THE WIND
US, 1928, 95 minutes, Black and white.
Lilian Gish, Lars Hanson, Montague Love, Dorothy Cumming.
Directed by Victor Sjostrom.
The Wind was one of the last silent films made at MGM. It is a star vehicle for Lilian Gish who had begun her career in the films of D.W. Griffith including Intolerance. This film was directed by Swedish director Victor Sjostrom who began to direct some films in the United States in the 1920s including He Who Gets Slapped. His last film in the United States was in 1937 with Under the Red Robe. However, he is best remembered as the old man in Ingmar Bergman’s classic Wild Strawberries (1957).
The film is something of a desolate western. Lilian Gish portrays a young woman who moves to West Texas but finds that it is a windy desert place. She marries a man she does not love, is raped by another man and kills him – almost destroying herself. In fact, the original ending had her wandering the desert mad. Audience reaction and tests meant that the studio tacked on a rather more unbelievable happy ending.
The film shows the strength of silent film-making, the fixed camera, the special effects, the re-creation of the atmosphere of the desert – filmed in the Mojave Desert.
1. The status of the film as a silent classic? Silent techniques in the late silent period? Studios, location atmosphere, special effects? The focus on characters and faces? The captions - and their moral tone? The brevity of the film? The work of a Swedish director and his appreciation of American traditions, especially of the West?
2. Comment on the development of camera techniques in the late silent era, the tone of the captions, the strength of the plot? conventions and transcending conventions, the moral tone?
3. The tradition of American Westerns? Which did this film rely on the train ride, the sand and the desert atmosphere, the poor ranches, the horses, life in the towns, heroes and heroines? In which ways was it different? The significance of these differences?
4. The title and the symbol of the wind, its visual portrayal, its constant presence, the sand on the windows. the continued presence of the sand and the dust and the grit? The symbol of the wind for the American West, the harshness of nature, the isolation, the potential for human beings going mad?
5. The portrait of the West: the pioneers, the distances from the East, poverty, the clashes with nature, the isolation, the distances from other families, banding together, jealousies? The law and in justice?
6. How attractive a Lilian Gish heroine was Letty? The conventional introduction and her presence on the train, Roddy and his attentions? The prim girl from Virginia with her memories and her hopes? Hearing about the wind and Roddy’s suggestion about madness? Her response to his overtures? How was she prepared for her experiences in the West?
7. Her disappointment on arrival, the meeting with Liege and the old timer, their comic routines? The distance to the ranch, her meeting with the family love for Beverley and the children, the suspicions of Beverley? Her reactions to the windy the poverty? To the meat being prepared in the house, her distaste for the food? How well did she begin to adjust herself to this way of life? How much insight into the effect of 19th century traditions of the West?
8. The portrayal of the family: Beverley and his welcome, his illness, attention? The children and their response? Cora and her suspicions and jealousy? The repercussions for Lotty's marriage and the pressures from Cora?
9. The portrait of Letty and her learning to cope, her charm? Her clashes with the family? The dance and Roddy's proposals? Liege and the old-timer and their comic proposals? Letty's going away with Roddy and her disillusionment? Her fear and her hatred of Roddy? Her being abandoned and Cora pressurizing her?
10. The portrait of Liege as the hero, the comic touch his goodness and geniality - his work, farm, proposal? A hero for this kind of film?
11. The build-up to the capturing of the horses, the wind, Roddy's presence, his return and the sexual menace, his death? The irony of Letty's burying him and his reappearance, and the comment on the sand and the wind doing justice where injustice was done
12. Sequences like the dance and the atmosphere of the west and its humour, the coming of the cyclone and the visual effects of the wind and people going underground? The dramatic impact of this sequence, in Letty's life?
13. The background of the wild horse and their visual presentation, the symbolic horse in Letty's imagination? Its symbolism? Its reappearancea, at the time of Roddy's menace?
14. The implications of forced marriages, Letty's going to the house, Liege's tendency to violence and her violent reaction, his nobility in getting the money for her, the transition to her devotion to him, wanting to go off to the meeting but falling off her horse, her gradual appreciation of him and staying with him?
15. Themes of good and evil. right and wrong an portrayed realistically and symbolically in the American heritage?
