Country: USA
Released: December 4th, 1924
Genre: Drama
Directed by: Erich Von Stroheim
Produced by: Erich Von Stroheim
I don't like Erich Von Stroheim. This is a problem because I (guiltily) style myself as a man of the world; a cultured, sophisticated patron of the arts. Someone who's attracted to the finer things in life. You know, a pretentious cock.
Greed has been called by many as one of the greatest films ever made, a landmark in movie making and the holy grail for film historians. Countless directors like Orson Wells, Guillermo del Toro, Curtis Harrington and many, many more cite it as direct inspiration for their works.
And yet as much as I tried I couldn't bring myself to like it.
Before going any further it's important to explain this film's tumultuous history. Originally over eight hours long, Von Stroheim regarded Greed as his magnum opus. Sadly for him however MGM thought it too long for mainstream audiences and decided to edit it down to two and a half hours. Today only two versions remain, the MGM version and a four hour version pieced together from still shots recovered since its original screening. This latter version is the one I stupidly decided to watch, because hey, what's four hours of my life worth anyways? The problem is that because half of the film was comprised of photos of the film it didn't feel like a movie so much as a lecture. The film switches back and forth between motion picture and regular pictures with third party narration to the plot points that were cut out. As film history this is all well and good but as entertainment its a gruelling experience and definitely plays a key role in my dislike of the movie.
The plot chronicles the decline of Dr. John McTeague (Gibson Gowland), a young miner who becomes a dentist's apprentice at the behest of his mother. He moves to the city where he opens a modest but successful practice and becomes best friends with a man named Marcus Shouler (Jean Hersholt). McTeague soon falls in love with Marcus' cousin, Trina Sieppe (ZaSu Pitts) and the two eventually get married, much to Marcus' chargain as he also fancied Trina. Before we proceed, yes, that is incest, and no, no one in the movie gives a fuck. Welcome to the 1920s, motherfucker.
Anyways long story short Trina wins five thousand dollars in a lottery and everyone gradually jumps at each other's throats over the money. Trina starts hoarding it for herself, Marcus becomes convinced that he's entitled to it, and McTeague becomes ever more frustrated at Tina's stinginess after he loses his practice for not having a licence. This tension comes to a boil when Marcus tries to stab McTeaque in a drunken fury and decides to travel West (or East since they're in California) to work on a ranch. With no income and with Trina lying about her money the married couple sink into destitution and McTeague into alcoholism. He eventually kills his wife in a drunken fury and flees West/East with her money to escape the law. Upon discovering his cousin's murder Marcus hunts his former friend down, and the film ends with him and McTeague fighting in the desert over the money. The final (gorgeous) shot sees McTeague killing Marcus, and the implication that McTeague dies of thirst.
If it sounds like I'm glossing over a lot of the plot it's because I am. There are a couple subplots that follow other couples I neglect to mention. These serve as foils to McTeague and Tina's relationship, but naturally are some of the most edited parts of the movie and are pretty much absent from the original. They are presented in this version through the still shots and thus lave no real impression other than the fact that it wasted my god dammed time. Just know that what I described above is the basic gist of the film and all you really need to know to follow along.
The main problem I have with Greed (aside from it's unnecessary length and regrettable formatting) is that none of the characters are likeable, and I mean absolutely none. They all feel ugly, brutish, and selfish from beginning to end, especially McTeague, which is problematic as this is supposed to be a "Greek Tragedy" inspired tale about him being consumed by his avarice. You lose all of the impact of this kind of story when we don't like these characters to begin with and they just kind of always feel like dicks. No offence to Mr. Gowland who was probably a nice man and talented actor but he feels horribly miscast in the role of McTeague. Sure he does a decent job as far a acting goes, but the guy looks like Lou Ferrigno minus the campy charm. He's like some hulking brute who runs on two settings: angry or confused. This is going to sound strange but I actually found him most engaging around the end when he grew out his beard. I don't know what it is, but the beard made him look... sadder I guess? Definitely more sympathetic if nothing else. Otherwise he and the other characters were just ugly, and completely unappealing to watch.
