an emotional distance, letting hired help carry the heavy load of parenting instead. The recent deaths of his valet Peter Quint and their previous governess Mary Jessel have no doubt also left them traumatised, and so it is little wonder why Miss Giddens is so concerned for their welfare when she is hired as the latter’s replacement.
On top of all that, there seems to be another sinister influence taking hold of Bly Manor which is not so easy for her to pin down. The children’s behaviours are atypical, if not downright disturbed, especially with Flora being oddly drawn to the lake where Jessel supposedly drowned herself. Miles on the other hand acts strangely grownup for his age, unsettling Miss Giddens with inappropriately intimate gestures and hiding the dead body of one of his beloved pet pigeons beneath his pillow. Even more chilling though are the two ethereal figures flitting in and out of view, not only convincing Miss Giddens that Bly Manor is haunted by the spirits of Quint and Jessel, but that they are also possessing the children. These ghosts were lovers when they were alive, she learns from the housekeeper Mrs Grose, and now it seems that taking human vessels is the only way they can remain together.
Lacey bed curtains framing Miss Giddens and Flora, easing into the girl’s unsettling behaviours.Martin Stephens delivers an impressively creepy performance at the age of 11, his mannerisms suggesting an older, more sophisticated man living in his mind.Glimpses of spirits manifesting around the manor, convincing Miss Giddens of ethereal forces possessing the children.
Still, the doubt which Jack Clayton infuses in this supernatural mystery is hard to shake, especially given that much of it surrounds Miss Giddens herself. Beyond Deborah Kerr’s nervous infatuation when she meets the children’s uncle in the opening scene, she also carries a general uneasiness around any hint of carnal desire, hinting at a sexual repression stemming from her own conservative youth. If she is to preserve Flora and Miles’ innocence, then she must first release them from the spirits which seek to corrupt it, exposing their true nature once and for all.
Hints of sexual repression in this initial meeting between Miss Giddens and the children’s uncle, subtly expressed in Deborah Kerr’s delicate performance.Remarkable blocking and framing made possible by the deep focus lens, set design, and camera angle, looming the two creepy children over Miss Giddens further down the stairway.
That Kerr also plays Miss Giddens with such warmth and sensitivity though only obscures our judgement of her weaknesses. She does not project the image of some deluded, Victorian relic, but rather a woman whose maternal instincts grant her empathetic insight into the lives of children and the dangers of their environment. From the moment she enters Bly Manor, she is at odds with its menacing atmosphere, blinded by the light in its picturesque gardens and absorbed into the darkness of its Gothic hallways. The sets that Clayton constructs here are remarkably detailed, filling out backgrounds with paintings, statues, and patterned wallpaper, and elsewhere framing characters within gaping archways.
A marvellous feat of Gothic production design, filling the frame with Victorian clutter that divides the characters.An incredible array of set pieces all throughout the manor, one standout being the statue garden that surrounds characters with grotesque, stone figures.Picturesque flowers gardens and beautifully reflective ponds, offering up these eerie compositions even in broad daylight.The gazebo becomes another prime location for the spirits to visit, and Clayton puts its pillars to excellent use in this framing.
Just as astounding though is also his rendering of this space through delicately subjective camerawork, quietly revealing its grim, ominous nature. Despite making excellent use of the CinemaScope format, Clayton’s cinematographer Freddie Francis chose to selectively hand-paint the edge of his lenses, slightly narrowing the wide frame and creating a claustrophobic vignette effect. The impact is understated but powerful, suggesting a pervasive darkness that closes in on Miss Giddens’ very presence. The clarity that Clayton offers us in his deep focus photography of two shots is also deceptive in its apparent objectivity, in one composition positioning her nervous expression behind Flora who curiously studies a spider devouring a butterfly. Alternately, her anxious expressions are frequently foregrounded in intimate close-ups, subtly warping her face through wide-angle lenses.
Freddie Francis hand-painted the edge of his lenses to create a vignette effect, letting the darkness creep in.Exceptional use of deep focus lenses worthy of comparison to Orson Welles or William Wyler, particular in these two shots which separate Kerr from her fellow actors.
