Murnau, Borzage and Fox

[Tommaso]

Was there a report on amazon or somewhere that says this is a common occurrence with everybody's 7th Heaven disc? Is everyone else having this same problem?

Well, the people at amazon reported that they couldn't play the disc at all! They also mentioned the buzzing noise.

I don't think it's the glue (there's simply nothing unusual visually with the disc), but you might be on the right track with the uneven weight. Which again causes me to ask why they didn't do a normal DVD-9 for "7th Heaven" and "The River" both on one side if they can't get the double-sided ones right?

Anyway, I put the disc into the computer (far quieter, but still quite audible buzz), and seeing that "Heaven" was single-layered, I decided to make a copy. I will play that one from now on, if only to get rid of that NOISE. And considering what the original may or may not do to the player, the term 'safety copy' gets a whole new meaning...

[Ishmael]

Does anyone have a 7th Heaven disc that does NOT make this noise?

The one I rented from Netflix played fine, and it was definitely one from this set.

[Mark Metcalf]

My box came in the mail, and all disks were fine.

[gordonovitch]

does anyone have a 7th Heaven disc that does NOT make this noise?

No noises from my 7th Heaven disc except the unending reprises of "Diane" on the Movietone soundtrack, culminating in the fat lady singing it at the denouement, a rather special moment, to say the least that's compromised by the dowdy vocal; the vocal on the Street Angel soundtrack is just as dreadful--I should know the name of that tune, but I don't, and it nearly spoils a really wonderful moment in the film, when Farrell takes Gaynor away with him in the boat. It's appropriate for Fox to include these tracks--this is how people experienced the film after all--but in the case of these two Borzage films, they're real liabilities, to my ears, anyhow. The newly composed scores for City Girl and Lucky Star are not as good as they could be, but personally I find them less distracting than the Movietone scores--except, well, the one for Sunrise, which works pretty well.

Speaking of Sunrise--and excuse me if this already been brought up in this thread--the European version not only has missing frames in the trolley ride sequence, it cuts it in half! Gone are the sights through the trolley windows of the gradual advance into the city. Instead, O'Brien pays the fare and, boom, we're in the city square. This is well under a minute's loss of film, but it's some of the most magical in the film.

Gordon Thomas

[HerrSchreck]

It's appropriate for Fox to include these tracks--this is how people experienced the film after all--but in the case of these two Borzage films, they're real liabilities, to my ears, anyhow. The newly composed scores for City Girl and Lucky Star are not as good as they could be, but personally I find them less distracting than the Movietone scores--except, well, the one for Sunrise, which works pretty well.

Well there's a point of view. I rather think the Movietone soundtracks work perfectly for these films, which are extraordinary because of the direction and the nature of the visuals. (Okay maybe the fucking whistling in Street Angel prompts a pop of bicarbonate.) The stories themselves-- the substance of the text, which the music aims to correspond to and bring out (the way live music was used on the set to get actors in the "mood") for the viewer in lieu of dialogue-- correspond in spirit rather precisely to the music. Borzage's run from 7th H to Lucky Star-- I daresay if anyone else handled these scripts you'd have insufferably glucose goo.

[gordonovitch]

Well there's a point of view. I rather think the Movietone soundtracks work perfectly for these films, which are extraordinary because of the direction and the nature of the visuals. (Okay maybe the fucking whistling in Street Angel prompts a pop of bicarbonate.) The stories themselves-- the substance of the text, which the music aims to correspond to and bring out (the way live music was used on the set to get actors in the "mood") for the viewer in lieu of dialogue-- correspond in spirit rather precisely to the music. Borzage's run from 7th H to Lucky Star-- I daresay if anyone else handled these scripts you'd have insufferably glucose goo.

I'll cede your points, HerrSchreck. My main criticism is with the vocals, which I think are mood-busters. I love opera, but do we really need an ersatz Schuman-Heink (Christ, maybe it is her) warbling at that fabulous moment? Otherwise, I agree the tracks work well for the material, and for their age they don't sound bad at all on these discs. I didn't mention the whistling in Street Angel, but that is a tough business indeed, reminding me of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in what, Indian Love Call?

One of the problems of silent films is that the music must be wall to wall, and when the film is as good as a Borzage or a Murnau the music simply isn't as sophisticated as the visual content. It's best that the score keeps a low profile, and having it burst into blowzy song is I think a misstep on the part of the composer/arranger. Sunrise, again, is a case where I think this kind of underscoring works really well; it kind of stays back there for a lot of the time. It seems in 7th Heaven they maybe wanted to sell that song a little too hard--looking to push sheet music sales perhaps?

Gordon

[Max von Mayerling]

Just tested my 7th Heaven disc & no creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

[edit - see my follow up post below.]

[fdm]

Just tested my 7th Heaven disc & no creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

Well, that's a pisser. The scratched up one from the box I returned, no mouses stirred either - on my main player. (Watched the whole thing, both sides even. That and both sides of Sunrise before I got around to sending that box back.)

The replacement box's 7th Heaven is awful though (buzz-saw/motorboat like noise when the disk is spinning). In that same player. Seemed to get stuck at the "best elements available" part and that was that. On the computer, same noise, went away once started playing it though. On my region-free player, no stirring at all. Which is about right with respect to behavior noted on a couple of other DVDs I've had that were really bad like that. [I just "skimmed" though, so mileage may vary if I'd actually played them through.]

A question of balance. I think it's a crappy glue job. Crappy manufacturing job. [All of those Ford box and this box's double-sided disks just look really badly done (look at the glue in the clear spindle area, they all seemed to be like that (partly glued, partly not); don't recall seeing any like these elsewhere (kevyip excepted.)]

Thanks for the head's up, would probably have taken a while to get back to that film again otherwise. Guess I need to check the rest to be sure. (In the meantime it seems to be backed-up, so my send-it-back urge has subsided somewhat.) What a fucking mess. Maybe Fox can be bothered to do something about them?

[Got to check out those recent amazon complaints...]

[Tommaso]

Well there's a point of view. I rather think the Movietone soundtracks work perfectly for these films, which are extraordinary because of the direction and the nature of the visuals. (Okay maybe the fucking whistling in Street Angel prompts a pop of bicarbonate.) The stories themselves-- the substance of the text, which the music aims to correspond to and bring out (the way live music was used on the set to get actors in the "mood") for the viewer in lieu of dialogue-- correspond in spirit rather precisely to the music. Borzage's run from 7th H to Lucky Star-- I daresay if anyone else handled these scripts you'd have insufferably glucose goo.

