Review #403: 'Way Down East' (1920)

Anna (Lillian Gish), is a poor country girl who arrives at her rich auntie's mansion to ask for money. The spoiled, womanising Lennox Sanderson (Lowell Sherman), is bored with seducing upper-class girls and becomes infatuated by Anna. Seeing that she a moral, God-fearing woman, Lennox proposes to her and arranges a sham marriage. Anna becomes pregnant, only for Lennox to reveal his scheme and kick her out, and Anna's baby dies. Lost and emotionally damaged, Anna wanders to a nearby farm, ran by Squire Bartlett (Burr McIntosh) and his scripture-quoting wife Mother (Kate Bruce). Squire's son David (Richard Barthelmess) falls for Anna, only for Lennox to show up lusting after another girl.

It's hard for me to bring myself to criticise and evaluate a work of D.W. Griffith. As questionable as his political and racial views were, he is one of cinema's true innovators, and even here, back in 1920, he employs an early Technicolor process and an eye for epic cinema. Yet the film hasn't dated well at all, and the religious and moral preaching, and the over-use of title cards, makes the film ridiculously old-fashioned and tedious. This is Griffith's ode to the idea that God created one woman for every man, and states it is a story of women everywhere, who suffer at the hands of men's selfish womanising. It's quite hard to swallow morality lessons from the man that made The Birth of a Nation (1915), a film that glamorised the Ku Klux Klan, and made black people out to be nothing more than loutish animals.

Yet the film does display Griffith's film-making ability, especially in the famous climax that shows David rescuing  an unconscious Anna from an ice flood. It even holds up today, with the lack of CGI effects or actors on wires making it even more impressive, and it's all captured beautifully by Billy Bitzer and Hendrik Sartov's cinematography. And Gish, one of the most successful and hard-working actresses in film history (and one of the few survivors of the death of the silent era) is exceptional. Her timid Anna is beaten down at every turn by the amoral upper classes, who, in Griffith's eyes, are defying God with their whoring and luxurious, indulgent lives. Yet overall, at 145 minutes, the film drags, especially when Griffith shifts his concentration on various supporting sub-plots, that play out like intrusive and uninteresting vignettes. Certainly worth seeing for some fine technical work and the captivating Gish, but not a film I can see myself needing to watch again.


Directed by: D.W. Griffith
Starring: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Lowell Sherman, Burr McIntosh
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #120: 'Der Golem' (1920)

The giant frame of Paul Wegener as the Golem is one of the best known characters from the silent era, and one of the first icons of horror. Der Golem is actually the third film to feature the character, the first being The Golem (1915), and the second The Golem And The Dancing Girl (1917), which is a short comedy with Wegener donning the costume to frighten a girl he is in love with. Tragically, those two films are now considered lost, and only fragments equalling about 14 minutes of the first film remain. This film is actually a prequel, and it's full title is Der Golem: Wie Er In Die Welt Kam (How He Came Into The World), but is now commonly know as simply Der Golem.

The Jews of medieval Prague face persecution from the townsfolk. Terrified of their doomed fate, Rabbi Loew (Albert Steinruck) uses his skills in black magic to create The Golem, a mythical figure from Jewish folklore. He is made entirely from clay, and has an amulet in his chest that gives him power, and when removed turns him back into lifeless clay. He is initially used as a servant, and then to terrify the townsfolk who are threatening them. The Golem eventually gets tired of being used as a tool of fear and begins to turn on his creator, and starts to lay waste to the Ghetto.

Like the majority of films made in Weimar Germany, the film has an expressionist tone, with lavish, artistic sets that dominate the frame. Similar in feel to the great Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari (1920), it is however more subtle in its artistic flair, and lacks Caligari's rickety (although wonderful in its own way) sets. It is also quite terrifying in its realisation of a segregation that would occur in the country only a decade later, although it does portray the Jews as vengeful and as studying the dark arts.

The Golem itself is a great movie monster. Tragic in the same way as Frankenstein's monster, he is brought into the world without having asked to be, and is expected to carry out terrible acts against his will. Paul Wagener portrays him with all silent intensity and uncontrollable rage, with his towering frame sending his enemies running for the hills. He also impressively co-wrote and co-directed the film. This is an enjoyable film that breezes by in its rather slight running time, and can be forgiven for some over-acting and the occasional tedious scene. It also has some interesting social comments, and is a frightening prelude to one of the most horrific periods in Europe's history.


Directed by: Carl Boese, Paul Wegener
Starring: Paul Wegener, Albert Steinrück, Lyda Salmonova
Country: Germany

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie