Last night was a really special evening: my friend Farran Smith Nehme has written a wonderful novel called Missing Reels
Last night, at the IFC Center down in the Village, they showed The Crowd, in a 35mm print, and Farran spoke afterwards about the film. A nice crowd showed up (speaking of crowds), many of whom knew Farran, but also many who just wanted to see the film in a theatre. There were a lot of people there who had never seen it before, so that was thrilling as well. I saw it on TCM years ago and it blew me AWAY. I have never seen it since, and never seen it in a big theatre with a live audience, so I was extremely excited.
Afterwards, Farran spoke about the first time she saw it, in the middle of the night on TCM. It stunned her, and she said she realized how often this film had been copied or imitated or flat out stolen from, and she never knew it. You recognize shots from other films, Billy Wilder’s The Apartment comes to mind, with this shot from The Crowd of the lead character’s job in an insurance company:
That’s a long swooping shot over the heads of the crowd, down, down, down, until we find our hero. The shot feels endless. But that is just one example of many: King Vidor was doing things that would become vogue and hip in the 60s with the French New Wave, revolutionary things like filming out on actual streets, the camera tracking along with the character. Vidor would place the camera in a pushcart. There’s one scene where the hero runs down a sidewalk, and the camera careens alongside of him. It’s a completely modern shot and so common now as to be almost cliche (Steve McQueen expanded on it in Shame, but it’s basically the same shot), but seeing it here in 1928 is a revelation. Farran observed afterwards, “The sad thing is is that talkies came in just at the time that silent movies were getting this good.”
The acting is naturalistic, funny, and poignant. James Murray, who had been an extra and plucked out of the literal crowd by King Vidor, plays John Sims, the lead. Mary, his wife, is played by Eleanor Boardman. The transformation that James Murray has to go through is nothing less than epic in scope. From a hot-shot eager young guy, to a ruined shell of a man … and he’s fantastic, heartbreaking (as well as super handsome). Boardman is wonderful: she is a realistic wife, not sentimentalized or idealized. She’s funny and supportive, but also worried and rightfully frustrated that her husband is not making good choices. How much more can she take?
There’s an absolutely gorgeous moment where she is by herself: They have had a fight, a terrible fight, and he has stormed off to go to work. She is left alone in the apartment, and the camera stays on her, as she cries, and then … with her body language, her gestures … you can see her realize that she forgot to tell him that she is pregnant. This is the first time WE know she is pregnant. But the way her hands run over her belly, her face suddenly registering fear and shock that he has gone storming off, and he doesn’t KNOW … it’s all there. You don’t need words. When I talk about the old-fashioned school of acting, the pantomime-based gesture-based school of acting that was in vogue for centuries until film came along and other skills started to be prioritized … THIS is what I’m talking about, a moment like this. She is magnificent in her clarity of gesture, and yet it still looks completely naturalistic. Every gesture has an emotion attached to it. And it flows. It tells the entire story.
There’s a lot of physical comedy. Wife calls out, “Don’t fall on the ice, dear!” Husband is irritated at being corrected and fussed over, please stop hectoring me, dear, and then promptly falls on his ass on the ice. There’s an absolutely uproarious sequence when the newlyweds, on their way to Niagara Falls after their wedding, have to have a cramped wedding-night on a sleeper-car. The husband keeps barging into the wrong compartment. The film predicts Death of a Salesman, in the fact that John, the lead, keeps saying he’s going to do “something big,” he’s going to be a big shot somehow, he is going to stick out from “the crowd.” His father told him he would be something big. But the film knows that that is a fantasy, and it also separates him, in very bad ways, from all that is good in life. You can’t have contempt for “the crowd.” You’re one of them. The husband and wife struggle, she’s no doormat, they live in a cramped apartment where they are (at times) literally on top of each other. Life is tough. Unforeseen things happen. They struggle to make sense of it. He is desperate to make a name for himself, but he just … can’t quite … get it together. The film is meticulous in its attention to small details (the chaotic picnic on the beach, the coffee pot falling into the bacon) and also grandiose in its universal concerns. Both elements of the film work together. The second the characters go outside, they are swept up in a seething mass of humanity, swirling through the streets, whirling through revolving doors, pushing their way onto the subway. The crowd scenes are, frankly, overwhelming.