I must say I'm more with Gordonovitch in the case of "7th Heaven". I didn't even have much of a problem with the vocals, though they sounded pretty horrendous, but that recurring 'Diane' theme, good as it is, began to drive me nuts after its twentieth reappearance. The problem is that the film already walks on a very, very thin line between romanticism/poetry and utter melodrama of the not-so-great kind, and I'm afraid, with the music constantly pushing the heart pedals the film was in danger of becoming a tear-jerker of the worst kind. Even the comedy parts with the taxi-driver were pushed by the music into an over-dramatic direction. But I quite liked the way the 'Diane' theme is intercut/collaged with the war music at one point, a nice and quite well-working effect.

It was quite interesting to see the same visuals afterwards with the audiocommentary on (quite good, btw): what seemed to be rather over-wrought with the music was revealed to be quite subtle and just 'right' with the music in the background and the two guys rambling on over it. So I'm all for the Movietone score being included on the disc, not only for historical reasons, but I wished that Fox would have provided a new score as an alternative option.

However, even with a new musical score, I'm not sure whether all of the film would have worked for me. At least some moments, obviously those 'CHICO-DIANE-HEAVEN!!' intertitles (especially in their later reappearance) are so over-the top that I constantly imagined the audience at that time: women of all ages making whining noises and desperately searching for their handkerchiefs in a way that would only be rivalled by "Gone with the wind" a few years later. Not to speak of the ending; as you know, I'm easily touched by sentimental things and am quite good at providing huge amounts of suspension of disbelief if required (I'm totally with Schreck in his description of how "Sunrise" works for him), but this was simply TOO MUCH for me. I felt like I had been forced to eat five huge chocolate bars in a row after that. Good Lord, the idea of the blind man repenting and seeing things better even was a rather bad idea in "Jane Eyre", but Chico here is not a Rochester (quite on the contrary, of course) and that whole resurrection conceit (complete with that totally unnecessary shot of a spiral staircase where obviously there wasn't one before) well... didn't work for me at all. So I consider "7th Heaven" a marvellous film in many many very obvious ways (wonderful actors, brilliant sets and cinematography), but well, I wished the marvellous Gladys Brockwell would have reappeared at the end to give Herr Borzage or his scriptwriter a good whipping for that.

[lubitsch]

However, even with a new musical score, I'm not sure whether all of the film would have worked for me. At least some moments, obviously those 'CHICO-DIANE-HEAVEN!!' intertitles (especially in their later reappearance) are so over-the top that I constantly imagined the audience at that time: women of all ages making whining noises and desperately searching for their handkerchiefs in a way that would only be rivalled by "Gone with the wind" a few years later. Not to speak of the ending; as you know, I'm easily touched by sentimental things and am quite good at providing huge amounts of suspension of disbelief if required (I'm totally with Schreck in his description of how "Sunrise" works for him), but this was simply TOO MUCH for me. I felt like I had been forced to eat five huge chocolate bars in a row after that. Good Lord, the idea of the blind man repenting and seeing things better even was a rather bad idea in "Jane Eyre", but Chico here is not a Rochester (quite on the contrary, of course) and that whole resurrection conceit (complete with that totally unnecessary shot of a spiral staircase where obviously there wasn't one before) well... didn't work for me at all. So I consider "7th Heaven" a marvellous film in many many very obvious ways (wonderful actors, brilliant sets and cinematography), but well, I wished the marvellous Gladys Brockwell would have reappeared at the end to give Herr Borzage or his scriptwriter a good whipping for that.

I don't mind Borzage's romanticism but I find the ending cringeworthy, too. To connect his stories with reality, in this case the World War, isn't always fruitful. Creating a ressurection through love is rather tasteless in this context.

[Tommaso]

To connect his stories with reality, in this case the World War, isn't always fruitful. Creating a ressurection through love is rather tasteless in this context.

Not just tasteless, but truly badly motivated. I mean, didn't all those officials testifying to his death see that he was still alive? The other option is that he was quite literally resurrected by a deed of God. Which reminds me that I found that whole 'confirmed atheist becomes firm believer'-conceit pretty unconvincing and somewhat false-sounding, too. Connecting the story with WW I wasn't a big prinicipal problem for me; but the way the French army was brought to the front with taxis also made me scratch my head a bit.
The more I think about it, the more that whole script seems to be rubbish. But there are so many wonderful moments in the film that I think it still works...somehow.

[HerrSchreck]

Testiment to the power of the ability of someone like Mauritz Stiller in something like Sir Arne to avoid this kind of syrupy feel, while still delivering a cornball climax of removing evildoers/pleasing the lord/breaks up the ice---------->frees the ship.. and actually creating a believable supernatural/nordic-mythical aroma about the whole affair. Stunning.

To connect his stories with reality, in this case the World War, isn't always fruitful. Creating a ressurection through love is rather tasteless in this context.

Not just tasteless, but truly badly motivated. I mean, didn't all those officials testifying to his death see that he was still alive? The other option is that he was quite literally resurrected by a deed of God. Which reminds me that I found that whole 'confirmed atheist becomes firm believer'-conceit pretty unconvincing and somewhat false-sounding, too. Connecting the story with WW I wasn't a big prinicipal problem for me; but the way the French army was brought to the front with taxis also made me scratch my head a bit.
The more I think about it, the more that whole script seems to be rubbish. But there are so many wonderful moments in the film that I think it still works...somehow.

I thought the whole affair of 7th works wonderfully right up until Chico goes to war. One thing I think that is well rendered here is the sexual tension between the two.. Farrell is quite nearly Stanley Kowalski up in his garrett stalking around with his shirt off, and Janet Gaynor-- the great little cupie doll she is-- looks miraculously Quite Do-able. It's the first time I found myself with a jones for her... seeing her in her undies and her toucha butt. (Sorry to befoul Our Holy Waif, but... *snort* ya know..)

[Tommaso]

Phew, I was expecting a whole downpour of Schreckonian ire against anyone who is only in fourth heaven with "7th Heaven"...

The Stiller comparison is quite to the point, not just "Sir Arne", in which the whole medieval frame of mind makes such a divine interference (if it is one) much more believable in the greater scheme of things, but also if I think of the irresisitible impulse of the girl for following the stranger in "Johan". So much more convincing than, but probably not really comparable to, those pure souls that are Chico and Diane. However, I wasn't really disturbed about what was going on in the Borzage up to the moment the war breaks in, too, and was initially almost relieved that there had to be a break now in the narrative, allowing me to get a slight pause from those love-making turtles, or rather, from that 'Diane' melody. Too bad that tune kept returning all the time she was on screen in-between the war scenes...