These are piercing images worthy of comparison to Orson Welles or William Wyler, and with Clayton’s surreal long dissolves, candle-lit interiors, and creeping camera movements in the mix as well, The Innocents effectively develops its own unsettling visual character. By the time Jessel and Quint fully reveal themselves to Miss Giddens, the psychological horror has already set in – though how much of this is merely the disintegration of a tortured mind remains agonisingly ambiguous. The governess is ready to save the children no matter the cost, and so after sending Flora to her uncle’s place in London with Mrs Grose, she is finally ready to directly address these ghostly disturbances with Miles one-on-one.
Long dissolves slip us between scenes and into Miss Giddens’ haunted dreams.Dark corridors lit only by the blazing candlelight from Miss Giddens’ candelabra as she moves with the creeping camera.
As the orphaned boy wanders through the greenhouse to the sound of trickling water and chirping crickets, Miss Giddens pursues him with an intensive line of questioning. “Sometimes I heard things,” he nervously confesses. “And when did you first see and hear of such things?” she pushes, only to be met with an unsatisfying reversal.
“Why, I made them up.”
Their faces grow clammy with sweat through this interrogation, and the glass panes of the greenhouse gradually fog up – though not enough to obscure the manifestation of Quint’s creepy, malicious grin pressing in from the outside. As if possessed by his wickedness, Miles launches into a brutally honest outburst, and drastically shifts away from his typically cool, sophisticated demeanour.
“You don’t fool me. I know why you keep on and on. It’s because you’re afraid, you’re afraid you might be mad. So you keep on and on. Trying to make me admit something that isn’t true. Trying to frighten me the way you frighten Flora. But I’m not Flora, I’m no baby. You think you can run to my uncle with a lot of lies. But he won’t believe you, not when I tell him what you are. A damned hussy! A damned dirty minded hag! You never fooled us. We always knew.”
Perspiration forms on Kerr’s face in the greenhouse as Miles’ vitriol spills forth.Deeply terrifying imagery – Quint’s grinning face slowly comes into view over Miles’ shoulder, obscured only by the fogged up greenhouse windows.
Miles and Quint maliciously cackle in unison at the terror on Miss Giddens’ face, and even after the young boy has seemingly managed to regain his senses, the malevolent spirit does not let go so easily. Gazing down from a high angle in the statue garden, Clayton’s camera suddenly adopts a new perspective for the first time in The Innocents – that of Quint himself, his hand raised in the foreground as if casting a spell over Miles. We might almost assume this to be confirmation of Miss Giddens’ supernatural suspicions were it not for Clayton’s reiteration of this same shot a few seconds later, revealing little more than a stone statue where Quint once stood. From this dizzying height, we helplessly watch as Miles falls to the ground dead, though who or what is truly responsible for his demise remains woefully unclear.
Clayton plays a trick of perspective here as he divorces us from Miss Giddens’ point-of-view, first taking this high angle as we look over the ghost’s shoulder……and then cutting back to the exact same angle two shots later, only to find a statue in its place.Sexual repression bursting forth, or the ghost passing into her? Miss Giddens’ kiss on Miles’ dead lips remains an unsettling enigma.
Has Miss Giddens been justified in her concern, trying to save these children from unholy evils? Are these merely ghosts of past traumas, manifesting as paranoid delusions? Does the kiss she plants on Miles’ cold lips come from her, or one of the spirits entering her body? Clayton offers few answers as this governess clasps her hands together in prayer, mirroring the image from the opening credits and sinking her into an unforgiving darkness. In their place, The Innocents simply haunts us with a stifled, neurotic madness, blurring the lines between sinful corruption and the efforts of those who obsessively seek to conquer it.
The final shot echoing the first, encompassing Miss Giddens in darkness as she helplessly prays.
The Innocents is not currently streaming in Australia.
Though promised as a prosperous homestead for westward-bound families, the Arizonan frontier town Horizon is marked with bloodshed from the moment its foundations are outlined. Even after its surveyors are brutally massacred by an Apache war band asserting their territory, colonisers continue to flock to the flourishing settlement, ignoring the danger which skirts its borders. It shouldn’t come as a shock then that four years after its establishment, the same tribe should launch a devastating assault, burning the settlement to the ground and slaughtering its residents. From this horrific violence, Kevin Costner spins out several narrative threads among Horizon’s survivors – but at such an early point in his epic saga, even this major incident cannot account for every subplot that wanders through the film.
