Scene from "The Dawn Patrol" (1930)

(Testing out Blogger's video upload capabilities; hope it works.)
Scene: A WWI squadron; 7 planes on patrol, 3 of them with men for whom it was their first time going over. 2 of those 3 would never return. The 3rd is tremendously shaken. Leave it to the veterans to cheer him up...

Verses are:

We meet 'neath the sounding rafters,
The walls all around us are bare;
They echo the peals of laughter;
It seems that the dead are there.

So stand by your glasses steady,
This world is a world of lies.
Here's a toast to the dead already;
Hurrah for the next man who dies.

Cut off from the land that bore us,
Betrayed by the land that we find,
The good have gone before us,
And only the dull left behind.
~~~
Apparently this was really sung by RFC pilots.

A brief complaint against Borzage

My last post might suggest I have nothing but praise for Borzage's films, but that's not true. To be fair to myself, I want to complain about something that bugs me about Borzage: religion.

Because he was working in Hollywood and making movies for a mass audience, his films had to be secular to ensure a profitable run. That's one of the nice things about Hollywood and something I have seen few people comment on. Occasionally, however, Borzage's religious feeling slips through and I can't help at times but feel alienated, frustrated, and offended.

There are minor religious moments that I can overlook--Chico's frivolous re-acceptance of God because of his survival in Seventh Heaven (1927), for instance, or much of the thematic symbolism in A Farewell to Arms (1932). But Strange Cargo (1940) is nearly a sermon on faith that hits enough false notes of enlightenment to make the film an enormous wince in my memory; and The Mortal Storm (1940)... well, these are the lines that close the film: "I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' And he replied, 'Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than any known way!' "

The whole of The Mortal Storm is about the persecution a family faces under Nazi Germany, and it ends with a heavy, tragic note. It is a bitter plea for life and tolerance, but that final quote subverts the entirety of the film's message. The Nazis are no more than people of blind faith, believing their leader to be the way to power and enlightenment--after attacking this blind faith for an hour and half, the film openly suggests to adopt another blind faith.

The rest of the film is wonderful, and had the ending suggested "Be a light unto yourself" instead of the blind faith nonsense, I would be drooling over it today. But as it stands, the ending is something of a betrayal, and it makes me deeply uncomfortable.

Undoubtedly it is Borzage's faith that gives him the refined sensibility I spoke of. I can overlook it, perhaps, because that sensibility is not exclusively reliant on faith. In fact, I more often associate faith with a radically different and terrifying sensibility, so it is refreshing to see one who is more genuine than his religious peers. It is when Borzage openly suggests faith that he seems to me his least consistent, betraying his thematic interests, even if he is sincere in this faith.

I must say that I am thankful for a secular Hollywood.

Frank Borzage through "Little Man, What Now?"

The first exchange of dialogue in Little Man, What Now? (1934) is what caught my attention and immediately drew me into the film. It is raining, and camera moves in on Pinneberg, the protagonist, as he waits in front of the office of a gynecologist. On the street, a man is giving an impassioned speech for a small and ambivalent group. A stranger approaches Pinneberg:

Stranger: You like the soapbox orator, young man?
Pinneberg: I can't even hear what he's saying.
Stranger: Ah, just as well. I heard him. He said that the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor. And he's going to change things--he's going to make the rich too poor and the poor too rich. He's going to change God's work!

In its opening minute, the film captures the problems of the outside world and the social conditions of our couple and dismisses it all. "Nothing much wrong happens to the peaceful man," the stranger says in the office shortly afterwards. Although the rest of the film is driven by the problems posed by tough social times, bitterness and aggression are not responsible solutions--social hardship is not important. What is important?:


Love, of course. This romantic solipsism is what so powerfully draws me to Borzage's work and what he is famous for. It is by love that man conquers the world, not by hate. But fostering love is difficult when the world conspires against it--this is the prototypical Borzage theme and wonderfully exemplified in Little Man. Our couple struggles to rise above the social tragedies they face; when Pinneberg is being interviewed for a job, he says this to his potential employer as he pleas for a position:

Pinneberg: I don't want to walk the streets, Herr Lehman.
Lehman: Many are walking the streets these days.
Pinneberg: Yes, I know. I'm afraid of the streets.
Lehman: The streets? Or of yourself?

Poverty breeds hate and malice. It is not poverty Pinneberg fears but the feelings that come with it; he values his love and peace and fears that he will become a man of anger and resentment. This is Borzage's central conflict. Love is our triumph, however low the world may bring us (be it to sewers or shanties). Borzage's world is thus not just a proclamation of love, but a deep understanding of social dilemma and a philosophy of progress. The handling of social issues is something I greatly admire in Little Man. There is a clear sense of morality and tolerance. My favorite touch is the socialist character Heilbutt, who not only gives a passionate and awesomely concise speech in favor of his fellow workers, but who also becomes the savior of our couple at the end as they are simultaneously within their brightest and darkest hour.



Perhaps what most attracts me to Little Man, What Now?, and to Borzage's work, is the sincerity of the characters. Generally, the more characters proclaim their love with words, the less I believe and understand that love, but there is a balance of words and action and an understatement of conflict (perhaps because of the theme of personal triumph) that makes a Borzage love wholly sincere. When Pinneberg and Lammchen are in the woods, or at the carousel, or in the park, there is an overwhelming sense of honesty, a feeling that the conflict, however minor, is real, a liberating knowledge that the connection between them is genuine.




It is innocence. This sincerity is true of minor characters, too; a character's motivation does not need to be continually questioned or assessed. They are straightforward and simple and clear. This is also true of Borzage's filmmaking, and I love it. Borzage's is a rare and delicate sensibility, one that truly believes in love's powers. It is not cynical, it is not ignorant, it is not doubtful, it is not arrogant, it is not overstated, it is not defeated--it is sincere. It is wonderful.


~~~
[Borzage box in several days! I will have to wait a few weeks before I can get my hands on it, but having exhausted most of what is available on home video I am ecstatic for this set.]