38. The Crowd (1928)

Directed By King Vidor


Synopsis

Man is born on the 4th of July! He is not Tom Cruise, father dies when 12, moves to NY. NY's big city with many people, gets married, marriage gets stale, gets 2 kids. 1 kid dies. Bummer. Tries to put his life back together.

Review

The plight of the common man! In glorious silence! King Vidor was a great director, his camera work is both understated and extremely effective. Napoleon had more spectacular camera work, but you were much more aware of it than here. Vidor is much more subtle, which also suits this story better.

What is innovative for this film is the fact that there are no heroes here, it is truly a story about a common man. He is named John Sims, and the whole Sims family (I wonder...) goes through the activities of everyday in what would be a pretty monotonous film if it weren't for the artful direction and screenplay (I wonder even more...).

All in all a good film, which has as it's greatest plus it's greatest minus. It is an original depiction of everyman, but it is also a depiction of everyman, excitment is limited. The narrative is also quite simple, but that is as much the fault of the silent film medium as anything, and it may also be purposeful, as Vidor is trying to show a simple story that might happen to any one of the crowd. To the theatre-goer with which the last shot of the film identify the Sims. And in that it is a victory, there is something in this film that almost every one can identify with. So watch it. Buy it at Amazon US. There seems to be no version available for the UK, and this one is in VHS, a pity.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The Crowd was a remarkably groundbreaking film, but it was released just as the Great Depression and the arrival of sound films combined to radically change filmaking. Due to the limitations imposed by early sound filming techniques, the film's moving camera innovations would not be equalled for another decade. Likewise, Depression-era audiences sought escapism from The Crowd's style of stark realism, and filmakers would not embrace such realism again until after the end of World War II. Director Jean Luc Godard was asked in the 1960's why more films were not made about ordinary people, and his response was "Why remake The Crowd, it has already been done."

Vidor used the John and Mary Sims characters again (with different actors) in his 1934 film Our Daily Bread. He also provided an insightful interview on the making of the film in a segment of the 1980 documentary "Hollywood", by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill. Vidor wrote an unrealized screenplay based on the tragic life of The Crowd lead actor James Murray, who fell on hard times eerily similar to those of the character for which he is remembered.