Maybe this is to be expected though from a film which announces itself as the first chapter of a four-part series, each instalment of which is expected to be roughly 3 hours long. The Lord of the Rings series seems to be a fair comparison in terms of story structure, though where The Fellowship of the Ring brought a sense of closure to its lengthy narrative setup, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is not so robustly constructed. Costner is playing the long game here, promising to eventually intersect subplots that for now dangle without any destination in sight, and steadily working through each at a patient pace.
As such, the fact that Horizon faltered at the box office and failed to make up its extravagant budget is no real surprise. The genre subversions that we typically find in contemporary Westerns like Django Unchained or The Revenant are nowhere to be found here, and the extraordinary run time has undoubtedly turned away many who weren’t already put off by its Chapter 1 subtitle. Perhaps if Horizon was released in the era of Dances with Wolves, it would have found a more receptive audience, though it is also clear that Costner’s adoration of John Ford roots his narrative even deeper in Hollywood history.
The stories which emerge from the Apaches’ raid on Horizon draw the strongest parallels to Ford’s films here, seeing the widowed Frances Kittredge and her daughter Elizabeth survive the massacre by hiding underground, and eventually find refuge at Camp Gallant with a detachment of the United States Army. Despite some initial tension around non-interventionist beliefs, romance begins to bloom between Frances and First Lieutenant Gephardt, while Elizabeth warms to the younger outposted soldiers. With their dark blue uniforms pressed against Utah’s red rock landscapes, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon asserts itself as the primary influence on this storyline, as Costner delicately considers the complicated relationship between love and duty.
Also carried over from Ford’s 1949 film are the moral divisions that emerge within Native American tribes, yet which are considered with far more nuance in Horizon. Where the older generation promotes co-existence with the settlers, emerging leader Pionsenay seeks to drive them from their territory, fearing that his people will soon be displaced. Anticipating reprisal from the elders, he and his war band that attacked Horizon strike out on their own, clouding their idealism with visions of war and retribution.
Meanwhile on the other side of this struggle, the vengeance which orphaned survivor Russell seeks against the Apaches effectively models him after virulently racist gunslinger Ethan Edwards from The Searchers. With his parents dead, the closest Russell has to mentors are the two hunters he has teamed up with, both driven by a hateful bloodlust that risks sending the young boy down a similar path. When they fail to successfully track the raiders who destroyed Horizon, the nonchalance with which they resolve to simply ambush whatever other Native American village they come across is chilling. The question of Russell’s own moral conscience hangs heavy over his scenes, setting up a compelling character arc that will likely resonate through future sequels.
The dusty plains of the Old West are clearly ripe for mythologising, and Costner continues to use its gorgeous vistas in a disconnected subplot concerning a wagon train set for Horizon, although its late entry into the film leaves it severely underdeveloped. Instead, it is our complete departure from the badlands altogether which ushers in a far stronger storyline, trekking across the snowy alpine terrains of Montana and the vibrant autumnal forests of Wyoming. After shooting her abusive partner, escaping with her baby Sam, and adopting a new name, Lucy inadvertently attracts the psychotic Sykes Brothers to the peaceful town she has set up a new life in. It seems inevitable that the burgeoning relationship between her roommate Marigold and horse trader Hayes should get tangled up in this looming danger as well, eventually forcing the couple to take Sam and flee town.
Casting himself in the role of Hayes, Costner does not necessarily stand out within this enormous ensemble, yet he still channels the passion he has for the project at large into this lonely, vulnerable gunslinger. Together with Marigold and Sam, the three become a makeshift family who discover a rare sort of love, and whose paths begin to verge on Horizon towards the end when a promotional leaflet winds up in their hands.
The plot movements are slow, and the scope is so vast we may doubt whether they payoff will be worth it, but from Chapter 1’s foundations it seems unlikely that Costner is navigating this story without a grand vision. His use of natural light and helicopter shots offer plenty for us to visually feast on while the pieces gradually fall into place, as does his impressive array of rural locations, defining his historical legend not by a single town, but by America as a whole. With all these elements considered together, Horizon announces itself as a project of ambition so majestically bloated that it threatens to dilute its own focus, yet which still etches out the beginnings of a sprawling, mythological saga refusing to be defined by a single perspective.
Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is currently streaming on Stan, and is available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video.