This brings us to the length. If brevity is the soul of wit then Greed is a knuckle-dragging troglodyte; what many directors often don't realize is that a mastery of the economy of storytelling is often just as important as being able to craft beautiful shot or write a compelling screenplay. Knowing the limitations of your audiences attention span and being able to create a story accordingly takes great skill. It's this factor that makes a movie like Wolf on Wallstreet consistently engaging despite being three and a half hours long but one like Battle of the Five Armies unbearable. It's also why a fifty minute movie like La Sourient Madame Beaudet feels way more compelling and interesting than the four hour slog of Greed. Many of the scenes feel superfluous and despite losing half of it's content it still feels both rushed and overlong at the same time. It's as if Stroheim got too ambitious, trying to make what should have been a subtle tragedy and character study into an epic tale. Scenes that would have otherwise added depth to characters or themes get buried under all the needless additions and become white noise, losing any meaningful contribution to the plot. None of this is helped by Stroheim's cinematography, which I find is some of the ugliest camera work I've seen so far. Everything feels dark, blurry, and muted, but rather than providing an aesthetic style it just looks bad. With some exceptions like the final desert fight most shots feel flat and uninteresting, especially when compared to such crisp filmmaking in Der Letzte Mann.
All this is not to say Greed doesn't do anything well. I loved the selective coloration of some of the objects. The gold nuggets, McTeague's pet canaries (which carry their own thematic significance), Trina's tooth fillings, and McTeague's dentistry sign all pop in a resplendent yellow and offer many avenues of interpretation regarding their connection to the film's message. The last thirty minutes of the movie were also pretty good, but at that point it almost became a different film entirely. Lastly many of the lost scenes look way more interesting and abstract than the preserved segments, and I only wish I could have watched them in their original glory.
Is it fair to write off Greed entirely? Of course not, this is a movie that has suffered tremendously over the years, and until we ever find its original cut we won't be able to justly assess it. However as far as the version we have today goes it's hard to overlook it's many, many flaws, most prominent being its length and characters. Any virtues it may have such as its carefully crafted symbolism and thematic story telling are muted in its overbearing flaws. Or maybe I'm just not as cultured as I thought I was.
Released: December 4th, 1924
Genre: Drama
Directed by: Erich Von Stroheim
Produced by: Erich Von Stroheim
Written by: Erich Von Stroheim
I don't like Erich Von Stroheim. This is a problem because I (guiltily) style myself as a man of the world; a cultured, sophisticated patron of the arts. Someone who's attracted to the finer things in life. You know, a pretentious cock.
Greed has been called by many as one of the greatest films ever made, a landmark in movie making and the holy grail for film historians. Countless directors like Orson Wells, Guillermo del Toro, Curtis Harrington and many, many more cite it as direct inspiration for their works.
And yet as much as I tried I couldn't bring myself to like it.
Before going any further it's important to explain this film's tumultuous history. Originally over eight hours long, Von Stroheim regarded Greed as his magnum opus. Sadly for him however MGM thought it too long for mainstream audiences and decided to edit it down to two and a half hours. Today only two versions remain, the MGM version and a four hour version pieced together from still shots recovered since its original screening. This latter version is the one I stupidly decided to watch, because hey, what's four hours of my life worth anyways? The problem is that because half of the film was comprised of photos of the film it didn't feel like a movie so much as a lecture. The film switches back and forth between motion picture and regular pictures with third party narration to the plot points that were cut out. As film history this is all well and good but as entertainment its a gruelling experience and definitely plays a key role in my dislike of the movie.
The plot chronicles the decline of Dr. John McTeague (Gibson Gowland), a young miner who becomes a dentist's apprentice at the behest of his mother. He moves to the city where he opens a modest but successful practice and becomes best friends with a man named Marcus Shouler (Jean Hersholt). McTeague soon falls in love with Marcus' cousin, Trina Sieppe (ZaSu Pitts) and the two eventually get married, much to Marcus' chargain as he also fancied Trina. Before we proceed, yes, that is incest, and no, no one in the movie gives a fuck. Welcome to the 1920s, motherfucker.
