{"id":5729,"date":"2015-09-03T06:24:58","date_gmt":"2015-09-03T05:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/?p=5729"},"modified":"2015-09-05T23:03:25","modified_gmt":"2015-09-05T22:03:25","slug":"greed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2015\/09\/03\/greed\/","title":{"rendered":"Greed"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Greed\"<\/a>
Greed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

\nFormat:<\/B> Cinema

\nScreening as part of The Colour of Money<\/a>

\nScreening date:<\/B>
13 September 2015

\nVenue:<\/B> Barbican

\nDirector:<\/B> Erich von Stroheim

\nWriters:<\/B> June Mathis, Erich von Stroheim

\nBased on the novel:<\/B> McTeague<\/i> by Frank Norris

\nCast:<\/B> Gibson Gowland, Zasu Pitts, Jean Hersholt

\nUSA 1924

\n131 mins\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Widely viewed today as one of the greatest films ever made, Erich von Stroheim\u2019s bold and daring adaptation of Frank Norris\u2019s 1899 novel McTeague<\/i> has lost none of its startling power. Almost a century on, this infamously troubled box-office disaster \u2013 famously halved from its eight-hour running time, before being substantially cut again by MGM \u2013 remains a towering achievement, and a sobering comment on the American Dream. <\/p>\n

As von Stroheim himself declared, Greed<\/i> plays out like a Greek tragedy. The film\u2019s anti-hero, John McTeague (Gibson Gowland), attempts to rise socially and professionally, by trading in his work as a miner to become a professional dentist. He soon becomes enamoured with Trina Sieppe (Zasu Pitts), who is initially betrothed to another, and who also wins the lottery. Yet when the increasingly tempestuous couple fall on hard times, she refuses to spend (or share) her winnings. A startling finale, shot in the searing heat in California\u2019s Death Valley, remains one of the most arresting on screen.<\/p>\n

Von Stroheim, although influenced by the work of DW Griffith, pushed the boundaries of technique and style to extraordinary lengths. He favoured close-ups and fast-cut editing over laboriously extended scenes. He delighted in the grotesque (and the macabre), which appalled many at the studio at the time. Sections of the film were even tinted with gold for visual effect. <\/p>\n

Key sequences such as the wedding, where guests gorge on food in the most grotesque way imaginable, have lost none of their power to shock and awe. Von Stroheim favoured an extreme form of naturalism: actors were denied make-up, no artificial sets were used, and the finale was shot over two months in the most unbearable conditions in the Californian desert. Not surprisingly, many of the director\u2019s regulars became ill during the epic shoot, which typically ballooned way over budget. A perfectionist to the extreme, von Stroheim understandably was left distraught at the fate of his epic fable of early 20th-century American life.<\/p>\n

Dismissed by many at the time of its release, Von Stroheim\u2019s sprawling masterpiece has, as with Orson Welles\u2019s best work, been reappraised over time. Von Stroheim\u2019s influence over Welles, Hitchcock and others cannot be overstated. The full, eight-hour cut of Greed<\/i> \u2013 seen by just 12 people at its premiere screening in Los Angeles \u2013 remains the holy grail of cinephiles. Lost to the sands of time, stories persist of footage appearing in far-flung corners of the globe.<\/p>\n

Restorative producer Rick Schmidlin\u2019s work goes a long way in restoring the narrative journey of the original. Dozens of original stills, together with a gloriously melodic score, flesh out the brutally condensed story, set in post-earthquake San Francisco, quite masterfully. Schmidlin, who famously restored Welles\u2019s Touch of Evil<\/i><\/a> to its former glory \u2013 and completely re-cut the 1970 concert documentary Elvis: That\u2019s the Way It Is<\/i> to similar effect \u2013 reclaimed this milestone in cinema for generations to devour, long after MGM\u2019s butcher\u2019s knife had all but destroyed it. It remains a fascinating, exhilarating, immensely satisfying experience. <\/p>\n

Ed Gibbs<\/B><\/I><\/p>\n

This review is based on the 1999 restored, four-hour version of the film by Rick Schmidlin, using the existing footage and still photographs of the deleted scenes.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erich von Stroheim\u2019s bold and daring adaptation of Frank Norris\u2019s 1899 novel McTeague<\/i> has lost none of its startling power.
\nReview by Ed Gibbs<\/B><\/I><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,657],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-check-it-out","category-screenings"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","wps_subtitle":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/surUP-greed","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2250,"url":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2012\/04\/03\/la-grande-illusion\/","url_meta":{"origin":5729,"position":0},"title":"La Grande Illusion","author":"VirginieSelavy","date":"April 3, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"An anti-war film made just two years before World War II, it was banned in Germany, Italy and France, before the Nazis confiscated the negative. 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