Given the movie's title (1937's "The Good Earth" is one of my favorite films) and pedigree (based on a story by a famous author), I had high hopes for this film. But as I was watching, I kept wanting to turn it off and go to sleep. Nevertheless, I stayed with it until the end, a) because I hate to leave anything unfinished, and b) so that I could write this review with authenticity.
Among all the movies I've seen in my years, this is one of the more depressing certainly the most so among silents. That's mostly due to Emile Zola's tragic tale, but partly due also to the film's construction.
Briefly, the story comes down to this: An elderly farmer decides to retire, divvy up his farm, and sell the parcels off to his descendants, thinking this will assure him a steady pension and a comfortable retirement. But his family consists not entirely of honest farmers, but also of poachers, squanderers, and adulterers. Family squabbles ensue among the heirs, squabbles over land, over houses, over money, even over spouses and lovers. Not only do some renege on their payments toward the old boy's pension, later in the film they also actually steal his cash.
There's also the matter of what to do with dear old Dad after Mom dies, and he's too old to live alone. Shuttled about to live with one family, then the next, after robbery-by-child (or some other relation I couldn't keep them straight), he's left penniless, homeless, and alone to "die in a ditch," as one character puts it.
Although one of the best things about this film is the cinematography, especially the close-ups of actors' faces, this is no idyllic picture of a bucolic lifestyle.
Filmed on location outside Chartres, the land these characters are fighting over is about as intriguing as a Kansas cornfield after the harvest, especially if one equates "flat" to "boring". But I was an hour into the film before I realized why the outdoor scenes were so bland. I don't know what filter the cinematographer may have been using to shoot this black-and-white film, but in all the outdoor scenes, there was never a cloud in the sky. Every shot of sky was entirely flat-out all-white! This contrasts sharply, for example, with fascinating black-and-white-and-shades-of-gray sky shots by Eisenstein over the Russian steppes, or with those of Ford in Monument Valley.
The story is told by a series of disconnected scenes, but the scenes themselves seemed to be set up more for the memorable camera shot ("blocked" for immortality after all, it's 1921, and we're breaking cinematic ground here) than in order to propel the story, especially in the early going. Also early on, although the actors are shown individually at the outset, their characters are introduced in groups, one group after another, forcing the viewer to learn lots of characters and their relationships inordinately quickly, especially when some interstitial placards ("titles") are taken down before one has time to finish reading them even once.
Given the hard, hopeless life of these characters, and the conditions under which they existed, it's no wonder their story is so depressing. It makes me glad I'm not a farmer (or a member of that family).
Among all the movies I've seen in my years, this is one of the more depressing certainly the most so among silents. That's mostly due to Emile Zola's tragic tale, but partly due also to the film's construction.
Briefly, the story comes down to this: An elderly farmer decides to retire, divvy up his farm, and sell the parcels off to his descendants, thinking this will assure him a steady pension and a comfortable retirement. But his family consists not entirely of honest farmers, but also of poachers, squanderers, and adulterers. Family squabbles ensue among the heirs, squabbles over land, over houses, over money, even over spouses and lovers. Not only do some renege on their payments toward the old boy's pension, later in the film they also actually steal his cash.
There's also the matter of what to do with dear old Dad after Mom dies, and he's too old to live alone. Shuttled about to live with one family, then the next, after robbery-by-child (or some other relation I couldn't keep them straight), he's left penniless, homeless, and alone to "die in a ditch," as one character puts it.
Although one of the best things about this film is the cinematography, especially the close-ups of actors' faces, this is no idyllic picture of a bucolic lifestyle.
Filmed on location outside Chartres, the land these characters are fighting over is about as intriguing as a Kansas cornfield after the harvest, especially if one equates "flat" to "boring". But I was an hour into the film before I realized why the outdoor scenes were so bland. I don't know what filter the cinematographer may have been using to shoot this black-and-white film, but in all the outdoor scenes, there was never a cloud in the sky. Every shot of sky was entirely flat-out all-white! This contrasts sharply, for example, with fascinating black-and-white-and-shades-of-gray sky shots by Eisenstein over the Russian steppes, or with those of Ford in Monument Valley.
The story is told by a series of disconnected scenes, but the scenes themselves seemed to be set up more for the memorable camera shot ("blocked" for immortality after all, it's 1921, and we're breaking cinematic ground here) than in order to propel the story, especially in the early going. Also early on, although the actors are shown individually at the outset, their characters are introduced in groups, one group after another, forcing the viewer to learn lots of characters and their relationships inordinately quickly, especially when some interstitial placards ("titles") are taken down before one has time to finish reading them even once.
Given the hard, hopeless life of these characters, and the conditions under which they existed, it's no wonder their story is so depressing. It makes me glad I'm not a farmer (or a member of that family).