. Farrell is quite nearly Stanley Kowalski up in his garrett stalking around with his shirt off, and Janet Gaynor-- the great little cupie doll she is-- looks miraculously Quite Do-able.

Yes, I found that pretty risqué for the time (and a few years later Borzage wouldn't have gotten away with it), but erotic titillation aside it was exactly what the film needed to feel a little more 'grounded' and to continue with some sort of 'dramatic flow' in that otherwise rather static sequence, beautiful as it is. My favourite part of the whole movie, not just because of the undies, though I admit it's difficult to ignore them.

[HerrSchreck]

That little bit of terrain below Gaynors glute goes a long way...

No I'm not a superatomic fan of this film. I like it, admire it more than that, find it fascinating as an oddball genre-specimen... but as a film, in the moment-to-moment viewing expwerience, it's not a supervbeloved Borz. I far prefer some of his sound work, and find just about all of his other silents in the set to be more satisfying. My all-time films aren't the type that survive in spite of themselves (Sunrise may be an example, though I find the story in and of itself to be quite plain, believable and simple... minus the speed with which Indre forgvies her husband), i e despite a script that would cause a Harlequin romance novelist to twitch ("We've hit Overage in the loading docks... sound the alarms!")

I don't know if I mentioned this elsewhere but I think River works fabulous shorn of it's context-- maybe better than the completed film loaded with all it's melodramatic story-specifics... it turns almost into a mythological poem occurring Anyplace in Anytime. You can see the characters as gods (destroying a whole forest with his bare hands) or mortals, as you wish. The crow-- almost Zeusian symbol order. Great film.

[Max von Mayerling]

Just tested my 7th Heaven disc & no creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

Not to take away from this discussion of aesthetics, but I want to apologize on account of my lame attempt at wordplay left at least fdm with the entirely wrong impression. I meant to convey that my 7th Heaven disc does not make helicopter-like sounds - in other words, it appears to work fine & dandy, like a dvd should.

[fdm]

Just tested my 7th Heaven disc & no creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

Not to take away from this discussion of aesthetics, but I want to apologize on account of my lame attempt at wordplay left at least fdm with the entirely wrong impression. I meant to convey that my 7th Heaven disc does not make helicopter-like sounds - in other words, it appears to work fine & dandy, like a dvd should.

No I got that. My first copy was the same way (despite the scratches on it).

The second copy is the one that makes the godawful noise (and I mean really loud -- way beyond any possibility of trying to watch it and not go nuts -- on that particular machine; part of my point was that it might possibly play quietly on a different machine.)

[Tommaso]

The newly composed scores for City Girl and Lucky Star are not as good as they could be, but personally I find them less distracting than the Movietone scores

I haven't seen "Lucky Star" yet, but when I watched "City Girl" last night I found myself actually wishing for a Movietone score a la "7th" or "Street Angel". Whereas in those cases the over-emotionality of the score combined with Borzage's romanticism didn't always work well (much better in "Street Angel" though), that 'grand gesture' would have brought out some qualities in Murnau's film more than the new score does.

The problem with the new score for "City Girl" is not that it isn't well composed or something, but with its heavy leaning toward country/folk-music styles it stresses the 'particulars' of the film too much (a specific time and setting etc.), and the music added also a sense of crude humour to some scenes which I thought should have a much more reflective character, for instance the arrival of Lem and Kate at the farm, before the walk through the wheat fields. All this works a little against the 'universals' that in my view Murnau was going for. Like "Sunrise", the story of "City Girl" for me has a pretty archetypal/mythic character, thus obviously prefiguring "Tabu" as well, and the conflicts of father and daughter-and-law and the celebration of rural life/nature could be set anywhere. With this emphasis on the land and the mythicisation of the rural family I wonder whether for once the much-mentioned influence from Murnau on Ford might not have worked the other way round this time. I mean this exclusively in terms of the general 'meaning' of the film, the importance of the land's products for life etc., NOT of course in terms of visual style, which for the most part of the film is unmistakeably Murnau's.

I wonder whether the harvesting machine shots, if they had taken the length Murnau apparently intended them to have, would have looked even more Russian than they do now. Also, I don't know which parts were actually re-shot/re-edited by somebody else, but the city scenes in any case worked fabulously and the final sequence is a knock-out. Not exactly a film that reaches the lofty heights of Murnau's best works, but a wonderful addition to the canon (disregarding the Grapevine disc and other such sources for a moment).

It's funny how you can actually see which films in the set were big successes and which were not. Whereas the prints of "7th Heaven" and "Street Angel" looked terribly worn and much 'older' than you'd expect from films of the late 20s (they must have been used a lot!), "City Girl" looked surprisingly good, wonderfully sharp and clear with only insignificant damage.

[lubitsch]

Also, I don't know which parts were actually re-shot/re-edited by somebody else, but the city scenes in any case worked fabulously and the final sequence is a knock-out. Not exactly a film that reaches the lofty heights of Murnau's best works, but a wonderful addition to the canon (disregarding the Grapevine disc and other such sources for a moment).

I agree about the music, but what are exactly the "lofty heights"? CG has a solid plot structure with a final climax which weaves the major conflicts together, while Sunrise stops abruptly after a third and then adds a completely superfluos storm sequence out of the nowhere. CG carefully shows that life in the city isn't always fun, but that the land can be opressive, while Sunrise introduces a smoking woman of the city (evil!) who leads our poor nice country folk astray. CG shows a female heroine and her fight for happiness against patriarchal oppression which also emasculates the son, while Sunrise never progresses beyond the most reactionary whore/madonna duality. CG integrates it less spectacular visuals into the plot line like e.g. the lonesome geranium or the run through the wheat fields, while Sunrise permanently strives to impress with cinematic trickery like the walk of O'Brien to his lover.

I've seen roughly 600 silent features and I intensely dislike the strong tendencies in film scholarship to appreciate silents only via their visuals and especially via special visual scenes a la Potemkin's Odessa slaughter sequence or Gance's triptych. A similar example that comes to my mind is Siodmak's Killers vs. Criss Cross, the first being the more famous for certain shots or sequences like the beginning, while the second being less spectacular deals far more convinsingly and cohesively with the same story (more or less).
I think there should be once a debate about how some films are praised because they are easier to teach or write about or leave strong impressions in some points, but are aon the whole less convincing than more unspectacular works.

