Another of the early sound film exercises of the giant British filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, the immortal master of suspense, who in those years, beginning the third decade of the last century, was naturally still delineating his definitive cinematic style. Picture that is very coherent with the other works that together give shape to the director's film production, in which we miss almost all the main artistic vertices of the filmmaker, but in turn, for the prepared eye, it will be possible to recognize some common points with the mentioned features, the other films that make up this formative stage of the great Hitch. Keeping some of these common points, the director adapts to the big screen again a work primarily literary, in this case a play of a certain success by John Galsworthy, which portrays the history of the rural drama of two families, one of rooted country ancestry, which will have a rough shock when its tranquility and routine break when the other, a wealthy family, whose wealth is product of great businesses, arrives; that friction will bring lamentable and even fatal consequences. We will recognize some relatively assertive faces of Hitchcock's filmography, as well as new additions to his acting team as is natural; a movie branded as minor, but never despicable.
The actions begin in a farm, a rural environment where the daily activities of these locations are carried out, is the estate where the Hillcrist marriage lives, the husband (CV France) and Mrs. Hillcrist (Helen Haye), among to his Daughter Jill (Jill Esmond). Their existence is quiet, however, some economic hardships begin to torment the peasant clan, and at that moment appears Mr. Hornblower (Edmund Gwenn), wealthy city aristocrat, that arrives at the field with intentions to buy lands and modernize the area. In an initial interview with Mr. Hillcrist, Hornblower makes known his intentions to buy their land, obtaining negative resistance; the war is declared, even says Hillcrist. The economic difficulties do not cease, an auction is carried out by the lands of the Hillcrist, buying it Hornblower for a large monetary sum. Thus comes the aristocratic patriarch and his sons, Rolf (Frank Lawton) and Charles (John Longden), in addition to his daughter-in-law Chloe (Phyllis Konstam), but the way they arrive does more than irritate former owners, particularly Mrs. Hillcrist. The country matriarch does not doubt in, aided by Dawker (Edward Chapman), blackmailing Mr. Hornblower with shameful secret information that has on Chloe. The very tense situation will finally have a regrettable ending for both families in litigation.
The feature depicts a strong human conflict, a social conflict, a social-classes-clash, and this marked contraposition and contrast is readily printed, when we see a representative of each clan together in one of the first sequences, the beautiful Jill and the young Rolf Hornblower, and the opposition becomes clear and obvious: he in a car, she on a horse; he wearing black, she in white. Whether or not random these details, let us glimpse the strong antagonism of families we will appreciate, including some shots overlaying to reinforce this intention of Hitch. Curiously (and strangely as well, by the way) Hitch does not dare to make many of his usual visual contraptions like the one just mentioned, and in the other few that he wields, a nice and warm Expressionist heritage is noticed. Nevertheless, in certain cinematographic edges, it does keep closeness and similarity the picture with other contemporaries, like the immediately previous
Murder!. Thus, we can see a very characteristic beginning of the film, when we see a fast parade of images chained, typical images of the area where everything happens, detailed images of animals, domestic dogs, people, a horn, etc. These images are characteristic of the pictures of this stage of Hitch, and are, among other elements, what make a task relatively easy, for the connoisseur, to recognize this hitchcokian movie as a work of its author. Like so many other Hitchcockian features of those years, the present video, inspired as many times in theater dramas, is impregnated with a strong scenic conception of that artistic branch. Thus, slow plane sequences in turn give form to a theatrical halo; that curtain, which, like a sheet, repeated and significant times appears on the screen (when Chloe approaches a collapse over her reputation), sometimes
transforming into a door, which separates the viewer from the action, who almost feels it.
Also, most of the actions happen indoors, and this, added to the few main characters, with secondary ones as well, contributes to generate that subtle theatrical but almost always present in the movie aura, and inevitably also gives it a certain slowness development to the film, which ends at certain moments feeling innocuous. We will appreciate some details of plastic beauty at the beginning of the film, Miss Hillcrist walks away riding a horse, and a beautiful frame presents her to us, surrounded by the natural environment, and despite the absence of vital color in the black and white, beauty is appreciated in that brief picture. In an almost immediate sequence, we appreciate the car of a member of the Hornblowers approaching a house, with an equal of laudable frame, but unfortunately, the images of these characteristics practically do not repeat during the film, because as it was said, incomprehensibly the director almost completely resigns to his accustomed and appreciable visual tricks; something lamentable, is a film of the most linear that has been seen from him. But among the positive elements in the film, which of course there are, we have the sequence of the auction, which is one of the highlights of the film in terms of staging, starting with a slow pace, barely interrupted by certain Jill's hallucinations, to then reach a frenetic pace when bidders begin to make their offerings. To this fast pace collaborates an energic and vigourous camera work, trembling putting us in the auctioner's point of view, the situation grows in intensity at a geometric rhythm, and reaches the greatest tension when Hornblower's final offer is accepted. The change of rhythm in this sequence is sensible, and it is necessary considering how crucial the circumstance is, introducing us to the drama of both the peasant and the aristocrat, introducing us to the closest thing to the suspense that is in the picture.
