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An American Tragedy – 1931 von Sternberg
- It does not come close to touching von Sternberg’s all-time of a year the year before in 1930 (The Blue Angel, Morocco)—but there are still enough elements to land it (barely) into the archives
- Based on Theodore Dreiser’s novel of the same name—and he sued. For the longest time after The Place in the Sun (1951—George Stevens, Liz Taylor, Montgomery Clift) this 1931 version/adaptation was impossible to find. It isn’t on the level of Stevens’ film
- A nice shot from von Sternberg early in a night club—the camera just drifts though almost like a patron who had had a few drinks
- Sloppy titles 10 minutes into the film catching us up on the dense story that can’t possibly fit in the shorter running time here
- von Sternberg is one of the great designers of mise-en-scene—obstructing the frame—there are only a few shots here where he lets that show—one is in the forest letting the leafs block the frame
- a fatal flaw of the film is Phillips Holmes at Clyde Griffiths. He’s so weak. I mean Clift makes it an entirely different film with his complexity. Sylvia Sidney, on the other hand, as the tragic Roberta Alden is wonderful – along with City Streets in 1931 this is the first archiveable film for Sidney
- the single best sequence in the film is the bare winter tree branches covering the couples faces (above)
- at the 30 minute mark at the party- von Sternberg rotates his camera around some flowers framing and then reframing the couple (like Renoir used to do) on both sides
- plenty of meaningless title cards
- ends with a far-too-long courtroom sequence
- Recommend but not in the top 10 of 1931
Drake2020-09-06T13:11:03+00:00
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