[Tommaso]

I've seen roughly 600 silent features and I intensely dislike the strong tendencies in film scholarship to appreciate silents only via their visuals and especially via special visual scenes a la Potemkin's Odessa slaughter sequence or Gance's triptych.[...]
I think there should be once a debate about how some films are praised because they are easier to teach or write about or leave strong impressions in some points, but are aon the whole less convincing than more unspectacular works.

My admiration for Eisenstein (and there are parts in "Potemkin" that I find more impressive than the Odessa steps sequence) or "Sunrise" has little to do with individual sequences or scenes and next to nothing with the fact that they might be easier to teach or write about (even though this is true given the limited time in a film class). And in all fairness to a differing opinion, but in my view you tend to clearly over-estimate a sociological view of film over an artistic view. I have absolutely nothing against analyses that show how a film is 'true' to a perceived reality (your "City Girl" examples vs "Sunrise" are correct, of course), or how it tackles important social or other questions whereas other films evade them. But these things alone don't constitute a great film, even if it has a "solid plot structure".

I agree about the music, but what are exactly the "lofty heights"? CG has a solid plot structure with a final climax which weaves the major conflicts together, while Sunrise stops abruptly after a third and then adds a completely superfluos storm sequence out of the nowhere.

It may be superfluous from the plot's point-of-view, and I even agree about the whore/madonna-thing (which, however, is much more pronounced in "Street Angel"), but honestly: Who has ever laid down an unalterable law that films should be 'progressive', follow a realistic and believable storyline and alter the world for the better? "Sunrise" is so much more than its narrative and its social meaning; what you describe as 'cinematic trickery' is the perfect example of an artist using all the means he has at his command to utterly enrapture his audience, to touch them on a level that is far deeper and emotional than rational considerations, and the result is almost incomparable in its purely artistic/aesthetic effect.
However, the analytical assessment of these artistic/aesthetic impressions is far more difficult to do (or perhaps ultimately impossible) than an analysis of the 'politics' of a film, and currently it's unpopular in academic circles on top of it. But films are made not for scholars, but for an audience, and I suppose in Murnau's case, an intelligent audience. Murnau was far too elitist to simply cater to those who only want to drift away in a romantic dreamworld (while "7th Heaven" does exactly that, though in a great way). Again: there is something very basic and 'archetypal' - though I don't mean that in the Jungian sense - going on in "Sunrise", "Tabu", "Nosferatu" or even "Faust", and Murnau invents his own, totally personal language for the expression of it. And that's what makes his films so incredibly overwhelming and pleasing as works of art.

You need not agree with this kind of filmmaking, but why then watch Murnau at all? Why don't you equally object to the somewhat similar 'trickery' at the end of "City Girl" or in the walk through the wheat fields? These individual moments are, unsurprisingly, those that I got most out of when watching the film (and they also seem to be the most discussed, of course), but that is also because they are the most 'unusual' compared to other films, those in which Murnau's art shows itself most unfettered. Other parts of the film are much more 'conventional', and that's what I meant when I said that the film doesn't reach the "lofty heights" of Murnau's greatest and better known films. I didn't mean the technical tricks and visual sophistication in "Sunrise" as such, but how all the elements of the film (acting, cinematography, editing, mise en scene) coalesce together. As Walter Pater said: "All art aspires to the condition of music", and "Sunrise" is the best example for this (no wonder it's called "A Song of Two Humans"). Or you might see it as a sort of modern fairy-tale; but then it's a damn convincing and enchanting one.

[HerrSchreck]

I'm not going to dip a toe yet into the strange film barometer of Progressive Female Politics viz Lube, but there's a stale collegiate trout that is repeatedly tossed out here by him that I have to probe:

Why, exactly, to you consider the storm sequence to be superflous and tacked-on? It ties directly into the narrative as it 1) echoes, pre-storm the psychological hell of the original boat ride and erases it's sense of emotional trauma with visceral romatic joy, and 2) provides a sense of narrative irony directly threaded in to what has gone down before-- the man gets what he asked for originally but now does not want ("Be careful what you ask for in life" etc), that is, the boat is overturned and his wife is deposited into the lake for drowning. Further narrative knitting and irony is provided towards the conclusion in that the bullrushes with which the man meant to use to save himself, have saved his wife.

The scene provides a threading to the proper denouement and it's click into the conclusion: as everything seems to have gone according to 'plan', the woman of the city makes ready for the arrival of her stooge to prepare her final triumph... until she realizes.

The storm is neither contrived nor tacked on-- it expertly provides the narrative impetus to bundle together all of the themes and plot threads that have been developed in the first half, reversed by the "wedding", and puts their reversal to the the test (if the man were bullshitting about his epihany viz his wife, he'd have it made w the vamp upon return... conversely fate seems to be teaching him that lesson 'be careful what you wish for') and thrusts the tale to it's perfect finale and crystalization, sending the woman from the city on her way, and-- thus proven-- returns the wife to her husband.

This notwithstanding the obvious symbol order (in this allegorical song) going on at other levels viz 'water' 'storms' 'boat journeys' etc.

It may feel in terms of causality tacked on because it is an event whose motivation is beyond the bounds of the three main protagonists (i e it just 'happens', and is not tied-- being from nature-- directly to a preceding action, it is a 'narrative act of god', and therefore feels too easy; yet in these terms the entire trip to the city is filled with 'happenstance encounters'), and so it is.. which is the point. When you stop manipulating life for subterfuge, fate steps in and takes a hand. It's very definitely part of the narrative and moral fabric of the film, and in strict physical terms echoes acts that preceded... and morally demonstrates Mayer & Murnaus ongoing belief in Fate. If you toss this storm out, then you must turn out Schrecks character in Nosferatu, must toss out the baroness in Phantom, must toss out Reri's fateful selection by the high priest in Tabu, the appearance of the Moderating Hand of Fate in just about all of Murnau. His films demonstrate-- almost all-- a belief in an outside force that kills corrupts and saves. It's a hand that's loaded with irony, and it's a hand that is indeed unpredictable. Indeed, in Murnau's personal life as well as in his films, this force is the potential father of all Paradises Lost.

