Written on the Wind

As noted last weekend, I went to see Sirk's Written on the Wind at The Colonial Theater last Sunday. Overall a wonderful experience.

This was my first visit to The Colonial and, though the interior is a bit run-down, it does still hold the charm that is missing from most modern megaplex cinemas. I like the openness of the theater and the decorations that go into these kinds of buildings. Being in the middle of a city makes it so much more attractive as well - there is nothing like coming out of a good film in the middle of the day onto a busy street with pedestrian and vehicle traffic - as opposed to a gigantic parking lot.

As for the film itself, as you can tell from the title of my blog, I must have enjoyed it. I had never seen the film on this size screen - only on TV and in projection in classrooms. The print, while not as good as the Criterion DVD enhanced print, was quite good with no noticeable splices or even scratches and the color, though not "popping," was sharp.

Here, then, are a few things about the film that caught my eye this time around.

• The credits - I had noticed them before and I think someone has written about them (need to look that up), but on the big screen the juxtaposition of the actor names with the characters was clearly inspired. So much is told about the characters through those brief moments - Kyle with the bottle, Mitch at the window, Lucy helpless in bed, and Mary Lee in the dark at the window. Great melodrama.
• The moment that has been growing on me in my last few screenings of the film and came out again this time is when Kyle learns from the Doctor in the soda shop that he has a "weakness." As he walks out, the kid riding the electric horse is wonderful Freudian camp. The look on Kyle's face is stupendous.
• Seeing the film on the large screen really heightened Mary Lee's "dance of death" and her father's fall down the stairs. I am always astounded by the camera work in that shot and on the big screen it looks even better.
  
• I felt that Mary Lee's "Down by the river" scene played better on the large screen. On TV or in a small screening room, it plays more like TV soap opera and thus a little more campy. On the large screen, the emoting of her face is more visible and the scene itself feels more cinematic - it shakes some of the conventions of the TV soap. Still over-the-top, but not quite as much so.
• Rock Hudson looks so much better on the big screen - helps me to see even more clearly why he was such a big star. The square jaw and good looks are much more impressionable in this format. Heck, they all looked better. That is really one thing that I think gets lost with older films now. The actors were chosen for how they looked, acted, and generally came across on the large screen - we see them now primarily on TV and wonder what the fuss is about.

I'm going to skip Imitation of Life this weekend and make sure to see A Time to Love and A Time to Die the next. It is one of the few Sirk films from the late 1950s that I haven't seen.