Reviews

SPOILERS BELOW

Cinema has long been known as the place of dreams, and Charlie Chaplin may have been the first person to recognize it. His `Shoulder Arms' turns out to be a soldier's fantasy, and now `The Kid' startlingly segues into the dream world of Chaplin's beloved tramp. Dreams are not limited to the same restrictions as reality; Chaplin uses the tramp's fantasy to present images in action that the audience previously could only imagine. Specifically, the characters resemble angels and devils who fly freely through the frame. Chaplin employs only this one extremely clever trick, but the possibilities at which it hints leave the viewer breathless.

Rating: 7

SPOILERS BELOW

D.W. Griffith's major theme is the plight of women. In `Broken Blossoms', a title card notes that women have only two courses, marriage and prostitution, neither of which is enticing. Griffith's women, usually played by Lillian Gish, are almost entirely powerless; at any moment they can fall victim to the violent, sexual appetites of men. In `The Birth Of A Nation', a woman is chased off a cliff by a would-be rapist. In `Intolerance', only an unexpected gunshot prevents a man's wife from being sexually attacked by his boss. Griffith, despite frequently being labeled a racist, is at heart a moralist, and he intends for his films to help men sympathize with women so that they can better protect them. `Way Down East' may be the strongest case in point. It opens with the director's explicit plea for men to properly treat the opposite gender. It then introduces an unusually powerful Griffith female character, a woman with sex appeal, only to spend the next two hours demonstrating how easily even this woman can be victimized. Griffith, with the help of an extraordinary performance by Gish, succeeds in building sympathy for the girl, but by requiring that her naivete, frailty, and dependence be such a large part of her appeal, Griffith renders woman all the more powerless.

Rating: 7.5

SPOILER BELOW

The twist ending in `Das Kabinett Des Doktor Caligari' impels the viewer to consider a great number of interpretations of the preceding narrative. One possibility is that Francis' story is an alibi concocted by his subconscious to free him from the guilt he felt after committing horrible crimes. The identities of the victims reveal Francis to be the most likely suspect; curiously, his story makes several different efforts to liberate him from suspicion. For instance, Francis promises Alan that no woman will affect their friendship. When Jane is attacked, only two people are awake: Cesare and Francis, who conveniently is shown to be spying on Dr. Caligari. I think it's also noteworthy that Cesare shares Francis' love for Jane, as well as his frustration at her unwillingness to acquiesce to his advances. Perhaps the relationship between Caligari and Cesare is a metaphor for the torment and self-loathing caused to Francis by his inability to control his own malicious impulses. Painting himself as a mere puppet, Francis frees himself from blame.

Rating: 9

SPOILER BELOW

D.W. Griffith's tragedy `Broken Blossoms' is heartfelt but also exaggerated and calculated. The girl's dire situation may have earned more sympathy had Griffith and Lillian Gish less strongly emphasized the character's pitifulness. Griffith's plea for respect for the Chinese man may have drawn more praise had it not seemed so much like a defensive response to criticism of `The Birth Of A Nation'. Nevertheless, Griffith demonstrates good storytelling habits and an improved visual sense. The tale unfolds so simply, in just a few unglamorous sets, that when Burrows at last erupts into a violent rage, tearing apart the two apartment rooms, the images are powerful and lasting. I wonder if Stanley Kubrick consciously recalled Burrows' axe-wielding terror when he directed `The Shining', one of the most haunting films ever made.

Rating: 6.5

SPOILERS BELOW

`A Dog's Life' was most noteworthy for its excellent comic timing. In Charlie Chaplin's other movie from 1918, `Shoulder Arms', the silent film genius focuses on an entirely different brand of humor. His war comedy specializes in surreal, exaggerated set pieces in which Chaplin demonstrates unprecedented creativity and mastery of composition. When the soldier's bunker gets flooded, the water level reaches just the right height so that Chaplin can execute his gags most successfully. In a later scene, the soldier dresses up as a tree, a disguise that belies Chaplin's much increased ingenuity and goofiness. Naturally, when the enemy discovers his ruse, the soldier darts straight for the forest. The ensuing chase is a visual marvel: Chaplin not only hides the soldier from the Germans, but he uses the forest to mask the soldier from the audience, as well, such that the camouflaged soldier stands unblocked in the middle of the frame yet somehow remains invisible. All the while we thought our little hero was pulling a fast one on the German army; to our delight, the joke is on us, too.

Rating: 8

SPOILERS BELOW

D.W. Griffith makes sure his landmark film contains every African-American stereotype invented, but he focuses most strongly on blacks' purported lust for white people. It seems that Griffith perceives miscegenation as white folk's greatest threat. In perhaps the most famous scene in `The Birth Of A Nation', Flora Cameron (Mae Marsh) jumps off a cliff to her death rather than endure rape by a black man. Griffith presents her fall as a noble decision; the white woman's virtue, her purity, must be maintained at all costs. Griffith paints Negroes with all sorts of negative qualities, but his two most unlikable characters, importantly, are offspring of sex between the races. Congressman Stoneman (Ralph Lewis) is smitten with a mulatto maid who clings to him hungrily. Their relationship is meant to symbolize the perversity of the North's Reconstruction policies. Stoneman's trusted protégée, meanwhile, is also of mixed heritage. Silas Lynch (played in blackface by George Siegmann) is a power-hungry backstabber who fantasizes about becoming a black emperor of the South. Griffith's narrative renders Lynch most frightening, however, when the political upstart attempts to force Stoneman's daughter (Lillian Gish) into marriage; such behavior is treated as the apex of Lynch's ability to emasculate white men. It is no accident that the Ku Klux Klan and other racists so frequently proclaimed their desire to keep pure the Aryan race. They saw the threat to their political and social power foremost as a rabid sexual ambush.

Rating: 6