You need to be more suspicious of what schools and status quos teach you about narrative flow and rhythm. They have about two structural setups which they deem psychologically acceptable to hook a viewer and keep them humming magnetically along, and all the rest are empty clams as far as they're concerned. It's for THIS reason-- not any reliance on the gleaming visual patina-- that the films you're dying to see, the books you want to read, the music you want to hear is not made ready for your senses and aren't trumpeted by the one-note auteurists you despise so much. It's this elementary belief that anything the least bit out of the ordinary along the highway of event-flow renders an artistic product indigestable by the masses. You're hyped on the junk promulgated by society's gatekeepers, who narrow our view of what is acceptable for the rest of society.. wash that crap right out of your hair.

A tacked on scene would classically be something along the lines-- BAM out of nowhere a highwayman with no place in the previous narrative suddenly appears in the last 15 minutes and waylays the couple on their way out of the city. Holds them hostage mistakenly thinking the man is a big wealthy farmer. During the abduction wifey is injured. Time goes by. Wifey is getting worse at thug's hideout in the city. Thug is demanding money and getting hotter because he thinks they're holding out. Hubby pleads to let him get medical attention for wifey, and gets a gun butt to the head & "Shut up!" After a two week standoff who comes walking into the highwayman's hideout? but the vamp, who is his sister... while the criminal is snoozing selflessly she saves the couples life and reedems herself. While running from the hideout and showing the couple towards the trolley the vamp is shot in the back by the criminal who has woken up... OBrien wants to save her-- she raises a hand "No.. my life is over.. your's is just beginning.. be.. happy." (Slump, with a single tear running down her cheek).

Obrien runs with his wife to paradise tears filling his eyes viz the holy whore. END*

Trust Carl Mayer and everyone else in the world: you're not discovering anything unknown about Sunrise. It's one of the most analyzed films on earth. I daresay getting political or progressive with it is about as hopeless as getting thusly over Aesop Grimm or Anderson. These are not real people-- they are supposed to be archtypes. City Girl on the other hand, is clearly about real people.

You've come a long way Lubitsch, compared to the poster of 2006. For that I commend you. But still, I'd love to see you direct your rage towards more productive ends. Instead of lamenting the films you feel no-one promotes sheerly by tearing down the ones they do, why not discuss those films you love and elucidate why you feel they are superior? Why not illustrate by example what you regard as a fine specimen of narrative? Proclaiming the critical world a homgenous zone of predictability is a bit predictable... but on the other hand, in terms of silent film, their sins are mostly those of omission. Most 'world classics' of silent film that are heaped with endless laurels-- Potemkin, Sunrise-- are justifiably thus. Why not reach back into your satchel of 600 silent films and discuss those which are undiscussed (and if you say Pandoras Box or The Wind again eggs are gonna fly!)

[lubitsch]

And in all fairness to a differing opinion, but in my view you tend to clearly over-estimate a sociological view of film over an artistic view. I have absolutely nothing against analyses that show how a film is 'true' to a perceived reality (your "City Girl" examples vs "Sunrise" are correct, of course), or how it tackles important social or other questions whereas other films evade them. But these things alone don't constitute a great film, even if it has a "solid plot structure".

I don't think that's the case. In fact one of the most horrifying film books written in German and still the only native international film history, Enno Patalas' and Ulrich Gregor's film history is a frightening example of 60s political film analysis and there are few film books that I despise more. However there's no need to send the pendulum back to the other end leave this points completely out of view.

Who has ever laid down an unalterable law that films should be 'progressive', follow a realistic and believable storyline and alter the world for the better.

Nobody, but they shouldn't promote 'regressive' ideals which caused much harm. Birth of a Nation played a crucial role in reviving the Ku-Klux-klan, October praised the illegal overthrow of a government by a bunch of murderers and Sunrise is guilty of supporting a whore/madonna duality which still turns out deadly for women in large parts of the world. I know this is all rather obvious and not very new, but I see no point in leaving it completely out.

"Sunrise" is so much more than its narrative and its social meaning; what you describe as 'cinematic trickery' is the perfect example of an artist using all the means he has at his command to utterly enrapture his audience, to touch them on a level that is far deeper and emotional than rational considerations, and the result is almost incomparable in its purely artistic/aesthetic effect.

However, the analytical assessment of these artistic/aesthetic impressions is far more difficult to do (or perhaps ultimately impossible) than an analysis of the 'politics' of a film, and currently it's unpopular in academic circles on top of it. But films are made not for scholars, but for an audience, and I suppose in Murnau's case, an intelligent audience. Murnau was far too elitist to simply cater to those who only want to drift away in a romantic dreamworld (while "7th Heaven" does exactly that, though in a great way). Again: there is something very basic and 'archetypal' - though I don't mean that in the Jungian sense - going on in "Sunrise", "Tabu", "Nosferatu" or even "Faust", and Murnau invents his own, totally personal language for the expression of it. And that's what makes his films so incredibly overwhelming and pleasing as works of art...

You need not agree with this kind of filmmaking, but why then watch Murnau at all?

I have marked some of your points bold because they are exactly the ones bothering me. they are mostly expressions of mysticism ending more or less in the wisdom: "Either you see the light or you don't." I don't think it's enough to label something as transcending experience or helpful to explain problems away as archetypes. After all we all have to thank the Age of Enlightenment and its free thinking that we can sit before a computer and happily disagree about some films, while the last mystic, archetypal years in German history are not exactly ones I'd like to see repeated.

Why don't you equally object to the somewhat similar 'trickery' at the end of "City Girl" or in the walk through the wheat fields? These individual moments are, unsurprisingly, those that I got most out of when watching the film (and they also seem to be the most discussed, of course), but that is also because they are the most 'unusual' compared to other films, those in which Murnau's art shows itself most unfettered. Other parts of the film are much more 'conventional', and that's what I meant when I said that the film doesn't reach the "lofty heights" of Murnau's greatest and better known films. I didn't mean the technical tricks and visual sophistication in "Sunrise" as such, but how all the elements of the film (acting, cinematography, editing, mise en scene) coalesce together.

I find this interesting because I have exactly the opposite perception. Sunrise unfolds in a series of artistic vignettes and shots and it always looks as if Murnau has sat down and thought how he can make this and that scene look special. Take e.g. O'Brien's walk to the swamp? His character is confused and led astray, it's dark and he slips away. is it really necessary to push the scene to the limit with an extra artificial studio setting and a walking route (with corresponding camera movement) which was planned just for the sake of showing how lost and desoriented he is (morally). The run through the wheat on the contrary grows out of the story and out of more conventional scenes and recedes back which gives it all the more power. we have two happy people, one of them searching for a new life on the land and the camera subtly and for a rather short moment underscores this in connecting them with this land. Sunrise on the other hand reminds me of Ford's The Fugitive, another oh so profound and serious artful movie.