Warner Brothers had sent the print to the IFC Center, but had neglected to send along the accompanying soundtrack. That was a snafu on Warner Brothers’ part, but it ended up being fascinating and gave me a completely new experience in movies: watching a silent film with no music. Total silence in that theatre, the audience watching, in total silence, sometimes bursting out laughing, but then falling back into rapt watching, and – in one unforgettable moment – gasping, when something tragic occurs. If you’ve seen the film, you know what that tragic event is, and even though I knew it was coming, it was heartbreaking. And hearing this modern New York crowd all around me, gasping in their collective breaths, one guy murmuring, “Oh no …” somewhere behind me …
It brought me to tears. This is why movies are important. This is why the best of them can bond us together. We go into this dark space together, we don’t know each other, but we are there to have some kind of collective experience. Together. That’s the key. It’s also great to have the technology to watch movies at home, in privacy, and I see a lot of movies that way. But watching The Crowd, with no music, and hearing that gasp of horror and empathy and sadness from a group of strangers … It just doesn’t get any better than that.
I watched The Crowd back in a college film class (it might have been high school even) in the mid-’90s, and it’s still stuck with me. I really need to check it out again! I expect it would play a lot differently after I’ve gone through the ups and downs of office jobs and being part of “the crowd”. I’ve had a few jobs in cubicles that remind me a lot of that famous shot with all the desks in a row.
Dan – It definitely gets at that isolating anonymity of office work like that – I also loved him keeping one eye on the clock, as the minute hand clicked to 5 p.m. – and then the mass exodus. When I worked at Martha Stewart last year, it was almost 80% a freelance employee culture – so all of us were on the clock. We did not get overtime, and so 5:30, 6 p.m. – it was exactly like that. Literally, the majority of the work force would stand up, and rush for the elevators. I would look around and go, “You can tell we are all clock-punchers, these are not salaried people!!”
In re: The Crowd: we had some really good discussions afterwards about that famous ending. Someone in the audience called it bleak, or maybe it was dark, but many of us found it strangely hopeful. I did, anyway. The way that last shot goes – with the camera pulling back showing everyone roaring and rocking with laughter – is extremely surreal, for sure – but my take is: John has now accepted he is not exceptional, and that he is part of the crowd – and that’s okay. Maybe he can actually enjoy life now.
I also felt that last moment was making a universal point: Every single person in that roaring rocking crowd has problems, heartbreaks, losses – nobody escapes from any of that in this world. John is not exceptional. This is the human condition. And that moment seemed to be saying that in a purely visual way – one of the most striking shots in the film, for sure.
But it was really interesting to stand around in the lobby afterwards and discuss the ending.
Do you remember your feelings about the ending? Would love to hear.
Other sequences I loved seeing on a huge screen:
– The Coney Island sequence
– all the office stuff
– The vast maternity ward – crazy space!
– That final sequence with the laughing audience
The quieter intimate scenes also played great – but those really need to be seen writ large.
I remember thinking of the ending as a little sad, with all the faceless people laughing away. It basically nullifies the guy’s idea that he’s unique, and it’s a pretty cynical outlook. You bring up a good point about it connecting the human experience, however. What’s great about it is all the different ways you can look at it. I really need to give it another look since my perspective has almost certainly changed.
// What’s great about it is all the different ways you can look at it. //
Totally. There were some wildly differing interpretations in our discussion afterwards. It was awesome.
I mean, someone somewhere has GOT to put this out on DVD eventually. For God’s SAKE.
Oh, your last paragraph-so beautiful!
What a wonderful experience, and I will admit it-I am jealous! How have I never seen this movie? I will be scouring TCM’s monthly schedule till I see it.
Maureen – I mean, that’s what it’s all about, right?
I said to my friend Mitchell – about that gasp of empathy in the crowd – here we are, people in the modern age, gasping in empathetic horror about a tragedy befalling fictional characters played by actors who have all long since passed from this world.
This is hopeful news. This is how we can connect. It was so beautiful.
And there was no inappropriate snickering or douchey behavior like there sometimes is at old movies. It was a great group experience.
Definitely keep your eyes peeled for it. It’s something else!!