Crack your cheeks! rage! blow! - The Wind (1928), BFI with Stephen Horne

There is so much to savour in the work of Victor Sjöström, Lars Hanson and Lillian Gish... this being my third go with The Wind, new responses occur with each viewing, especially in different contexts here at the BFI with Stephen Horne’s uncanny ear for emotional narrative.

Of the films I’ve seen from Sjöström’s Hollywood period, The Wind is the one that most reflects the landscape cinema of his homeland, allowing him to add the character and context of the environment. In this story, the elements are as much a player as the actors, especially the protean, elemental Lillian Gish… No actor can ever have been so moved by unbending force or swirled as helplessly by the combined brute forces of male desire and dust storm.

This is the film in which Lil really lets her hair down and is one of her most sexually expressive performances: Lige Hightower’s gasp when he sees Letty, hair down, button undone in their bedroom is felt by the audience too. Gish was 35 and even though her character starts out intimidated by her new environment she’s quick to use her allure with well-heeled Wirt Roddy (Montagu Love) when he comes to her rescue on the train. By the same token she’s very dismissive of the attentions of Lige (Lars Hanson) and his comic side-kick Sourdough (William Orlamond) – she knows what’s she’s worth.

Lillian lets her hair down

We never learn much about the reasons for her exile to stay with her step-brother Beverly (Edward Earle) in these unfriendly outlands but the instant dislike of his wife Cora (Dorothy Cumming) may suggest some history? Then again, to Cora, this eastern softie is just another mouth to feed, of little use and there’s a telling scene in which she is busy disembowelling a cow, up to her elbows in blood, whilst Letty stops ironing to play with their children - Cora multi-tasks, towering over Letty with bloodied hands next to the carcass that will feed the family for weeks. Then Bev arrives and Cora puts those hands over his shoulders and gives him a full-blooded kiss only for him to be distracted by his pretty "sister"...

Not a cow.

Cora understandably hopes to marry Letty off as soon as she can and the latter is keen enough on what she assumes to be a rich bachelor but when Wirt reveals that he is married and wants merely wants to “keep” her…  that’s too much.

Letty marries Lige because he’s her only option but she can’t bring herself to consummate their relationship. By this stage Lars Hanson has started shaving and only a mad woman could ignore his scandi charms especially when he pledges not to bother his bride and to save up to send her back. His physical performance is on a par with Gish as he transforms from a clumsy, loutish cowhand to a man of dignity and leadership.

Love quadrangle?

Everyone is changed by the wind. Beverley and Cora have already learned how to survive whilst Wirt tries to rise above it, constantly brushing the sand from his clothes with the knowledge that someone else will do his dirty work. He tells Letty that the wind will have its moment with her and so it does.

Whilst Mordaunt Hall, film critic for The New York Times, may have fussed that the elemental motifs were overplayed but most of us find that Sjostrom’s treatment has stood the test of time. From the opening shots of the wind scudding across the plains as Letty’s train makes its way, to her dust-drenched arrival, white wide-brimmed hat blowing down on her face as Victor’s aero-engines did their worst, the wind is ever present. Letty has headed straight into the heart of the storm and faces the biggest test of her life.

Man with the lamp - Lars Hanson

As she eats with Bev’s family the sand encrusts the food and even as Wirt wins her away from Lige at the town dance a cyclone drives them into the storm shelter as the men shore up doors and walls. Living with Lige the “Norther” approaches, the mightiest wind, and plans are made to protect life and livestock before it is too late. The Norther – a satanic elemental force – is represented by a ghostly white stallion but the horse also has a Lawrencian interpretation…

Wirt is also unstoppable and abandons the men’s emergency cattle drive by faking exhaustion and engineering a recuperative stay alone with Letty: the Norther wind, Wirt and judgement have all arrived at the same time and now Letty must find a way to survive the storm.

Stephen Horne delivered a masterclass in supportive narrative with a sympathetic symphony that incorporated the sinister “breath” of accordion to piano string-thwacking musique concrète for the havoc of the storm. To perform an emotional duet with Lillian Gish you need to match her expressive agility and Stephen has clearly been here before as he mirrored her razor-sharp shifts in tonal response to the repeated interjections of the wind, man and sand. This film drives on ever harder but not in a linear way and Mr Horne kept his ferocity in check until it was time to let the horses loose! They might need to re-tune the BFI’s upright after this Norther…

Blisters on her fingers... Gish burned her hand on desert-scorched door handle.

Gish chose this film for her strengths and she also picked Victor Sjöström and Lars Hanson for theirs - she’d been impressed by Lars’ Gosta Berling… now there’s a film we haven’t seen on screen, London!). Hanson matches her stride for stride and follows a similar trajectory from self-indulgence to self-sacrifice whilst finally Victor could explore the great outdoors, filming in style in the 120 degrees of the Mojave Desert: a physical and emotional challenge for cast and crew; they even had to freeze the film to prevent the emulsion melting.

They may have changed the original ending – after which Victor told them they could keep their "Seastrom" and headed back to Sweden – but the result resonates full-force ninety years later.

Stormy weather… The Wind (1928)

Three of my silent period favourites all in one film: The Wind couldn’t really fail… but there are questions.

Lilian Gish chose the vehicle, a novel of the same name by Dorothy Scarborough concerning a Virginian woman driven to mad extremes by the forces of nature in the wilds of Texas. Gish put together her own four page treatment and asked Frances Marion to adapt for the screen... She then lined up Victor Sjöström (here Americanised as Seastrom) to direct having already worked with him on The Scarlett Letter and obviously seen his native examinations of human nature sculpted by natural extremes.