Why, exactly, to you consider the storm sequence to be superflous and tacked-on? It ties directly into the narrative as it 1) echoes, pre-storm the psychological hell of the original boat ride and erases it's sense of emotional trauma with visceral romatic joy, and 2) provides a sense of narrative irony directly threaded in to what has gone down before-- the man gets what he asked for originally but now does not want ("Be careful what you ask for in life" etc), that is, the boat is overturned and his wife is deposited into the lake for drowning. Further narrative knitting and irony is provided towards the conclusion in that the bullrushes with which the man meant to use to save himself, have saved his wife.

The scene provides a threading to the proper denouement and it's click into the conclusion: as everything seems to have gone according to 'plan', the woman of the city makes ready for the arrival of her stooge to prepare her final triumph... until she realizes.

The storm is neither contrived nor tacked on-- it expertly provides the narrative impetus to bundle together all of the themes and plot threads that have been developed in the first half, reversed by the "wedding", and puts their reversal to the the test (if the man were bullshitting about his epihany viz his wife, he'd have it made w the vamp upon return... conversely fate seems to be teaching him that lesson 'be careful what you wish for') and thrusts the tale to it's perfect finale and crystalization, sending the woman from the city on her way, and-- thus proven-- returns the wife to her husband.

This notwithstanding the obvious symbol order (in this allegorical song) going on at other levels viz 'water' 'storms' 'boat journeys' etc.

It may feel in terms of causality tacked on because it is an event whose motivation is beyond the bounds of the three main protagonists (i e it just 'happens', and is not tied-- being from nature-- directly to a preceding action, it is a 'narrative act of god', and therefore feels too easy; yet in these terms the entire trip to the city is filled with 'happenstance encounters'), and so it is.. which is the point. When you stop manipulating life for subterfuge, fate steps in and takes a hand. It's very definitely part of the narrative and moral fabric of the film, and in strict physical terms echoes acts that preceded... and morally demonstrates Mayer & Murnaus ongoing belief in Fate. If you toss this storm out, then you must turn out Schrecks character in Nosferatu, must toss out the baroness in Phantom, must toss out Reri's fateful selection by the high priest in Tabu, the appearance of the Moderating Hand of Fate in just about all of Murnau. His films demonstrate-- almost all-- a belief in an outside force that kills corrupts and saves. It's a hand that's loaded with irony, and it's a hand that is indeed unpredictable. Indeed, in Murnau's personal life as well as in his films, this force is the potential father of all Paradises Lost.

I find your comments very interesting, some are new to me, but I have marked in bold the main problem for me. I may sound slightly cynical, but for me the hand of fate translates to the hand of the screenwriter runnning out of ideas how to let a story grow out of its characters. It seems simply a cheap way to wrap a story an dprovide all the ironies you've layed down so precisely.

A tacked on scene would classically be something along the lines-- BAM out of nowhere a highwayman with no place in the previous narrative suddenly appears in the last 15 minutes and waylays the couple on their way out of the city. Holds them hostage mistakenly thinking the man is a big wealthy farmer. During the abduction wifey is injured. Time goes by. Wifey is getting worse at thug's hideout in the city. Thug is demanding money and getting hotter because he thinks they're holding out. Hubby pleads to let him get medical attention for wifey, and gets a gun butt to the head & "Shut up!" After a two week standoff who comes walking into the highwayman's hideout? but the vamp, who is his sister... while the criminal is snoozing selflessly she saves the couples life and reedems herself. While running from the hideout and showing the couple towards the trolley the vamp is shot in the back by the criminal who has woken up... OBrien wants to save her-- she raises a hand "No.. my life is over.. your's is just beginning.. be.. happy." (Slump, with a single tear running down her cheek).

Obrien runs with his wife to paradise tears filling his eyes viz the holy whore. END*

Yep, seen my share of such films, too. But to be frank I don't think it differs that much from what we got. What you describe is a plot machinery running for its own sake, generating more and more plot until it ends. Sunrise is a picture and archetype machinery which seems intend on creating a magic moment every five minutes. the moments I like best about sunrise are the ones where Murnau doesn't run amok, but strives for simple solutions like the cake scene where O'Brien helpless tries to replace a lack of sufficient words with a gesture or his brooding persona being translated via his back shots.

Trust Carl Mayer and everyone else in the world: you're not discovering anything unknown about Sunrise. It's one of the most analyzed films on earth. I daresay getting political or progressive with it is about as hopeless as getting thusly over Aesop Grimm or Anderson. These are not real people-- they are supposed to be archtypes.

I trust Mayer's earlier films because he is one of the few masterin silent cinema who doesn't build monumental melodramatic trash stories and focuses on the sharp drawing of characters and lets them interact in a limited space. I love Scherben, Hintertreppe, Der letzte Mann and like and like Caligari, Vanina and Sylvester. Sunrise is not very different regarding characters, it's just that he taps into some cliches he mostly avoided, but quite different in regard to the story structure which moves away from the tight block like construction.

But still, I'd love to see you direct your rage towards more productive ends. Instead of lamenting the films you feel no-one promotes sheerly by tearing down the ones they do, why not discuss those films you love and elucidate why you feel they are superior? Why not illustrate by example what you regard as a fine specimen of narrative? Proclaiming the critical world a homgenous zone of predictability is a bit predictable... but on the other hand, in terms of silent film, their sins are mostly those of omission.

That's probably because I work at our video library and am therefore worried how students react to silents. If you're just beginning to watch them and have certain vague, not too flattering ideas in your head a la ridiculous acting, melodramatic stories, then you could do no worse then confront students with films which emphasize these traits. To put it simply and bluntly, I know that Gaynor's wig is an absolute killer.

I occasionally feed the people with films to counter their perceptions, gave e.g. away cottage on dartmoor and got the feedback that it's much more intersting than the usual silents like e.g. Die Nibelungen. I like Lang's film well, but it only serves to underscore my point that it might be wise to promote silent film history more via "normal" films like Miss Lulu bett, Lonesome, Visages d'enfants which offer essentially the picture of being modern films with only sound missing. But if you start in your first lesson with whites in blackface in BOAN, cintinue with Russian propaganda and then go to the acting madness in Metropolis, you will leave most students with a deadly impression.

