The Wind (1928)
The Wind (1928)
(Victor Sjöström, US 1928, 95 min., 35mm)
One of the greatest of silent films, The Wind is suffused with an elegiac quality due to the advent of sound. In his last silent directorial effort, director Victor Sjöström elicits one of the silent screen’s greatest performances from Lillian Gish (also in her last silent role). Gish plays Letty, a young woman moving west from Virginia to arid, windswept Texas to live with her cousin Beverly (Edward Earle). Letty is not welcomed into Beverly’s house because of his jealous wife, and Letty has to contend with no less than three insistent suitors vying for her attention, all while the wind continues to prey on Letty’s nerves.
This was the perfect mood for artist Stacey Steers as she was using elements from The Wind in composing her short film Night Hunter (2011), which is on view in the museum’s Multipurpose Hall through June 6.
The George Eastman Museum’s original material of this title was a nitrate negative that eventually decomposed, but not before a fine grain master was printed. In the early 1990s, Ed Stratmann produced a new negative from the existing material, prompting the film’s inclusion on the National Film Registry.
Live piano accompaniment by Dr. Philip C. Carli