Anyways long story short Trina wins five thousand dollars in a lottery and everyone gradually jumps at each other's throats over the money. Trina starts hoarding it for herself, Marcus becomes convinced that he's entitled to it, and McTeague becomes ever more frustrated at Tina's stinginess after he loses his practice for not having a licence. This tension comes to a boil when Marcus tries to stab McTeaque in a drunken fury and decides to travel West (or East since they're in California) to work on a ranch. With no income and with Trina lying about her money the married couple sink into destitution and McTeague into alcoholism. He eventually kills his wife in a drunken fury and flees West/East with her money to escape the law. Upon discovering his cousin's murder Marcus hunts his former friend down, and the film ends with him and McTeague fighting in the desert over the money. The final (gorgeous) shot sees McTeague killing Marcus, and the implication that McTeague dies of thirst.
If it sounds like I'm glossing over a lot of the plot it's because I am. There are a couple subplots that follow other couples I neglect to mention. These serve as foils to McTeague and Tina's relationship, but naturally are some of the most edited parts of the movie and are pretty much absent from the original. They are presented in this version through the still shots and thus lave no real impression other than the fact that it wasted my god dammed time. Just know that what I described above is the basic gist of the film and all you really need to know to follow along.
The main problem I have with Greed (aside from it's unnecessary length and regrettable formatting) is that none of the characters are likeable, and I mean absolutely none. They all feel ugly, brutish, and selfish from beginning to end, especially McTeague, which is problematic as this is supposed to be a "Greek Tragedy" inspired tale about him being consumed by his avarice. You lose all of the impact of this kind of story when we don't like these characters to begin with and they just kind of always feel like dicks. No offence to Mr. Gowland who was probably a nice man and talented actor but he feels horribly miscast in the role of McTeague. Sure he does a decent job as far a acting goes, but the guy looks like Lou Ferrigno minus the campy charm. He's like some hulking brute who runs on two settings: angry or confused. This is going to sound strange but I actually found him most engaging around the end when he grew out his beard. I don't know what it is, but the beard made him look... sadder I guess? Definitely more sympathetic if nothing else. Otherwise he and the other characters were just ugly, and completely unappealing to watch.
This brings us to the length. If brevity is the soul of wit then Greed is a knuckle-dragging troglodyte; what many directors often don't realize is that a mastery of the economy of storytelling is often just as important as being able to craft beautiful shot or write a compelling screenplay. Knowing the limitations of your audiences attention span and being able to create a story accordingly takes great skill. It's this factor that makes a movie like Wolf on Wallstreet consistently engaging despite being three and a half hours long but one like Battle of the Five Armies unbearable. It's also why a fifty minute movie like La Sourient Madame Beaudet feels way more compelling and interesting than the four hour slog of Greed. Many of the scenes feel superfluous and despite losing half of it's content it still feels both rushed and overlong at the same time. It's as if Stroheim got too ambitious, trying to make what should have been a subtle tragedy and character study into an epic tale. Scenes that would have otherwise added depth to characters or themes get buried under all the needless additions and become white noise, losing any meaningful contribution to the plot. None of this is helped by Stroheim's cinematography, which I find is some of the ugliest camera work I've seen so far. Everything feels dark, blurry, and muted, but rather than providing an aesthetic style it just looks bad. With some exceptions like the final desert fight most shots feel flat and uninteresting, especially when compared to such crisp filmmaking in Der Letzte Mann.
All this is not to say Greed doesn't do anything well. I loved the selective coloration of some of the objects. The gold nuggets, McTeague's pet canaries (which carry their own thematic significance), Trina's tooth fillings, and McTeague's dentistry sign all pop in a resplendent yellow and offer many avenues of interpretation regarding their connection to the film's message. The last thirty minutes of the movie were also pretty good, but at that point it almost became a different film entirely. Lastly many of the lost scenes look way more interesting and abstract than the preserved segments, and I only wish I could have watched them in their original glory.
Is it fair to write off Greed entirely? Of course not, this is a movie that has suffered tremendously over the years, and until we ever find its original cut we won't be able to justly assess it. However as far as the version we have today goes it's hard to overlook it's many, many flaws, most prominent being its length and characters. Any virtues it may have such as its carefully crafted symbolism and thematic story telling are muted in its overbearing flaws. Or maybe I'm just not as cultured as I thought I was.
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