With "The Cheat" and "The Whispering Chorus", Cecil B. DeMille demonstrated talent and a willingness to experiment. For me, watching "Male and Female" was like witnessing the death of an artist, because with it, he never looked back. I don't mean to say he never made a worthwhile picture again, but those films, for the most part, are fundamentally based on the same principles: sex sells and so does exotica. He used biblical stories later because it's an obvious way to feature that without it seeming so trashy.
"Male and Female" looks lovely, of course, but that's as shallow as the rich family in the story. I doubt anyone at this time knew more about how tinting glosses a picture than DeMille and his crew. His earlier picture, "Carmen" (1915), is another exercise in that. He and his then-usual cinematographer Alvin Wyckoff were also masters of lighting. "Male and Female" contains such beautiful shots as a silhouette of Crichton carrying Lady Mary to shore. Unfortunately, there's not much beyond it.
This film seems to be social commentary, but there's so many holes in it that it seems DeMille barely gave it any thought. Crichton is as superficial as his masters are; he loves the helpless, spoiled fool Lady Mary rather than the devoted maid, who loves him. Gloria Swanson is beautiful, after all. The ironic twist is that Crichton has his former masters become his servants. What's the moral here, if any? Is it that class distinctions are largely arbitrary? I didn't need a movie to tell me that. The many intertitles try to find a moral--repeatedly--until we might think we did learn something.
Plot holes are frequent, as well. Where are the yachtsmen in sailor outfits after the shipwreck? And, the drinking place of the leopards must be a dangerous spot--because they sit there, and he tells her a story! This is merely a silly romance. It isn't making a statement, or commenting on reality (or showing it); the purpose of this film is to get all the sizzle it can out of a relationship between a dominating male and submissive female (of course one that's stubborn at first), to have an exotic Babylonian fantasy sequence, and to have a bath scene. It's usually about money, but that's all these moves attain.
By the time of the Babylonian fantasy, all the social commentary is lost. I don't care much for films of social commentary; it's the disingenuousness of "Male and Female" that I find condescending. The film left me wondering whether the characters understand the difference between reality and illusion: the real character of a person and the illusion of right to social status. Crichton and Lady Mary imply that they believe the Babylonian fantasy to actually be a past life. What's clear is that DeMille would make a career out of blurring such distinctions in the cheapest of ways.
"Male and Female" looks lovely, of course, but that's as shallow as the rich family in the story. I doubt anyone at this time knew more about how tinting glosses a picture than DeMille and his crew. His earlier picture, "Carmen" (1915), is another exercise in that. He and his then-usual cinematographer Alvin Wyckoff were also masters of lighting. "Male and Female" contains such beautiful shots as a silhouette of Crichton carrying Lady Mary to shore. Unfortunately, there's not much beyond it.
This film seems to be social commentary, but there's so many holes in it that it seems DeMille barely gave it any thought. Crichton is as superficial as his masters are; he loves the helpless, spoiled fool Lady Mary rather than the devoted maid, who loves him. Gloria Swanson is beautiful, after all. The ironic twist is that Crichton has his former masters become his servants. What's the moral here, if any? Is it that class distinctions are largely arbitrary? I didn't need a movie to tell me that. The many intertitles try to find a moral--repeatedly--until we might think we did learn something.
Plot holes are frequent, as well. Where are the yachtsmen in sailor outfits after the shipwreck? And, the drinking place of the leopards must be a dangerous spot--because they sit there, and he tells her a story! This is merely a silly romance. It isn't making a statement, or commenting on reality (or showing it); the purpose of this film is to get all the sizzle it can out of a relationship between a dominating male and submissive female (of course one that's stubborn at first), to have an exotic Babylonian fantasy sequence, and to have a bath scene. It's usually about money, but that's all these moves attain.
By the time of the Babylonian fantasy, all the social commentary is lost. I don't care much for films of social commentary; it's the disingenuousness of "Male and Female" that I find condescending. The film left me wondering whether the characters understand the difference between reality and illusion: the real character of a person and the illusion of right to social status. Crichton and Lady Mary imply that they believe the Babylonian fantasy to actually be a past life. What's clear is that DeMille would make a career out of blurring such distinctions in the cheapest of ways.