| 89; 4.5 stars; A | dir. Victor Sjöström | Silent with English intertitles | 75 min | Not rated |
Letty, a young and poor woman, travels to her cousin’s ranch in Texas, where her neighbours’ unwanted advances and the fearsome wind greet her.
One of the last silent films, ‘The Wind’ gained little traction in its heyday due to the advent of talkies like ‘The Jazz Singer’. Yet its qualities are singular, enthralling the viewer with barely over an hour of screen time. There are no words, only title cards and a harrowing musical score by Carl Davis.
Letty is portrayed by Lilian Gish, an early Hollywood legend whose wordless performance powerfully emanates her character’s untainted innocence. On the train to Texas a fellow passenger, Wirt Roddy (helmed by the convincing Montagu Love), sets his predatory sights on her. Letty, however, settles down with her cousin safely, although his wife quickly becomes jealous by this intrusion. Two good-natured neighbours then comically jest for her favour.
Then there is the Mojave wind, a deadly force of nature enough to drive a person insane. Letty, portrayed as vulnerable and lost, is even more vulnerable to it. Sjöström cleverly crafts a tale of danger and social drama using this metaphor, arguably giving voice to the era’s proto-feminism. Gish, unlike the traditional feminine figure, unromantically shuns her suitors and heroically challenges an increasingly aggressive masculinity.
Both intense and poetic, ‘The Wind’ presents a bleak and foreign landscape, made sinister and horrifying with the dual threats of both nature and man.