We are barely ten minutes into Alien: Romulus when orphaned miner Rain learns the first Alien film’s key lesson – labourers owe nothing to corporations that treat them as expendables. The five years that she has been contracted for have come to an end, but the sheer number of people who have perished under Weyland-Yutani quickly douses her dreams of leaving for the distant, utopian planet of Yvaga III. With the company short staffed, her contract is renewed, and she is not to be released from servitude for another five years.
Next to the xenomorphs, the corporation has always been the biggest threat of this sci-fi series, and Fede Álvarez continues to blur those lines between humanity and monster here in Alien: Romulus. To the untouchable bureaucracy, this extraterrestrial species is not to be left to its own devices, but exploited for biological warfare – or as is the case here, genetic engineering. Evolution’s natural processes are far too slow for Weyland-Yutani’s grand ambitions after all, and the key to designing the ideal human for space exploration seems to lie in the aliens’ resilient DNA. That the space station Renaissance which once hosted these dangerous experiments also contains the cryostasis equipment Rain needs to reach Yvaga III doesn’t just bring her into conflict with a primal, destructive force of nature. This deep into space, her corporate superiors continue to exert their ruthless will upon seemingly insignificant lives, remaining both oblivious and apathetic to the incredible threat it is reckoning with.
The crew of runaways joining Rain on this mission range from cannon fodder to deeply sympathetic allies, leaving the bond formed between our protagonist and her adopted synthetic brother Andy as the only relationship worth our attention. Cailee Spaeny’s star continues to rise in the wake of Priscilla and Civil War, displaying an intelligent pragmatism while carrying a deep grief for her late father whose legacy lives on in Andy’s programmed dad jokes. As the humanistic android, David Jonsson stands out even more with his furrowed brow and steadfast warmth, though it is when he accepts a Weyland-Yutani computer chip to improve his physical capabilities that he strikingly manoeuvres his focus into a cold, corporate expediency.
The setting from which the film takes its name also mirrors this sibling conflict, stranding Rain and her ragtag crew in the twin modules which make up Renaissance – Romulus and Remus. Continuing the franchise’s trend of referencing Greco-Roman mythology, Álvarez alludes to the two brothers who were raised by wolves and established Rome, before Romulus ultimately killed Remus over the city’s foundations. This is the allegory which underlies Weyland-Yutani’s vision for the future, comparing the xenomorph’s extract to the she-wolf milk which strengthened and nurtured the infant brothers into pioneers of civilisation. On a far more chilling level, it is also this transgression of nature which binds both species together as one, producing an atrocity which manifests the corporation’s monstrous rejection of its own humanity.
Álvarez certainly does not waste his opportunity to play in the realm of body horror here either, crafting the thrills and grotesqueries which the Alien series has always specialised in. The fleshy cavity of one xenomorph’s cocoon drips viscous fluids, suggesting more than just a distant correlation to human genitalia, and Romulus delivers one of its most creatively suspenseful set pieces when combining the creature’s acid blood with a temperamental, zero-gravity environment. The industrial futurist production design makes for a solid visual accomplishment here too, beautifully illuminated with pulsating light sources that pass characters through blazing orange hues and gloomy shadows.
That Romulus occasionally gets caught up in its own nostalgic references to previous Alien films is a disappointing symptom of modern franchises at large, though it is thankfully not a dealbreaker here. The care and imagination which Álvarez brings to the sci-fi source material lets his film stand on its own, offering a mythological slant to this universe which embellishes and warps millennia-old archetypes. There in the unnatural distortion of our social and biological identities, Romulus disturbingly probes into our human drive for greatness, as well as the inhumanity which threatens to cannibalise us in the process.
Alien: Romulus is currently available to purchase on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video.
Even before Blow-Up, Michelangelo Antonioni was already demonstrating the powerful tool of perception that is a photographer’s eye, angling his camera at the oppressive structures of modern civilisation. By placing one such artist at the centre of a psychological mystery though, the question is raised as to whether this intensive scrutiny may also give birth to fabrications, imposing form and purpose on an existence ungoverned by cosmic harmony. This is not necessarily an inherent human weakness – our storytelling sets us apart from less developed lifeforms after all – but to mistake a collection of unrelated artefacts for reality will only ever lead to further distortions, revealing more about the mind of the observer than the observed.