Interesting in a not very attractive work is Hitch's portrayal of the society of his time, of the rancid aristocracy -as in the very film sometime is said-, of its concern to maintain a false and artificial image before the society, the fear of social humiliation. But also hypocrisy, machiavellianism, things that are not alien to the supposedly lower stratum, the rural stratum of the Hillcrist, particularly in the surprising and cold figure of the mother. In the film we explore dangerous human relations, what the passions can unleash on the people, putting at risk their own existences, an aggressiveness that became psychological torture for poor Chloe, who ends up crumbling in the middle of that despicable world. In the midst of these outrages, in the midst of that hardness, of that machiavellianism and coldness, only Chloe cracks, she is the fragility in the middle of all that hardness. The director portrays many of the human passions, negative passions, flaws, complex human relationships seen through the lens of social conflict. The final figure of the tree going down is the obvious symbolism of a human group that has decomposed, has broken, has been corrupted to its root. It is said that Hitch made this film more commissioned by British studies than anything else, and perhaps it is true, a conflict, a clash of two social masses is not a recurring theme in Hitch, aside from being left out a little the political cinema or class struggle, focusing more on human confrontation. Another work not very similar to filmmaker's usuals, something common in this period as it was said, his main topics are missing, there is no death, no suspense, no police investigation, and the few cornerstones that appear, do it in dribs and drabs. It is very noticeable that it is a feature of the initial period of Hitch, his English period, is still warm the filmmaker, still young, still without completely entering fully in his
thing, the suspense. Depending on the audience, it is a non-spectacular feature, but necessary for fans of the great Hitch.
Another of the early sound film exercises of the giant British filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, the immortal master of suspense, who in those years, beginning the third decade of the last century, was naturally still delineating his definitive cinematic style. Picture that is very coherent with the other works that together give shape to the director's film production, in which we miss almost all the main artistic vertices of the filmmaker, but in turn, for the prepared eye, it will be possible to recognize some common points with the mentioned features, the other films that make up this formative stage of the great Hitch. Keeping some of these common points, the director adapts to the big screen again a work primarily literary, in this case a play of a certain success by John Galsworthy, which portrays the history of the rural drama of two families, one of rooted country ancestry, which will have a rough shock when its tranquility and routine break when the other, a wealthy family, whose wealth is product of great businesses, arrives; that friction will bring lamentable and even fatal consequences. We will recognize some relatively assertive faces of Hitchcock's filmography, as well as new additions to his acting team as is natural; a movie branded as minor, but never despicable.
The actions begin in a farm, a rural environment where the daily activities of these locations are carried out, is the estate where the Hillcrist marriage lives, the husband (CV France) and Mrs. Hillcrist (Helen Haye), among to his Daughter Jill (Jill Esmond). Their existence is quiet, however, some economic hardships begin to torment the peasant clan, and at that moment appears Mr. Hornblower (Edmund Gwenn), wealthy city aristocrat, that arrives at the field with intentions to buy lands and modernize the area. In an initial interview with Mr. Hillcrist, Hornblower makes known his intentions to buy their land, obtaining negative resistance; the war is declared, even says Hillcrist. The economic difficulties do not cease, an auction is carried out by the lands of the Hillcrist, buying it Hornblower for a large monetary sum. Thus comes the aristocratic patriarch and his sons, Rolf (Frank Lawton) and Charles (John Longden), in addition to his daughter-in-law Chloe (Phyllis Konstam), but the way they arrive does more than irritate former owners, particularly Mrs. Hillcrist. The country matriarch does not doubt in, aided by Dawker (Edward Chapman), blackmailing Mr. Hornblower with shameful secret information that has on Chloe. The very tense situation will finally have a regrettable ending for both families in litigation.
