The Taming of the Shrew (1929) - Sam Taylor

1928 is a year that is indelibly marked in the history of film art, is a date that would mark a before and an after, an epiphany that would change everything forever. the silent film era was over, the silent film reached its twilight, as Thomas Alva Edison, one of the initiators in the United States, already expected. So the talking pictures arrived, it began with historic The Jazz Singer, released in this significant year, generating a unique revolution, to which many acting stars succumbed, which many giants filmmakers could not survive. The legendary Mary Pickford has privileged place at the peak moment, and after winning the then artistically valuable and appreciable Academy Award with Coquette, that same year, 1929, she embarked on her second sound film adventure, the film that concerns us, and what a film she chose. For this opportunity Sam Taylor performs the extremely challenging task of adapting a Shakespearean play, and the choice would be The Taming of the Shrew, in which a female, with her highly spirit and indomitable character, frightens all suitors, making suffer his father, who sets as condition for her sweet sister to get married, that first must marry the indomitable, something unthinkable, until a different suitor arrives. A picture in which Pickford for first and only time shares scenes with her husband Douglas Fairbanks, and that divided critics when it saw the light.

                

A puppet show welcomes us to Padua, with very crowded streets, and where there is an elegant residence. In the palace, we find Bianca (Dorothy Jordan), with Hortensio (Geoffrey Wardwell), her suitor, and the wealthy homeowner and her father, Baptista (Edwin Maxwell). The eldest daughter is Katherine (Pickford), which literally frightens her suitors throwing and breaking things, it is impossible for anyone to court her. Baptista then determines that before the tender Bianca can marry Hortensio, Katherine should get married, a project that everyone seem as far fetched. Everything seems thus a lost cause, but then makes his appearance Petruchio (Fairbanks), fiery and noisy individual, who wishes to marry, and who is soon informed of the situation, about Katherine and her temperament, and immediately prepares to go to Baptista's house. So he does, is presented with Katherine, and incredibly, turns out to be even more intense, more impetuous than herself, gets in fact tamed the beast, since their first meeting, gets even the marriage to be arranged, a wedding to which he presents attired in the most bizarre way. Marriage is made of the most outlandish and funny manners, both characters collide hard, but finally borns a genuine love between them, and pleased Baptista sees husband and wife stay together and happy.

The mythical couple that meets to viewers on the screen for this film apparently did not shoot quite placidly, when some initial texts inform us of certain disclosures by unforgettable female, the Pickford who, according to what is stated, asserts the shooting was an ordeal, because of differences with her husband, and other topics. However, the text goes on and tells us that in retrospect, the actress claimed that her husband was magnificent in the shooting, and we are invited to delight with the flirtations of the couple in the film, and the fact is that actually, if it was a pleasant or torturous shooting aside, the legendary couple would not be together on the same picture again, so that makes the film to get a mythic aura. She always used to be the star, undisputed star in her films, now shares roles with her husband in real life, is remarkable, half of the founders of United Artists together, as they, along with David Wark Griffith and Charly Chaplin, cemented the Yankee legendary film studio. We will see one of the first images of the Pickford in talkies, we will see her in a burst of fury with objects flying through the air, she throws them fiercely, as similarly dismisses from her bedroom every suitor who even dare to try woo her. While it is not the first sound picture for Mary, it feels anyway as something amazing, for those who only knew her immortal works of silent movies, to listen to her finally talking, finally hear her voice. Those were really years when the cinema was reconfiguring, and thousands of spectators must have waited long years for this, hear Pickford talking, something that not a few probably considered chimerical, as several tremendous geniuses of cinema, directors and actors, predicted, with few divining skills, the sound film would be a fad. As it was quite expectable, and inevitable, there are detected in her interpretation still some echoes of her heritage as a legend of silent films, in her body language that heritage is still noticed, is perfectly logical, an actress coming of silent films, had in her body and face her greatest expressive vehicle, her body language composed almost all her acting range.

Despite her theatrical beginnings, it is known that the Pickford, of course, had a lot of insecurity and anxiety about her voice that finally was printed in the big screen, but the truth is that the goddess, America's sweetheart, as it was her most famous nickname, had no problems in this film to make the jump to the new cinema. And it was no surprise, she had won the Oscar in his sonorous debut with Coquette the same year, also directed by Sam Taylor; in her first foray into such a change, she obtained the highest possible recognition. Simply a legend the Pickford, to whom we hear talking, we see maturing, evolving artistically, which many contemporary stars never got. Certainly the public must have gotten greatly surprised by the turnaround in the actress's career, from her initial immaculate and devotees mute characters, to a prostitute in Coquette, then this temperamental shrew, everything in one year. The truth is that Mary was already willing to make that change, tenaciously sought the Oscar, and got it, overcame the initial normal insecurity, and gloriously adapted to the new stage of cinema. The characterization by Fairbanks is also significant, pure fire and burning intensity, highlighting the comic guideline that has the Shakespearean play, and while some accuse him of alleged excess in the theatricality of his incarnation, the truth is that his contribution is in line with the feature, his contribution is positive for the overall atmosphere of the film, attention, of the film. Delirious is the lunatic finery with which attemded his own wedding, his screams and phrases fervently uttered, are able to do the unthinkable, taming the untamable, the shrew, whom has finally found her match. The talkies had come, and if there were skeptics, just had to hear Douglas's stentorian voice, his stridences were the biggest sign that the sound came to the movies, the talkies was a reality, a reality that, although many were displeased, it was there to stay.

Speaking about the film and its realization itself, in the first passages will surprise us to appreciate the agility and ease of remarkable camera, with the advent of talkies seems the enthusiasm of many filmmakers had gone on, this may be reflected and translated in director Taylor audiovisual language. It is in this way that we will see some travellings just beginning the film, agile and dynamic tracking shots, zoom in and out effectively setting a dynamic language, determined, surprisingly solved. Perhaps the huge challenge of adapting Shakespeare had something to do with it, because the feature is a pioneer in this long and uncertain tradition of film adaptations of works by English giant author. Filmmaker, with that almost comparable to the genius of the playwrighter pressure, may have wanted to demonstrate the strenghts that has his discipline, cinema, compared with the virtues of literary art, at least, is a feeling that perceived who writes this lines when appreciating that striking and dynamic exercise of the camera. Inevitable firestorm of criticism receives the picture for being what it is, an adaptation of Shakespeare, did not lack someone who calls infamous the director Taylor; as stated, it is the film pioneer in this section, the first film that dared such an enterprise, and worth is to say that this article seeks, without neglecting of course the primal literary creation, to focus on film analysis, in the attributes, virtues and any possible defect that the film might have. Thus, the feature largely preserves the theatrical aura of the play, with attractive frames, symmetrical, harmonious development of the camera almost always, according to the scenic nature sought. And gets its other goal, entertains, amuses, generates more than a smile and joy, because the couple actually gets to us, with or without problems on set, achieves that chemistry, on which rests the strength of the film, two people strong, hot tempers, where man ends up neutralizing, taming the beast. Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, silent film legends together in this picture, an adaptation, the first Shakespearean film adaptation, at the dawn of talkies. Inducements to view this brief but engaging film, abound.