FILM FILM - University of Macau Library

TheGeniusandtheSystem– Some
Concluding Remarks
Contemporary critics just like later film historians seem to have read the history
of Victor Sjöström’s years in Hollywood in a quite ambiguous manner: as both a
story of success and a story of failure. This, of course, relates to the different
degrees of critical or public success of each film at the time of its release. These
ideas of success or failure have since then also undergone historical changes, in
Sjöström’s case particularly concerning the reception of The Wind. The fact that
only three of Sjöström’s silent films have survived in their entirety has, of
course, also added to their relative importance in a historical perspective, as
Sjöström is above all considered a director of silents. The fact that all these three
films are available on YouTube or Google Video confirms their particular status;
they seem to incarnate the very aspect of success in the director’s American career.
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But this ambiguity is also related to certain judgements of value, depending
on the perspective of the critic. According to some commentators, mostly international,
the director was successful in Hollywood to the extent that he adapted
to Hollywood, just as Thompson argued in the case of Lubitsch: that he was
actually transformed into a Hollywood director by the transition to a new film
culture. It has even been argued that he actually contributed to introducing a
higher degree of naturalism in Hollywood cinema. 2 From a quite opposite perspective,
several Swedish commentators express quite strong opinions on which
films during the Hollywood years could be considered as “Sjöström films” and
which should not. Here, it is striking that the perspective of researchers does not
differ all that much from that of other commentators. From such a perspective,
too, the Hollywood years were considered a success only to the extent that the
director was able to free himself from the supposedly damaging restraints of the
Hollywood system. The lack of variation is striking in these comments from
critics or researchers from both sides, who – apart from certain specific judgements
– all seem to agree upon the general continuity between Sweden and
Hollywood without, however, being able to argue their point in any detail.
For example, Bengt Forslund also seems to argue that Sjöström’s last two
films, The Masks of the Devil and A Lady to Love, which he considers as
failures, were in some sense unworthy of Sjöström as director, and that the
choices of the Hollywood producers for him to direct these films seem to have
been completely arbitrary. 3 However, as I have shown, The Masks of the Devil
was in its technique directly related to the recent Broadway success The
Strange Interlude by Eugene O’Neill, which had been awarded the Pulitzer Prize
in 1928, just as Sjöström’s last Hollywood film A Lady to Love was directly