The feature depicts a strong human conflict, a social conflict, a social-classes-clash, and this marked contraposition and contrast is readily printed, when we see a representative of each clan together in one of the first sequences, the beautiful Jill and the young Rolf Hornblower, and the opposition becomes clear and obvious: he in a car, she on a horse; he wearing black, she in white. Whether or not random these details, let us glimpse the strong antagonism of families we will appreciate, including some shots overlaying to reinforce this intention of Hitch. Curiously (and strangely as well, by the way) Hitch does not dare to make many of his usual visual contraptions like the one just mentioned, and in the other few that he wields, a nice and warm Expressionist heritage is noticed. Nevertheless, in certain cinematographic edges, it does keep closeness and similarity the picture with other contemporaries, like the immediately previous Murder!. Thus, we can see a very characteristic beginning of the film, when we see a fast parade of images chained, typical images of the area where everything happens, detailed images of animals, domestic dogs, people, a horn, etc. These images are characteristic of the pictures of this stage of Hitch, and are, among other elements, what make a task relatively easy, for the connoisseur, to recognize this hitchcokian movie as a work of its author. Like so many other Hitchcockian features of those years, the present video, inspired as many times in theater dramas, is impregnated with a strong scenic conception of that artistic branch. Thus, slow plane sequences in turn give form to a theatrical halo; that curtain, which, like a sheet, repeated and significant times appears on the screen (when Chloe approaches a collapse over her reputation), sometimes transforming into a door, which separates the viewer from the action, who almost feels it.
Also, most of the actions happen indoors, and this, added to the few main characters, with secondary ones as well, contributes to generate that subtle theatrical but almost always present in the movie aura, and inevitably also gives it a certain slowness development to the film, which ends at certain moments feeling innocuous. We will appreciate some details of plastic beauty at the beginning of the film, Miss Hillcrist walks away riding a horse, and a beautiful frame presents her to us, surrounded by the natural environment, and despite the absence of vital color in the black and white, beauty is appreciated in that brief picture. In an almost immediate sequence, we appreciate the car of a member of the Hornblowers approaching a house, with an equal of laudable frame, but unfortunately, the images of these characteristics practically do not repeat during the film, because as it was said, incomprehensibly the director almost completely resigns to his accustomed and appreciable visual tricks; something lamentable, is a film of the most linear that has been seen from him. But among the positive elements in the film, which of course there are, we have the sequence of the auction, which is one of the highlights of the film in terms of staging, starting with a slow pace, barely interrupted by certain Jill's hallucinations, to then reach a frenetic pace when bidders begin to make their offerings. To this fast pace collaborates an energic and vigourous camera work, trembling putting us in the auctioner's point of view, the situation grows in intensity at a geometric rhythm, and reaches the greatest tension when Hornblower's final offer is accepted. The change of rhythm in this sequence is sensible, and it is necessary considering how crucial the circumstance is, introducing us to the drama of both the peasant and the aristocrat, introducing us to the closest thing to the suspense that is in the picture.
Interesting in a not very attractive work is Hitch's portrayal of the society of his time, of the rancid aristocracy -as in the very film sometime is said-, of its concern to maintain a false and artificial image before the society, the fear of social humiliation. But also hypocrisy, machiavellianism, things that are not alien to the supposedly lower stratum, the rural stratum of the Hillcrist, particularly in the surprising and cold figure of the mother. In the film we explore dangerous human relations, what the passions can unleash on the people, putting at risk their own existences, an aggressiveness that became psychological torture for poor Chloe, who ends up crumbling in the middle of that despicable world. In the midst of these outrages, in the midst of that hardness, of that machiavellianism and coldness, only Chloe cracks, she is the fragility in the middle of all that hardness. The director portrays many of the human passions, negative passions, flaws, complex human relationships seen through the lens of social conflict. The final figure of the tree going down is the obvious symbolism of a human group that has decomposed, has broken, has been corrupted to its root. It is said that Hitch made this film more commissioned by British studies than anything else, and perhaps it is true, a conflict, a clash of two social masses is not a recurring theme in Hitch, aside from being left out a little the political cinema or class struggle, focusing more on human confrontation. Another work not very similar to filmmaker's usuals, something common in this period as it was said, his main topics are missing, there is no death, no suspense, no police investigation, and the few cornerstones that appear, do it in dribs and drabs. It is very noticeable that it is a feature of the initial period of Hitch, his English period, is still warm the filmmaker, still young, still without completely entering fully in his thing, the suspense. Depending on the audience, it is a non-spectacular feature, but necessary for fans of the great Hitch.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario