Hallelujah (1929) - King Vidor

When ending the twenties of the last century, undoubtedly the arrival of sound to cinema was its largest and most important achievement, the maximum revolution, something that was reshaping the global film scene, creating changes that will never disappear. Hollywood was by far the largest film production center, and wth the inminent emergence of sound ahead, put many of its greatest creative geniuses to test, and King Vidor is one of the most brilliant exponents of those years. For this, his first sound film, the American director adapts a story he wrote himself, in which he presents the experiences of a farming family of blacks, whose eldest son is entangled with an attractive dancer, seductive woman who betrays him to lose, in a gambling game, all the money obtained for selling the family farm, and a brother of the protagonist dies. He runs away, becomes preacher, remakes his life, but when later returns to his village, he finds the female again, that once again will make him suffer difficulties. At the dawn of the then novel talkies, with the stars of ecran beginning to explore their voices, Vidor dares to shooting his first filmic exercise with an entirely black cast, also shots an exemplary film exercise that was already beginning to use sound as central element. A memorable film, considered by some as the first great masterpiece of talkies.

              

In a cotton farm, we see the old Parson (Harry Gray), with his wife "Mammy" (Fanny Belle DeKnight), and their children, the eldest is Zeke (Daniel L. Haynes). After seeing family perform daily activities with cotton, young Zeke meets the beautiful Chick (Nina Mae McKinney), she dances in the street, and when she learns of a hundred dollars that the young man has proceeding from the selling of his family farm, she deceits and leads him to a gambling place. There, with a friend of hers, who is called Hot Shot (William Fountaine), she gets to make Zeke lose all the money betting on the dice; the loss of the money generates a roughhouse, his younger brother Spunk (Everett McGarrity) dies over a bullet, and Zeke leaves town. Time passes and the fugitive has become preacher, religious man who after years returns to his village, now married to the virtuous Missy Rose (Victoria Spivey), but when he finds again Chick, unexpected things happen. The voluble Chick is still interested in Zeke, preacher who suddenly abandons his new life by going with the flighty girl, who soon tries to elope with her former lover Hot Shot. A crazed preacher pursues the fugitives, in a fatal run, ending with the preacher in prison, but having a warm and comforting ending to his misfortunes.

The picture takes us immediately into the world and intimacy of the family of blacks, we see them singing, dancing with ardor, even the smallest of the house dance with ease and joy at home, we see the Mammy matriarch cradling his stems before sleeping; it is a close, intimate, warm environment, in which comedy never ceases to be present, on a film that is characterized precisely by being the first to introduce thereby the world of blacks, a sincere and simple approach to their routine, everyday life. But we also see the family singing in their work, jingling happily while working obtaining cotton, walking and singing in musical marches of almost ritualistic activity, their daily way of earning a living. In the years in which films presenting genuinely black actors was just something utopian, King Vidor breaks all molds shooting a film with real black actors, and to top it off, the entire cast was African American, not a single white in his cast. Even more remarkable feat when we appreciate contemporary exercises by other directors, with white actors who presented with their faces covered in bitumen to portray African Americans, a form of representation very spread out and then adopted; when we see one of the many films of David Wark Griffith, just to mention the most famous filmmaker then, this detail is checked promptly. That is why the merit of Vidor, his courage and boldness in this film are really remarkable, is appreciable the genuine approach that makes to the then unexplored world and reality of African Americans, without painted faces, without absurd or false ornaments, only portraying their daily routine with simplicity and closeness. It is a significant and positive audacity which materializes Vidor, then confessed the director that had been one of his wishes to make a film about African Americans with a cast of genuinely black actors, and behold got it. That initial happiness, joy and innocence will be broken however, as the feature itself, which suffers severe change, partition of its structure when in the second part thrust out the dark passions, vengeance, death and lust.

As pointed out, in the film there is preeminence of dancing, music, ambience of the black race, one of the characteristics because of which the actors of color were slowly gaining notoriety and increased occurrence in the history of North American cinema. There will be many scenes of singing, music scenes, almost choreographic, even appearing embryonic jazz notes, gaiety, joy and charisma, a compendium of skill and use of the just arrived cinema novelties. Just one year after reaching the sound to the movies with The Jazz Singer (1928), filmmaker Vidor makes this colorful and eloquent sound splurge, sets which, as said, perhaps not in vain more than one proclaimed as the first masterpiece of the talkies, it is actually the first feature that wields in such an exemplary manner and uses the intimidating new resources available to filmmakers. Certainly the cinema had changed, had changed forever, for the first time the sound was a fundamental part of a picture, the sound could already mould a film, its structure, the sound could set the pace of the film, guiding sequences montage, become effectively the core of the film. It was the first time a film dare such an enterprise at such a crucial moment for cinema, the American director indeed tilled a well-earned place in the annals of the history of film art. The merit is great: when sound was still under discussion, while silent film acting legends were collapsing before the imminence of having to test their thoughtlessly inadequate voices, while geniuses filmmakers were refusing to produce talkies and predicted the ruin of the new cinema development, pops out this significant feature. It has an auditive core since assembly and narrative rhythm lie precisely in that sound, is a powerfully auditive film, having the sequence of lament for the death of Spunk as an excellent example of the interference of sound in film, strength and weight that has in the structure of mentioned sequence.

Thus, visual aesthetics, or a prodigious use and deployment of the camera remain in the background, as the preponderant issue is the fervid use of sound, and the construction of much of the film according to this aspect, linking many elements around lyrics, songs, dances, sermons by Zeke (to highlight, however, the sequence that closes the film, in which interesting exercise in camera we observe, Zeke chasing Hot Shot through a swamp in what can be seen as a prelude to the camera in hand later French nouvelle vague would depict). The latter mentioned, preachings sequences, are undeniable evidence of the landing of sound in cinema, and sequences like this, in addition to the sequences of mourning for the death of Spunk, are also eloquent samples of close-ups work on the feature. We will see a remarkable assembly work, permeating those moments of frenzy, extreme alienation and lust in the case of preaching in front of Chick, grief and severe pain in the case of the child's death. Different feelings but dealt with simile efficiency thanks to the work of close-ups that brings us into the drama and feelings, passions of the characters, while as well flaunts the best light and shadow contrast-game seen in the film. And precisely that is another aspect worth to highlight in the feature, the portrayed feelings in it, the strength of the drama and its characters, because to the merits mentioned regarding superb use of the sound, we add a very human story. Tragic characters, tormented individuals, who can not escape their pathetic dramas, their intense passions, this enriches the movie adding to its successes, a strong and very human story, in which lust is present, as when we see Chick biting Zeke's hand. By the way, it is obvious that the mark and the heavy legacy of a lifetime (the about four decades that film was existing, at least) making films through some manners, did not disappear from the overnight. And so, on the film still we appreciate echoes of the silent realizations, still some details in the assembly, but basically in the narrative aspect, in the transition from a sequence to another, it is perceived what is a perfectly natural inertia of yet narrating with silent film resources. It is said that the picture was initially silent-made, the sound was added later along with the dialogues, a fact that actually can not be far-fetched, knowing that in the early sound films, it was usual habit shooting a silent version, along with the talkie version, understandable considering the fact that sound was a revolutionary and innovative new method of shooting. The performances are positive, strong, perhaps highlighting Nina Mae McKinney with his fiery interpretation, uttering intensely Hallelujah! while approuches Zeke, one of the most pathetic figures in the film. Crucial and necessary feature, certainly an important part of the history and development of film art, a cornerstone to understanding its maturation process.