Lars Hanson

Sweden’s leading man, Lars Hanson, was picked upon the basis of his appearance with Greta Garbo in Gosta Berling – although he had also starred in The Scarlett Letter as well as Flesh and the Devil, Captain Salvation and other Hollywood films.

Hanson makes for a great lead, handsome as heck and able to convey an earthy vulnerability alongside his more heroic qualities. He’s a good match for Lillian who, 35 at the time, plays a slightly more mature, vaguely manipulative, character than in many of her earlier films: she toys with affections and makes fun of others and amongst all of her vulnerability is made from stern stock.

Lillian Gish

The Wind is a white knuckle ride of emotion and Gish plays hers close to camera – watching her is always to suffer at least some degree of transmitted anxiety: she doesn’t let the audience have an easy time. Some, like my wife, find that a little goes a long way, but it’s this very quality which makes Lillian one of the first great screen actresses: there was undoubtedly madness in her method and it’s an intense visceral disturbance to those of us safe in our seats just watching... She personalises the on-screen drama, drawing you in with a unique connectivity, to the anxieties driving us all.

It’s hard to think of anyone better to direct this most intense, inward film than Victor Sjöström, the man who made The Phantom Carriage and Terj Vigen – Scandinavian epics that were unflinchingly aimed at externalising inner torment. There’s pathetic fallacy and then there’s The Outlaw and His Wife who live lives as rugged and uncompromising as the terrain where they make their home.

Montagu Love and Lillian Gish

For all that, Lillian Gish’s Letty Mason is not a typical Sjöström leading lady: city-soft and with airs and graces for all her timidity… she has some way to go.

Letty is heading out to Texas to stay with her cousin Beverly (Edward Earle). As she sits eating fruit on the train, she is approached by a self-assured man, name of Wirt Roddy (Montagu Love), knowing glances are exchanged and it’s clear both know what they’re about. Dust swirls all around the carriage blown with incessant force by the never-ending plain winds… it frightens Letty yet Wirt swaggers around absent-mindedly brushing dust off his jacket.

He introduces himself just as the window blows open to give Letty a blast of dust… he comes to her aid and bullies the dozing steward into replacing her food – surely Letty can see what we see: an over-bearing mean man of means?

Wirt explains the relentlessness of the local wind currents – likely to drive many mad, especially women (of course…) and, already she is scared of the force she cannot control although she tries to put on a brave face.

Letty is greeted not by her cousin but his neighbours, the rough-hewn Lige Hightower (Lars Hanson) and Sourdough (William Orlamond) who immediately start fighting over the new arrival’s favour even though the odds look to be pretty long.

Cora is less than impressed with the new arrival...

They duly deliver Letty to her cousin who greets her with the kind of warmth that makes it clear that they’re not blood relatives - he was adopted by her mother. Their enthusiasm for each other runs deep which explains the cold-blooded reaction of Beverly’s wife, Cora (Dorothy Cumming)… this is a harsh land of few certainties in which desperation drives many a decision.

Letty is pursued by Hightower and Sourdough at the local dance and plays them along, even though the former at least has scrubbed up quite well. Then with an eager glance she notices that Wirt has arrived… and, acquaintance renewed, an assignation is arranged. But Wirt is not quite the man he seems and can offer Letty only the empty future of life as his mistress: he is already married.

The lads look on as slimy Wirt impresses Letty

She returns to her cousin’s house were her options are brutally spelt out by Cora – she must find a man to marry and be taken off their hands and the options are limited to Hightower and Sourdough. Choosing the former she seems doomed to a life of loveless drudgery but Lige is a man of honour who, recognising that she doesn’t share his love, determines to work as hard as he can to return her to her natural world. He’s more than she deserves.

Spoilers ahead… Lige and his men brave dangerous winds to capture as many wild horses as they can as the ranchers face starvation. Wirt – arriving still in pursuit of Letty - is enlisted to help. All the while the winds grow stronger and the deadly “norther” gets closer and closer. In a film crammed with symbolism, there’s none clearer than the representation of the wind as a giant ghostly white horse (has anyone read DH Lawrence’s The Rainbow?). As the weather and human passion reaches a peak will Letty be crushed or will she find clarity?

The film’s most iconic sequence happens towards the end and it is debatable how much this represented actual events or just the state of Letty’s mind – or both? Best decide for yourself... it’s harrowing and open to interpretation.

In an introduction filmed in the 80’s Gish says that the film’s ending was imposed by the studio but I can’t think that the alternative she suggested would make any better sense. As it stands the film has a clear narrative structure that sees Letty’s character evolve rather than simply run out of options: she doesn’t deserve that and it doesn’t appear to be signalled by the style or the structure?

Gish gives a nuanced, full-throttle performance and her character has depth and shades of grey. Sjöström directs with coherent invention putting his actors through their paces out in 120 degree desert sands across which he had a rank of airplane propellers blowing at full power. Gish described it as her toughest gig which is really saying something.

The Wind did not prove a success at the time but is now widely regarded as a late-period classic and screened every year or two in London - this week at the BFI. It could do with a DVD release incorporating the Carl Davis soundtrack I heard – dating from the Thames Silents restoration – which enhances the action with elegance and energy: a mighty wind!

Until then there’s a Spanish DVD available on Amazon with a different and inferior score and less than optimal image quality - still worth getting mind if you haven't seen the film.

What is Letty thinking?