[HerrSchreck]

It may feel in terms of causality tacked on because it is an event whose motivation is beyond the bounds of the three main protagonists (i e it just 'happens', and is not tied-- being from nature-- directly to a preceding action, it is a 'narrative act of god', and therefore feels too easy; yet in these terms the entire trip to the city is filled with 'happenstance encounters'), and so it is.. which is the point. When you stop manipulating life for subterfuge, fate steps in and takes a hand. It's very definitely part of the narrative and moral fabric of the film, and in strict physical terms echoes acts that preceded... and morally demonstrates Mayer & Murnaus ongoing belief in Fate. If you toss this storm out, then you must turn out Schrecks character in Nosferatu, must toss out the baroness in Phantom, must toss out Reri's fateful selection by the high priest in Tabu, the appearance of the Moderating Hand of Fate in just about all of Murnau. His films demonstrate-- almost all-- a belief in an outside force that kills corrupts and saves. It's a hand that's loaded with irony, and it's a hand that is indeed unpredictable. Indeed, in Murnau's personal life as well as in his films, this force is the potential father of all Paradises Lost.

I find your comments very interesting, some are new to me, but I have marked in bold the main problem for me. I may sound slightly cynical, but for me the hand of fate translates to the hand of the screenwriter runnning out of ideas how to let a story grow out of its characters. It seems simply a cheap way to wrap a story an dprovide all the ironies you've layed down so precisely.

Lubitsch, I mean this without any sense of audacity or schphluntz whatsoever when I say it is a matter of emergency that you rethink your sense of responsibility viz Traffic Cop of Library Titles. If you reject out of hand as "lazy"-- or poverty of imagination-- non-character driven causalities in tales of fiction then I have to say you bring to the medium such a strange sense of narrative-aesthetic activism that I'd say that the thing that's most important to your post-degree progress is a period of intense introspection to determine what is causing you to regard as frivolous all things not wrought by the hand of man. You've taken out of pocket a desire to disqualify some of the most meaningful forms of endeavor on the part of man-- to come to terms with that which is beyond their control; to reconcile the effect of meaningless suffering against all prior constructive & preventative action; the hand of fate crushing the better and worse promulgations of humankind without apparent rhyme or reason is the basis of our heavier philosophies, the motivating factor of our religions, a huge portions of our psychiatrics, and the mysterious better portion of our openended poetics. Without it all narrative would be ground down to the most literal melodrama with each action threaded back and traceable on a flow chart, motivated human act by motivated human act, without any sense of indeterminate grey. An aesthetic universe without a force of nature-- only men.

And we'd certainly have no film noir, which is fueled by a reflection on the cruel hand of fate, which ties each goodhearted protagonist in a mysterious, unexplainable, and malevolent gordian knot.

And really-- there's not much difference between the denouement-cultivating storm in Sunrise and the same in City Girl. In City Girl-- which you laud-- the most absurdly melodramatic ending (really, it's a flawless film right up to when girlie gets thwacked by the old bastard, which comes far too early in the film btw, whereby the film goes right off the rails into absurdity and unbalance) is prompted by a storm, sudden and unheralded... the 'crop is going to be lost because of (wtf were they harvesting throughout the film then?) a sudden and convenient storm which magically pulls everyone together, causes by a quick and convenient secondary effect (this feels far more contrived to me incidentally, they way everyone suddenly turns cherubic on a dime) the bunch of turdish leathery farmhands to turn aw-shucksy do-gooders with golden hearts, and one stray shot and the father becomes the wife-hugging Dr. Jekyll all of a sudden.

It's all just taste my friend.

[Tommaso]

However there's no need to send the pendulum back to the other end leave this points completely out of view.

I don't disagree with this at all, and I never said that I wanted to leave the sociological questions a work of art may raise out of the view. To give you an example from literary studies: in the last 40 years or so, scholars have repeatedly pointed out the promotion of colonialist politics in Shakespeare's "The Tempest" and its subservience to a patriarchal ideology, and these scholars have successfully deconstructed the 'wise sage' Prospero in the process. This reassessment of the play has found its reflections for instance in Derek Jarman's film version. However, to the best of my knowledge none of these critics have argued that the play isn't any good because all of this (it won't surprise you that I actually think it's among Shakespeare's very best). In other words: the assessment of the play from postcolonialist or feminist theory has added a lot of new levels to our understanding of "The Tempest", made it more complex and even more intriguing. But it didn't take away anything from the sheer formal and lyrical perfection of the play. And this is where I have problems with what I perceive as your point-of-view. You dismiss "Sunrise" because it has a world-view which is not your own (and Schreck, as usual, has described this world-view in a far better way than I can), and you are not willing to concede that despite your disagreement with its world-view the film has more than remarkable artistic qualities. Or so it seems to me.

Who has ever laid down an unalterable law that films should be 'progressive', follow a realistic and believable storyline and alter the world for the better.

Nobody, but they shouldn't promote 'regressive' ideals which caused much harm. Birth of a Nation played a crucial role in reviving the Ku-Klux-klan, October praised the illegal overthrow of a government by a bunch of murderers and Sunrise is guilty of supporting a whore/madonna duality which still turns out deadly for women in large parts of the world. I know this is all rather obvious and not very new, but I see no point in leaving it completely out.

For once, let me highlight some keywords in your post. First of all, when Eisenstein made "October", the Bolsheviks were clearly NOT seen as doing something illegal, but rather on the contrary considered themselves as the most progressive group in Russia at the time. Nothing one must agree with, but it's a good reminder of how terms like 'progressive' or 'reactionary' aren't cemented forever, but are subject to who defines and uses them. But I far more object to the concept of 'guilt' that you apply to "Sunrise". First of all, you really seem to ascribe to film a lot of influence onto the audience, as if they were just a passive bunch of people who are unable to reflect for themselves on what they have just seen. Secondly, you make it appear as if the whole point of "Sunrise" was a conscious attempt to (re-)inforce a certain gender role model, whereas the film only uses the madonna/femme fatale motif to make points which are completely different. That's the difference (one of many) between "Sunrise" and "Jud Süß", for instance. Thirdly, you completely ignore that the madonna/femme fatale-duality is an age-old motif that has been used and re-used in literature and art history over the centuries, so much so that it could be used almost as a 'brick' in a new work for narratives concerned with quite different things. I hardly have to point you to the classic studies of Praz or Paglia, but just in case... In the same way you could argue that Wilde's "Salome" was only concerned with perpertuating such gender roles, which would miss the point completely.