When fashion photographer Thomas begins developing the film stock of an impromptu shoot in a local park, we too find ourselves swept away by the tantalising prospect of conspiracy. Laying his celluloid strips over a light table, he passes a magnifying glass across them frame by frame, before projecting negatives onto photographic paper and submerging the undeveloped prints in a chemical bath. This is a process to be undertaken alone, methodically dedicating one’s utmost attention to each step, and yet it is only after he has meditated on these photos for some period of time that something catches his eye.
Thomas approaches his art with methodical purpose, and Antonioni uses this sequence to similarly raise our own suspicions without a single line of dialogue.
In the first photograph, the female subject, Jane, is leading her partner by the hand. In the second, they are holding each other in a tight embrace. When it is enlarged though, he can see her eyeline directed elsewhere. He sections off the small section of bush where he believes she is looking, and then blows that up as well into an abstract array of black and white smudges that still don’t make much sense. Nevertheless, the more he pieces together fragments of his photos, the more previously hidden details begin to emerge – until he unveils the face of a third party hiding in the shadows, and a pistol pointing directly at the male subject.
Flitting between two black-and-white images until we, like Thomas, begin to impose our own contrived ideas onto them.Thomas literally caught between the two blown-up photos, both becoming the object of his obsession.Antonioni plays with the pareidolia effect – the tendency to see patterns in random stimuli, and piece together meaningful conclusions. Of course here, it is the static array of black and white smudges which tangibly form evidence of a murder.
Antonioni’s construction of this sequence is tightly measured, alternating between the photos, close-ups of Thomas’s sweaty face, and wide shots of his frantic pacing through the studio. That last photo may have saved the man’s life, he decides, seeing as it coincided with the exact moment Jane realised they were being watched. No doubt her persistence in later charming him into handing over the negatives is only further proof of her guilt, he believes, though perhaps her erratic behaviour is conversely what put the idea in his mind to begin with. Either way, such fervent curiosity is hard to stop once it is set in motion, setting Thomas down a path of obsessive investigation.
Blow-Up is Antonioni’s second film shot in colour, and he immediately flexes an impressive control over its stylish potential.
It is no great surprise that Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window should play such a crucial role in Antonioni’s direction of Blow-Up, which itself would inspire more paranoid thrillers in years to come such as The Conversation and Blow Out. Even beyond the compelling mystery narrative, Antonioni is using his camera to manipulate our point-of-view, voyeuristically peering through frame obstructions at the subjects of our focus. The use of a deep focus lens also takes notes from Hitchcock’s classic masterpieces, staging Jane in the distance of one shot that also eyes off Thomas’ sought-after camera in the foreground, thus drawing great suspense from her concerted attempt to steal back whatever secrets it contains.
Hitchcock would often use deep focus like this to create tension, though here Antonioni is also impressively creating a split screen effect with his meticulous framing.
Even with these influences in play though, Antonioni’s established style of incredible architectural designs remains dominant, melding perfectly with his depiction of the Swinging Sixties as an era of vibrant self-expression and profound existentialism. Thomas’ studio is a handsomely chaotic mess of colours and textures, the centrepiece of which is a long stand of vibrant ostrich feathers running from the floor to the ceiling, and outside his location shooting continues to find a geometric synchronicity in London’s natural and manufactured aesthetics. Patterns reveal themselves in the repetition of objects, organically framing Thomas through a symmetrical line of trees and segmenting a backdrop of city streets with Venetian blinds, while negative spaces ease the weight that these shapes impose upon the mise-en-scène.
Thomas’ studio is a handsomely chaotic mess of colours and textures, the centrepiece of which is a long stand of vibrant ostrich feathers running from the floor to the ceiling.Antonioni reveals his photographer’s eye in his immaculate framing and location shooting, using these evenly spaced trees to design this shot.Venetian blinds segment a backdrop of London’s streets – geometric synchronicity in manufactured aesthetics.
Architecture is of course not all about physical buildings for Antonioni, but rather extends to the composition of bodies, ornaments, vehicles, and vegetation in any given shot, taking on the quality of a still life artwork in their representation of something larger – a social critique for instance, or a subtle paranoia. Especially when actors are partially concealed by their environments, we often find ourselves leaning forward and filling in the missing information, consequently adopting the perspective that drives Thomas forward in his quest for a greater understanding of an uncertain world.
Posing bodies in the frame like models, turning them into part of the mise-en-scène.Obstructions force us to fill in the missing visual information.Thomas’ reality warps as his obsession grows, trapping him in these magnificently designed shots within his own studio.
