The Wind (1928)

So much average

Simply A Masterpiece

Admirable film.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

The wind Story Of A Young Girl With Her Fear The Wind. I Think No Movie After Or Before That Make This Kind Of Emotions . In One Side Is Young Girl And Other Side Is The Wind , Every Time Wind Comes She Freak Out If You Want Classic Movie With Powerful Ending See The Wind And You Never Remorse , Victor Make A Great Movie And Acting Is Great Too. Just See The Wind You Get Every Thing Without Any Dialog .

"The wind" was the second silent movie I had seen just after "Metropolis" ,along time ago;when I saw it again last week,I was not sure I would be so enthused over it.And I was wrong."The wind" remains one of the few silent movies which holds up well today.Lilian Gish was without a doubt the greatest actress of the silent era,and her career spanned the whole 20th centuries,encompassing memorable talkies such as "the night of the hunter " and " a wedding";without words ,she could express everything but she never,even in her more tragic scenes succumbed to self-pity - remember her firm stand against the rotten aristocracy in DW Griffith's "Orphans in the storm".Matching her every step of the way is Lars Hanson's generous husband,ready to sacrifice his own happiness -in a way close to Frank Borzage's characters-"The wind" is ,in turn,a melodrama (the sister-in-law ,envious and spiteful,resents the fact that that intruder steals cousin's and t children 's affection ),a western (the long rides in the desolate landscape and these wild horses ,with impressive pictures inspired by Sjostrom's/Seastrom's previous experiments ("Körkalen",1920),a thriller (Gish and Love ,who tries to rape her) ,a horror movie (the last minutes,when the dead seems to rise from his grave."The wind" is all this and more;since nobody was able to make us FEEL the presence of the wind like the great director did;it's really a character in itself ,and not always an enemy (Lige's last sentence).The viewer really feels it on his skin ,he hears the shutter beat in the storm ,he sees it come into the house .The coming of the talkies made "the wind" a commercial failure ;but its influence was important (William Wyler's "wuthering heights" ,and in France ,Yves Allégret tried to use rain -"Une Si Jolie Petite Plage"- in a similar way)

Lillian Gish plays her usual virginal character thrown into adverse and unjust circumstances, but here she does so much with the part as we watch her slowly unravel and lose her mind. She plays Letty, a girl from Virginia who comes to live with relatives in a dust bowl town. The atmosphere into which she travels doesn't make sense in many ways. The people there supposedly make their living from cattle ranching, but with the constant sandstorms I don't see how anything is supposed to survive in such an environment. However, that is not really the point. The constant wind and storms are just metaphors for Letty's own mental state and feeling of entrapment. Her cousin's wife is hostile to her from the start, convinced that Letty wants to take her husband away from her, and eventually forces her out of the home. As a result she marries a man she doesn't love, and once this is clear to him he accepts the situation and makes it a goal to raise enough money to send Letty back to Virginia where she will be happy. On top of this there is the constant specter of a wealthy married man who wants to take Letty's virtue for the recreation of it all.The visual work on this film is spectacular, much like Murnau's "Sunrise" except in reverse - this film starts out on an upbeat note with Letty looking forward to the new direction her life has turned, and it being all downhill from there. Thus we come to the familiar topic of the abrupt upbeat ending and how it didn't make any sense in the context of the rest of the film. It was an early example of studio suits interfering with the artistic vision of the filmmakers, and so upset director Victor Sjostrom that he never directed another film in America.Like Murnau's "Sunrise" and "The Crowd", 1928's "The Wind" is an example of silent film-making at its peak. This level of art in movies would be lost at the dawn of sound until the problems with the static camera could be overcome and the novelty of sound wore off to the extent that plot and meaningful dialog became important. The first problem - technical - was remedied much more quickly than the second problem, which was largely a matter of psychology and experience.Highly recommended for silent film fans.

In 1995 I saw a screening of The Wind as part of a TV celebration of 100 years of cinema and it was a great experience. Since then, I've only managed to see clips. However, I just recently got a copy of this film with the Carl Davis score and viewing it again was wonderful. Of course, I remembered some of the great scenes such as the face in the sand, but this is a film that gains enormously on repeated viewings and I got a great deal more out of it this time around. What follows represents my own impressions of this marvellous film. It is personal and not meant to be exhaustive—indeed the film is worth a book! The elemental setting of the desert with its perpetual wind acts as a stage for the struggles, external and internal, which the characters must undergo. They have their own interior winds of passion which they are only barely able to control, just as they physically live on the edge of survival in the external world. Cora {Dorothy Cumming} wields a knife menacingly in the presence of Letty (memorably, magnificently played by Lilian Gish} and even screams in a fury "I'd like to kill you". But Cora is not evil. She deeply loves her children and her husband and can't bear the presence of someone she considers a rival. Love is terribly valuable in this desolate world and is defended with terrible tenacity.Lige {Lars Hanson} tries to win the love of his new wife, Letty, in his bumbling but honest way. At one moment he tries to force himself on her. Her rejection of him allows us to see a supreme moment of Gish's command of powerful emotional facial expressions which convey fear, disgust, hurt, horror, and anguish. It is moments like this which convince me that Lilian is the greatest silent actress of all. Again, Lige is not a bad person. What he wanted and needed was a helpmate, someone to share his trials and struggles with a shared love. She can't give him that. Hence, he tells Letty he'll not touch her again and will work to send her back home.The great finale is one of the most magnificent moments in cinematic history. Letty must finally face her repressed sexual feelings for Wirt Roddy {Montagu Love—in another wonderful performance in a film filled with them} All the psychological tension is conveyed by the power of the irresistible wind. The surreal swaying of the objects is mirrored by the swaying of Letty's body as her mind approaches disintegration. We feel that "the centre cannot hold". The Mythically powerful image of the great horse galloping in the midst of the wind is something never to be forgotten and touches us so deeply, so profoundly, that it terrifies us as much as Letty. Here are forces deeper than the civilised paraphernalia of the world around us. Here is something at the root of the soul.The symbolism of the wind and the great mythic horse is multi-layered and I think that many would enjoy exploring this area. There are some really excellent comments elsewhere on this board which are certainly worth examination and which will provide some good sign posts for that journey.For myself? I found the film wonderful and I just cannot help being excited about how wonderful it is!