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24 out of 25 people found the following comment useful :- A Masterpiece by Any Standard., 1 July 2004 Author: Prof_Lostiswitz from Cyberia
I've watched The Wind several times, and I am convinced that it is one of the greatest movies ever. It is certainly the best silent western, and Lillian Gish has never been so profound as she is here.What lifts it to the rank of a masterpiece is the passion of the direction and camerawork, and it certainly shows the advantage in having a mature artist like director Victor Sjöström. The central character is, as promised, the wind, and the raw power of nature supersedes the melodrama. You become engulfed in the tempests and hurricanes, and it is only to easy to understand that they might drive the young lady mad.Lillian Gish also does a magnificent job; her usual overacting is actually appropriate for this role, as the powerful cinematic images have established the likeliness that she is falling to pieces. This surely has to be her greatest performance. Dorothy Cumming is also equally powerful as the embittered "other woman", one of the most evil characters to be found in a western. The other actors are adequate and satisfying without rising to the level of genius. Their acting is natural and unforced, unlike most silents.It definitely gains from being a silent movie, all that dialogue would become a distraction if we had to listen to it. It helps that Thames Silents Orchestra has composed a beautiful and moving soundtrack, one that would sound good on a CD recording.If you have any appreciation for silent film, rush out and get this one today!
26 out of 31 people found the following comment useful :- ALMOST gave it a 10, 2 January 2004 Author: Wayne Malin (wwaayynnee51@hotmail.com) from United States
One of the last great silent films.Letty (Lillian Gish) travels from Virginia to Texas to stay with her best friend. Unfortunately, he lives in a place in the middle of the desert and the wind is constantly blowing and throwing sand around. Letty begins to slowly go mad living there. She marries a man she doesn't love (handsome Lars Hanson), kills a man who rapes her and almost kills herself.The plot is kind of vague but plot isn't a top priority here. Mood is and this film captures it brilliantly. You get to feel the isolation that Letty feels and understand her depression. And, even though this is silent, the music score makes you "hear" the sand constantly swirling around...and you see it almost all the time. Director Victor Sjostrom does an excellent job--some scenes are just eye-popping. A cyclone hitting the small "town" is still impressive and the final wind storm is unbelievable. Location shooting in the Mohave Desert (where it reached 110% in the shade!) really helped the film.The print I saw had a brief introduction by Lillian Gish filmed around 1988 (she, sadly, died in 1993). It seems she brought the film to the attention of the studio; hand-picked the director and leading man (both Swedish) and said it was the most uncomfortable film experience she ever had. But she loved the film. I can see why.The acting is just great. Gish is superb...a truly great performance and she's incredibly beautiful. Lars Hanson matches her. He's tall, strong and undeniably handsome--the sequence in which he realizes Letty doesn't love him is heart-breaking. Mantagu Love is very good as the slimy man who attacks Letty. The only bad part is William Orlamond playing the "comic" relief--he's obnoxious, overacting and unfunny.I almost gave this a 10...but I couldn't. DEFINITE SPOILER AHEAD!!!!!The ending ruined this film. It has a big ridiculous happy ending that I didn't buy for one second. The original ending had Letty running off into the desert to die. Studio execs at the time wanted a happy ending so it was filmed, under strong protest, by director Sjostrom. In fact, he was so upset about changing the ending, he went back to Sweden and never came back to Hollywood again! SPOILER ENDED!!!!!!!!The film was a major bomb when it came out. It's now regarded as a classic...but not back then. So it's an incredible, great silent film well worth seeing...but that ending!!!!
18 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :- Outstanding Atmosphere, 21 March 2002 Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio
The outstanding atmosphere makes this classic melodrama especially memorable. The story and the acting would have made a pretty good movie by themselves, but it is "The Wind" itself that makes it something more. Not only is the constant presence of the wind a well-conceived figurative parallel to the events in the characters' lives, but making it work on the screen was also a remarkable technical achievement for its era.Lillian Gish is deservedly praised for her role as Letty, a young woman from the east who travels to a strange and unforgiving region. This is the kind of role that Gish always seemed born to play. But Lars Hanson also does an excellent job in an even more difficult role. In order for the story to work, Hanson has to make his character fully sympathetic to the audience, while at the same time making it plausible that Gish's character does not care for him very much.It's still very impressive the way that the powerful prairie winds are made such an indispensable part of the movie. It must have involved a great deal of work and sacrifice to achieve such realism without fancy technology. And it is masterful the way that the howling, never-ceasing winds are used to parallel the conflicts among the characters. This is one of the fine classics of the silent era that should not be missed.
