The Wind (1928)

The Wind is a 1928 American silent romantic drama film directed by Victor Sjöström. The movie was adapted by Frances Marion from the 1925 novel of the same name written by Dorothy Scarborough. Featuring Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson and Montagu Love, it is one of the last silent films released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and is considered to be among the greatest silent films. It's also notable for being the last film in which Lillian Gish stars in.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) The film is legendary for its raw emotional power The storyline is also quite mature and dark for a silent age film. The film, just like the novel it's based on, focuses on Letty, a sophisticated Virginia girl who has to relocate to a remote ranch in Texas. Driven to the brink of madness by the harsh weather and unceasing wind, her situation becomes worse when circumstances force her to accept a marriage proposal from Lige, a rough cowboy. Roddy, a sophisticated city man, takes advantage of Letty’s fragile mental stage and rapes her. To which Letty would respond by shooting him and then racing outside, giving herself to the wind. It’s easy to see the appeal of this intense work, especially in the visual medium of silent film.
 * 2) Very skillful direction from Victor Sjöström. On top of making Cora a sympathetic antagonist, he also directs Lige’s attempt to seduce Letty by focusing primarily on the performers’ feet as they pace back and forth, nervous, frustrated and, finally, angry.
 * 3) The film shows the American silent motion picture at the pinnacle of its artistry, the acting and the visual language of the film convey its complicated psychological story with clarity and power. Even though the silent film would be dead shortly afterwards, this film along showcases the art's power.
 * 4) Great usage of early special and technical effects for the late 1920s, especially with the cyclone and wind scenes.
 * 5) All the major performances of the piece-- especially its leads -- provide triumphant performances.
 * 6) Lillian Gish may be the most notable example of the bunch. She's occasionally played morally ambiguous or downright villainous characters in some of her film roles, but she's most famous for her pure-hearted, often tragic characters.
 * 7) Dorothy Cummings does a powerful performance as the sympathetic antagonist towards Letty.
 * 8) Continuing from the previous pointer the characters are very complex.
 * 9) Lillian Gish's character, Letty is almost like a typical Gish role but she's more complicated than one would initially believe. In most of Gish's other roles (especially the films she did with D.W. Griffith), her characters' naïve antics were met with indulgent smiles, that only the antagonists would dislike. Here, Letty's charms win over Beverly and his children but Cora soon comes to resent the interloper.
 * 10) Her husband Lige is an unrefined Western guy with a massive heart. When the wedding scene opens, he is a slaphappy bridegroom just dying to please his new wife. Her scornful rejection is like a splash of ice water. He matures before our eyes, realizing that he has been used, that his lovely bride can’t stand him. His subtlety is very effective.
 * 11) Cora's not a one-note antagonist like most of the people who antagonize Gish's roles usually are in her films. She's got a rather valid reason to not like Letty. While Letty's ironing the ruffles of her silk gown and nursing the blisters that result from her first brush with manual labor. Cora, meanwhile, is wearing a burlap sack over her dress and gutting a steer, resulting in her hands being smeared in blood. Not to mention, both her husband and children would ignore her in favor of the dainty Letty despite her desperate pleas, and the fact that she's a working hard far longer than Letty was. Cora is a tough frontierwoman and she sees a threat to her family life, so it makes complete sense that Cora would resent Letty.
 * 12) While Gish's chemistry with the other characters and her relations with them is excellent, it is Lillian Gish’s deep understanding of Letty’s psyche that makes The Wind a masterpiece. Gish takes us along on Letty’s stumbling journey toward emotional maturity. At the beginning of the film, Letty is taken in easily by the superficial; she is a pragmatic character, even egocentric, but she is not wicked. The psychological punishments that the film inflicts on her do not fit her crimes, which make her eventual journey to the brink of madness much more tragic and engrossing. This is a real person being driven insane. At the climax of the film, Letty’s nervousness has evolved into outright hysteria. As the wind swirls around her, blowing in dirt through the door and the broken window, Letty looks out toward the desert. She shot Roddy and buried his body but the wind is uncovering her crime. She screams as the sand sifts away from his corpse. Gish’s entire body expresses her unbridled terror, she curls into a fetal position, shaking and crying and trying desperately to block out the wind.
 * 13) While the original novel ended tragically, a happy ending for Lige and Letty was created for the film, although Sjöström keeps back just enough detail to create ambiguity. Was Letty’s shooting of Roddy real or a hallucination? Once again, Gish rises to the challenge and her slightly frenzied embrace of Lige during the final scene increases the uncertainty.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Some of the nuances of the original novel are absent, with a few of the book's settings and themes being reduced to those found in typical Westerns of the era, including a comic sidekick named Sourdough, a house party with a hillbilly band, and a leering villain who wouldn't be out of place in a Buck Jones B-movie.
 * 2) Considering the wedding sequence lasts over 10 minutes, it can be exhausting to watch Lillian Gish play the same gaif role in a situation that becomes increasingly improbable and morose.
 * 3) Even though it's sort of put to good use this time around, the tacked-on obligatory happy ending, may still feel forced or necessary for some people.