I have marked some of your points bold because they are exactly the ones bothering me. they are mostly expressions of mysticism ending more or less in the wisdom: "Either you see the light or you don't." I don't think it's enough to label something as transcending experience or helpful to explain problems away as archetypes.

First about my use of the word 'archetype': although I expressedly said I didn't have Jung in mind, you seem to have misunderstood me. I used the term more in the sense in which Chaucer's pilgrims can be described as archetypes, i.e. they are personifications of a 'special sort' of people, i.e. THE knight or THE merchant; or with Murnau, THE vamp or THE ageing hotel porter. As to the other words you highlighted and which you take as an expression of mysticism, I gladly accept that label even though I don't fully agree with it. The deeper range of emotions I described need not be of the mystic/religious/spiritual sort, they might simply to refer to things like joy of nature or indeed, deep love. And why you include my mentioning of "Murnau's own, totally personal language" in it is somewhat beyond me.
And if I spoke of the goal of 'enrapturing' an audience for a filmmaker: this is as old as Meliès, or as 'entertainment' itself.

After all we all have to thank the Age of Enlightenment and its free thinking that we can sit before a computer and happily disagree about some films

I guess I'm not alone in wondering whether the 'free-thinking spirit of the Age of Enlightenment' isn't a myth itself. There has been many a free-thinker who has been crushed because his scientific findings did not concur with what was believed to be 'reasonable science' in his time (I think especially of the history of medicine, here). Do yourself a favour and read Pynchon's "Against the Day" for an up-to-date narrative assessment of the whole problem. And you never seem to question the ideology of Enlightenment as much as you question other ideologies.

while the last mystic, archetypal years in German history are not exactly ones I'd like to see repeated.

And here 'schüttest Du das Kind mit dem Bade aus', as we say in German. The immediate connection of mysticism (in most general terms) with the tenets of Nazi Germany is not only unfair, but also historically wrong. The alleged 'mysticism' of the Nazis (all the talk about the German 'race', the party rallies etc.) was nothing more than a clever trick they worked on the masses to conceal their imperialist, racist and capitalist goals, even though some of the Nazi elite admittedly had a vivid interest in occultism. But all this has nothing to do with the mysticism of people like Jakob Boehme or William Blake, or with the spiritual search in the works of Tarkovsky.

is it really necessary to push the scene to the limit with an extra artificial studio setting and a walking route (with corresponding camera movement) which was planned just for the sake of showing how lost and desoriented he is (morally).

Perhaps not necessary, but it greatly underscores his morally being lost, as you say yourself. Congruence of form and content, then.

The run through the wheat on the contrary grows out of the story and out of more conventional scenes and recedes back which gives it all the more power. we have two happy people, one of them searching for a new life on the land and the camera subtly and for a rather short moment underscores this in connecting them with this land.

Sure, but the tenets of both films are different. "Sunrise" centers more exclusively on the emotional states of the protagonists, this is its sole theme and thus the film constantly evokes these by its visuals; "City Girl" is indeed concerned with questions having more to do with social aspects and the outside world (surviving even though the price of wheat falls, the difference between rural and urban life and how its perceived by city and country dwellers etc.), thus it doesn't focus as exclusively on Lem and Kate's love affair. But the way "Sunrise" reaches its goals seems to me far more extraordinary and unique as a whole;which is why I rate "Sunrise" higher.

I may sound slightly cynical, but for me the hand of fate translates to the hand of the screenwriter runnning out of ideas how to let a story grow out of its characters.

Again, the hand of fate is a stock motif reaching back to Greek drama. Why not use it again, then, as a scriptwriter, especially if you're concerned with emotional states that are pretty universal? It's like saying "Why have a vampire in "Nosferatu" if you could make a realistic film about sexual obsession/perversion?" There is no need for hands of fate nor for vampires if you want to make a film, but I can't see why you deem it so terribly wrong to speak in symbols, images, metaphors.

But if you start in your first lesson with whites in blackface in BOAN, cintinue with Russian propaganda and then go to the acting madness in Metropolis, you will leave most students with a deadly impression.

Totally contrary to some of my own experiences. Not too long ago, I lent "Sunrise" to a friend of mine, an emancipated, modern woman who clearly isn't the one who lets her husband play the patriarchial game with her. She had a good interest in films, but had hardly seen any silents before. After she had watched the film, she said that "Sunrise" was the greatest film she had ever seen. Since then, she has amassed more books on Murnau than I have. I guess what attracts her about silents in general now is that they are NOT basically like "modern films with only sound missing". And as I assume you have a teaching job as well apart from your library work, why don't you try to emphasize that difference, the worth of these films despite the over-acting and the melodrama? Few students would read something like "Paradise Lost" of their own accord, but there are ways to convince them of it nevertheless. And sorry for so many examples from English literature, but that's where I basically come from.

EDIT: Schreck, I see you posted while I was busy responding (nice new thingy with the new forum software, btw), and notice that some of your points basically are the same as mine, though with different emphasis. I fully agree with your description of the end of "City Girl".

[GringoTex]

City Girl was a real eye-opener for me. I always assumed the leap from mobile camera in Sunrise to stationary camera in Tabu was necessitated by extreme remote location shooting, but City Girl shows Murnau already abandoning the dolly tracks. I can only recall two non-diegetic dollies: a brief one in the city and the extraordinary one in the run through the wheat field. Every other camera movement is associated with moving farming equipment. The result is a decoupage that is strikingly contemporary. It appears to me to be Murnau's first "sound" film. He could have recorded dialogue without changing a single shot, and it still would have worked.

Thematically, it's an interesting inversion of the City/Country dichotomy in Sunrise. The city brings morality to the country rather than treachery. And it's the country that supplies the lovers' playground instead of the city.

You need to be more suspicious of what schools and status quos teach you about narrative flow and rhythm.

Do schools even teach film narrative and rhythm anymore? They didn't when I was there. Everything was ideological interpretation. Which is why a brilliant theorist like Bordwell has become persona non grata in academic circles.

[Tommaso]

Do schools even teach film narrative and rhythm anymore? They didn't when I was there. Everything was ideological interpretation.

Reminds me of teaching poetry without explaining what stanzas or rhyme-schemes are. Which is actually what happens more and more often.