28 Aug 06
The “Classical Hollywood Style” of the 1930s and 40s is often referred to as if it were a monolith. The achievements of Hollywood auteurs from the era, whether Chaplin or Welles, Hawks or Hitchcock, are usually illustrated in terms of their divergence from this so-called “invisible style”. Less often discussed are the contributions individual directors (outside of D.W. Griffith) may have made to constructing the style.
The legacy of Frank Borzage, whose films have recently been on view in New York, Berkeley, California and elsewhere this summer, is perhaps an ideal battleground for some of these issues to be wrangled out. Borzage was certainly no “maverick” director like Chaplin or Welles; he earned the first and the fifth Academy Awards for Direction for his Seventh Heaven and Bad Girl, respectively. Rather, he was a crucial developer of the ways that talking picture melodramas might resemble and distiguish themselves from their silent film predecessors. He was one of the first successful importers of European movements like expressionism and the Kammerspiel into his films (surely it was no coincidence that for a brief while he shared a studio, Fox, and a leading lady, Janet Gaynor, with F.W. Murnau). A silent-era Borzage film, especially a collaboration with cinematographer Ernest Palmer and art director Harry Oliver, contains a far more sophisticated interplay between shadow and light than most other Hollywood releases of the era. The result: these films look years ahead of their time.
But it’s also interesting to take a look at Borzage flourishes that did not become assimilated into the “Classical Hollywood Style.” Take Man’s Castle, a beautiful film in spite of an apparant technical crudity even for a film made at the low-budget Columbia of 1933. I say “in spite of”, but is it in part because of certain now-crude-seeming characteristics that the film is such a masterpiece? Frederick Lamster, in his 1981 auteurist survey Souls Made Great Through Love and Adversity points out that after an early scene in which Spencer Tracy’s Bill has just dramatically revealed his shared bond of poverty with the homeless Trina (Loretta Young, who developed a real-life romance with Tracy during filming), the couple are visually separated from the street crowd by a scale-distorting back-projection. The technical effect would be unacceptable by the standards of realism demanded for Hollywood product only a few years later, but the emotional effect of showing the pair all the more isolated from the world around them adds resonance to the film’s romatic themes. I also noticed numerous instances in the film of what could be eyeline mismatch, but which also lent a dreamlike outlook to Borzage’s starry-eyed characters.
Films like 1937’s History is Made at Night and 1940’s the Mortal Storm might be examples of the “Classical Hollywood Style” at its pre-war epitome, but the films Borzage made after the war have been characterized as increasingly out-of-step. His 1948 Moonrise, which led to a ten-year absence from feature filmmaking, has been categorized with the films noirs of the time, but it doesn’t deal with the hardened criminals and cold-blooded schemers they do, nor does it utilize much of the gritty realism associated with the genre. Instead the film looks like a set-constructed exterior manifestation of the Dane Clark protagonist’s increasingly tortured mental state, the bucolic decaying into full-fledged paranoia exhibited through the use of entrapping camera angles and POV-shots. The result seems more at home compared to Night of the Hunter or certain RKO Val Lewton films of the mid-1940s, than lumped in with Hollywood’s increasingly “real” noir films of the time.
A wealth of recent web-based writing on Borzage has recently arisen along with the touring retrospective; Reverse Shot and Slant are two of the best places to find it. If you have your own thoughts on this underdiscussed filmmaker, the “Classical Hollywood Style”, or the relationship between the two, please add a comment below!
Great article Brian, I’m glad cinephiles on the web are seeing and talking about Borzage more and more because of these retros, where I too found his wonderful work. As to the CHS, I think that while the director may have been working within the aesthetic of the “classical hollywood film” his preoccupation with transcendence to several degrees ruptured the “normality” of the aesthetic, if not re-appropriating it entirey (as in the way the director would often include lusciously spiritual and erotic close-ups during a film’s finale).
August 28th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
I want to say that, to some degree, Borzage’s transcendence and his mixture of the spiritual and the erotic are aspects of his filmmaking that were taken to heart by Hollywood, at least in certain genres. But I can’t think of any examples, and realizing that I haven’t seen a non-Borzage Hollywood feature from that era in several weeks, I may not yet have the perspective to judge how he really relates.
I think there must be two stages of trying to understanding director styles: first I watch an auteur’s film(s) and contrast them to other films seen. Then I watch other people’s films and discover what I missed. An endlessly repeatable process, and I still haven’t really moved to the second stage after seeing several Borzage films in a short time frame.
August 30th, 2006 at 3:40 am
Great post! I am very fond of Borzage. Unfortunately since I have been knocked up I haven’t gotten out to the retrospectives, and he is very poorly represented on DVD. I did do two posts on his films fairly recently, here on Moonrise and here on History is Made at Night (though the latter post focused more on Boyer).
I use the term Classical Hollywood to denote an era, never an overall style. To me, the films are just far too diverse, and putting one label on several decades is reductive. And deceptive, too. History is Made at Night may be High Classical, but it quite deliberately mixes light comedy and full-throated melodrama in a way that’s jolting even today.
August 31st, 2006 at 8:27 am
but is it in part because of certain now-crude-seeming characteristics that the film is such a masterpiece?
This is such fertile ground for further reflection! A wonderful article Brian, one that reminds me that I need to acquaint myself with Borzage stat.
August 31st, 2006 at 9:19 am
Brian, a lovely post. I loved watching “Seventh Heaven” at the Silent Film Festival and “Man’s Castle” and “Mortal Storm” are in my private VHS collection from years ago, acquired more because of my love for Spencer Tracy and James Stewart, but, now appreciated for Borzage himself. I was so swamped that I didn’t get to take advantage much of the Borzage retrospective at PFA; but, anticipate that some of those might swing back around. Thank you for your careful study.
August 31st, 2006 at 10:51 am
I’m not so sure about careful, but seeing seven of his films in the space of a few weeks definitely meant I had Borzage-on-the-brain. Hopefully some of these will swing back again for us, Michael. I especially wish I hadn’t missed Lucky Star and Little Man, What Now, and I would love to get another chance to see the Mortal Storm or just about any of the others.
Andy, perhaps you can start with a Farewell to Arms, one of the few Borzage films available on DVD; it’s superb and very Borzage-y.
Campaspe, I believe your post on History Is Made At Night is what put it on my radar screen. And it was one of the real delights of the series for me.
I think you’re right to mistrust such an umbrella-like label as “Classical Hollywood Style”, but it gets brought out every now and again, and even if I’m not trying to slay the dragon I think it’s worth fencing with it a bit. The term is useful to me as a representation of a mindset about Hollywood under the studio system that I encounter, in which the only way to appreciate a film or a director seems to be to identify bold departures from the “norm” when in reality there are so many wonderfully different things that make up that “norm” that are left undiscussed.
September 1st, 2006 at 7:45 pm