10 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :- One of Gish's Finest, 16 August 2002 Author: Shelly_Servo3000 from Wisconsin
Lillian Gish's legendary career was nearly as lengthy as her life. Time and time again, she has shown audiences that she was truly one of the finest actresses who ever lived. A perfect example of her power and artistry is in "The Wind".Miss Gish plays "Letty", a young girl from Virginia who moves to her cousin's house on the wild, open plains of Texas. The plot is very interesting and very fluid. Miss Gish is wonderful as usual (the sequence of events at the end of the movie is among the finest performances on film) but the real star of the movie is Swedish heartthrob Lars Hanson. A real delightful performance, with real charisma.A must-see film that deserves more recognition.
9 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :- Emotion made visible., 3 April 2005 Author: Gene Bivins (gayspiritwarrior) from Los Angeles, California
This is quite simply one of the handful of greatest achievements in the history of visual storytelling. There are images as fresh, as inventive as any you will ever see. You may find some of Gish's emoting a little over the top, but immediately there follow moments when she is as subtle and complex as anyone who came after her. She did, after all, invent screen acting as we now know it. One may wish for the original ending Gish and Sjostrom wanted; but the final images as re-shot were still created by artists at the height of their respective powers, and are memorable in their own right. The desert wind lives and howls in this film, as it has done only rarely in films by John Ford and David Lean. Anyone who doubts that cinema is art has never seen The Wind.
8 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :- It'll blow you away!, 11 February 2004 Author: tpottera from Maryland
Really awesome silent film about a young woman who finds herself at the mercy of people who use and abuse her. With no way to get home, stranded in the mojave desert, Lillian Gish has maybe her best role. The special affects are astounding. The ending is very poor, however. Lillian Gish herself talks about how they insisted a sad ending would ruin her career, even though her films all had sad endings in the past and she was a huge star! She herself, hated the ending they made. Just ignore it and think about how great the whole rest of the film is!
5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :- Silent Masterpiece, 14 February 2005 Author: kester_gillard from United Kingdom
An awesome, dark & atmospheric film. Gish is superb as the fragile Letty driven to the brink of madness by the incessant wind whipping up the sand. Her portrayal, with her wide staring eyes & tensing hands as the madness threatens to overwhelm her is stunning. The film takes its time to establish its characters, with a constant backdrop of the menace of the environment & also the danger of violence & the descent into madness, building to a thundering & almost unbearably tense experience with the actual sand storm itself. A true classic of the silent era capturing a performer at the peak of her powers-the image of Letty staring wide eyed through the window as the sand uncovers the body will stay with you.
5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :- Another MGM Silent Classic, 1 September 2000 Author: nickandrew from PA
Peculiar, but brilliantly filmed silent classic starring Gish as a young woman who battles for her life as she lives in the windy Texas desert, and is torn between two men who want her. Special effects are quite breathtaking for its time and since it was filmed in the scorching Mojave Desert in California.
6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :- Would be a wonderful introduction...., 22 February 2005 Author: Damfino1895 from Pembrokeshire, Wales
...to the world of the silent era of movies. A most marvellous movie, beautifully acted and directed, even with the sappy ending. Victor Sjostrom directs this movie beautifully and it was a shame he never made another English language movie. Also a shame is that the incredibly handsome talented and charismatic Lars Hanson returned to Sweden when talking pictures emerged, his performance as Lige is incredible and he steals every scene he is in with Lillian Gish, no wonder she hand picked him for the role, in the wedding night sequence he just breaks your heart as he realises his marriage is a sham. Now, time to find a copy of "The Scarlet Letter", my holy grail of movies, if it's half as good as "The Wind" then it'll be more than worth the wait.
4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :- The Powerful Saga of Love and Deception., 1 August 2001 Author: Amber (sweetiedarling) from Brisbane, Australia
A young girl (Lillian Gish) goes to live with her cousin, but finds herself to be an unwelcome guest. To escape from her cousin's evil wife, she marries against her will. However, the harsh solitude of country life, and the amazing strength of the wind, almost sends her to insanity. An amazingly effective film, which definately proves that Silent Movies are the highest form of cinematic expression!!!
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