This is what it means to adopt the eye of a photographer, Antonioni posits – recognising that what remains unseen is just as significant as that which is visible. When interpreting a piece of art, one must essentially become a detective to unearth tangible proof of one’s hypothesis, though which comes first makes all the difference. It is difficult to dispute Thomas’ discovery of the body at the crime scene for instance, now convincing him that the murder was successful, just as the trashing of his studio by an unknown perpetrator suggests he is getting too close to the truth. Nevertheless, when evidence seems to evaporate into thin air, Thomas’ reality seems to collapse into paradox.
Such is life in the British counterculture of the 60s though, bleeding with metaphysical contradictions. While Thomas indulges in the sexual liberty and consumerism of the fashion industry, so too does he engage with more socially conscious pursuits on the side, photographing the homeless people of London for a book project. Subscribing to both escapism and performative activism is all one can do to avoid confronting the dread of Cold War-era politics, and even when seeds of existential doubt do begin to sprout, parsing truth from deception remains extraordinarily difficult.
The Swinging Sixties bleed into Antonioni’s pop aesthetics, indulging in the sexual liberty and consumerism of the fashion industry.Thomas’ attempts reach a more authentic truth by way of addressing social issues only results in more artifice.
As such, this artist suddenly finds himself unable to trust his own eyes and ears. Is that the sound of someone stepping on a twig at the park, or is his paranoid mind playing tricks? Does the unexpected absence of a dead body suggest that he was only imagining it the first time around? With the negatives finally being stolen, the prospect of reassessing evidence to arrive at some definitive conclusion is ruled out as well.
Perhaps there really is a grand conspiracy manipulating Thomas’ perception of the world, or maybe he has just convinced himself of one. There is no doubt that there is at least some sort of illusion at play, though this knowledge doesn’t help in exposing it, as Antonioni demonstrates in his confounding final scene. Lost for answers, Thomas finds himself wandering by a tennis court where a troupe of mimes silently act out a game, and soon overcomes his confusion to participate in the imaginary act. We are not exemption from this mirage either, following the invisible ball’s arc through the air and even hearing it hit the make-believe racquets.
A reality-defying finale as Thomas reaches the tennis game performed by mimes, eventually engaging in their imaginary act – the metaphoric implications upon the rest of his story are sweeping.
The effect is disorientating, and yet to accept a collective fantasy is to find one’s home in a false reality, fading tangible truths into non-existence. That this should also be Thomas’ fate in a narrative that already keeps us at arm’s length from decisive answers is perfectly enigmatic, undermining whatever confidence we have left in identifying where Blow-Up’s slyly crafted illusion starts and ends. If nothing on its surface is a true representation of itself, then there may ultimately be very little keeping us too from becoming distortions in the eyes of others, spuriously skewing our very identities to the point of uncanny, elusive abstraction.
Thomas too becomes little more than a distortion in the eye of the observer, eroding his very identity in the confounding final shot.
Blow-Up is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video.
Impoverished ingénue Letty is absolutely convinced that the Texan wasteland where she tries to plant her roots in The Wind is haunted, though not by any malevolent poltergeist or demon. High up in the sky, she envisions a ghostly white horse galloping among the clouds, stirring a gale which tears at the foundations of ranches down below. This invisible force of elemental chaos possesses no alliance to any greater good or evil, but exists of its natural accord. It is to be marvelled at, feared, and for those who are particularly susceptible to its maddening influence, hopelessly succumbed to in total resignation.
It is through this eerie visual motif that what would otherwise be a straightforward melodrama takes on dark psychological dimensions in The Wind, delivering a metaphor of profound, existential instability. Especially for a woman like Letty whose life is so consumed by turmoil, this restless tempest is a constant companion, blowing around debris just as she herself is helplessly tossed between homes and men. What she initially hopes will be a chance for a new life in Sweetwater offers little in the way of security, especially when she begins to realise how vulnerable she is at the hands of the local bachelors – not all of whom have honourable intentions.
California’s Mojave Desert stands in for the Texan badlands, showcasing some superb location shooting in Hollywood’s earliest days.The winds take the form of a great white horse in the sky, galloping across clouds with ceaseless momentum.
It is an uncertain, ever-changing world that she inhabits, and as an early pioneer of location shooting, Victor Sjöström is powerfully in tune with capturing its raw elements. California’s Mojave Desert effectively stands in for the Texan wilderness, and airplane propellors are cleverly situated just out of shot to simulate the titular winds, buffeting the actors’ hair and clothes. When an advancing cyclone turns a carefree party into an accelerating stampede to safety, even his blocking adopts that perpetual, unidirectional momentum. Standing amid the rush, Letty fearfully clings to her most persistent suitor Wirt, before being whisked away into an underground bunker with the other patrons. Clearly if she is to find any sort of stability, then she must hitch herself to a man, regardless of whether she finds the available options particularly appealing.
Gish literally surrounded by suitors in this framing, pressing in from every side.A rush of bodies flying past Letty, manifesting the winds in Sjöström’s blocking.
As D.W. Griffith’s muse, Lillian Gish was certainly no stranger to playing naïve, innocent women, though Sjöström makes even better use of her talents here to corrupt Hollywood’s paragon of virtue. Even when she is safe inside, her troubled gaze is constantly drawn to windows where views of the heavy gale slowly erode her sanity, and bitterness makes a home in her heart as she perseveres through a reluctant marriage to Sweetwater local Lige Hightower. Her adamant fury when he forces a kiss is strengthened by its contrast to her usually passive demeanour, and opens the door to a deeper mistrust of those men she once believed were meant to be protectors of women.
A landmark of acting in silent cinema, twisting and corrupting the paragon of virtue which Gish so frequently represents.Our gaze is frequently drawn to window frames of the exterior view, establishing a thin barrier between safety and madness.
Wirt’s willingness to pursue her even after she marries Lige sets him apart as the worst of the bunch. She has already rejected him upon learning that he simply wants to make her his mistress, yet still he continues his advances, driving Letty mad with panicked terror. When he is brought to her place to recover from an injury one day, she can’t help but picture his leering eyes and creepy smile as he sleeps, rendered disconcertingly in a double exposure effect. With men like this hanging around, little can soothe her anxiety, which Sjöström soon builds to a fever pitch as the fabled North Wind plagues her home with howling, frenzied chaos.
A haunting double exposure effect layers Lige on top of himself, leering disconcertingly at the camera.
Gish too seems possessed by this invisible force, her eyes stretching wide with terror and drooping into a hypnotic trance as she rhythmically sways with the hanging lanterns and camera. Kitchen bowls rock on shelves as if enchanted by spirits, and soon even the glass windows give in to the piercing wind, knocking over an oil lamp and setting a blanket on fire. In the sky above, that great white horse continues to whip up violent flurries, but a pounding at the door heralds an even greater peril – an opportunistic Wirt, taking advantage of Letty’s vulnerability to force himself on her.
Remarkable montage editing as the wind enters the house, knocks over an oil lamp, and drives Letty mad.
The relative serenity of the following morning does not bring an end to Gish’s madness. She is deeply traumatised, and as she sits stiffly in a kitchen chair, the camera’s forward tracking shot directs our gaze towards the object of her attention – a pistol, lying atop a pile of debris. She seems prepared to defend herself, though later when she finally fires it into Wirt’s stomach, she can barely comprehend her own actions. Even after burying him, all she can do is watch in terror as the wind gradually re-exposes his body, convincing her that the pair of hands forcing open the front door belong to his vengeful spirit.
A steady camera movement inching forward from behind Gish and towards the pistol lying on the table.Madness builds to another peak after Letty’s murder of Lige, the wind revealing his buried body.
That it is Lige who enters cabin instead comes as a great relief to Letty, though even more reassuring are his words of comfort. “Wind’s mighty odd – if you kill a man in justice – it allers covers him up!” he proclaims, pointing out the weather’s mysterious concealment of her murder. Contrary to the rest of Sweetwater’s foreboding mythologising, this is the first suggestion that there might be some semblance of moral order in an otherwise lawless cosmos. Even more importantly, it is also the first demonstration of Lige’s selfless, forgiving love. With a steadfast certainty like this, all other doubts and insecurities fall away, and not even the winds hold the same psychological influence anymore as Letty and Lige bask in the draught of the open doorway. Worldly elements may ravage material constructs in The Wind, yet there is still peace to be found in Sjöström’s allegory of life’s erratic movements, delicately revealed in our ability to face its ravaging, mercurial turbulence.
Finally embracing the elements and life’s uncertainty without fear, captured in this gorgeous frame.
