Post by petrolino on Jan 21, 2018 1:36:28 GMT
'Moonrise' is a jarring crime melodrama based on a novel by Theodore Strauss. Danny Hawkins (Dane Clark) can't live down the sins of his father who was hanged for his crimes. Having endured ruthless treatment growing up at the hands of schoolyard bullies, Danny decides to get even with one of them when he's insulted by Jerry Sykes (Lloyd Bridges). Danny has designs on Jerry's girlfriend, school teacher Gilly Johnson (Gail Russell), but can he put aside his past and find happiness in the arms of a woman?
'Moonrise' was originally set to be directed by William Wellman at Paramount Studios but the project was cancelled. The property got handed to Republic Pictures who were pleased with Frank Borzage's recent pictures for them and offered him the opportunity to direct. The resultant picture is a sultry slice of southern gothic set in small town Virginia. Like Wellman, Borzage was a keen visual stylist who employed his own signature shots and took an unconventional approach to framing. In 'Moonrise', the use of foreground and background smacks you square in the face as Borzage revels in the power of imagery. Take, for example, a scene at the lonely Hawkins mansion in which Danny is addressed by his grandmother (played by Ethel Barrymore) who's standing behind him, her face framed over his shoulder, while Danny's face is partially obscured by an active goldfish bowl - through pure artistry, Borzage is able to evoke the loneliness, isolation and frustration of two peoples' lives in a single picture.
I watched Norman Jewison's romance 'Moonstruck' (1987) this week and was struck by the prophetic nature of John Patrick Shanley's dialogue - "Make sure he comes to the wedding ... five years is too long for bad blood between brothers." I appreciated the prophetic dialogues of 'Moonrise' just as much - "What if she's right. What if there's bad blood in me, Mose? Makes me do bad things?" There's an unsettling religious subtext concerning bloodlines, sado-masochistic desire and society's refusal to acknowledge the malevolence of children. I could be wrong about this, but, similar to Sidney Lumet's 'The Fugitive Kind' (1960), I think Borzage's film hints at the complicated past of America's sundown towns. Dane Clark is outstanding as Danny, a man crippled by his own imagination. I'm convinced if timing and fortune had favoured them, Borzage and Gail Russell could have struck up a major collaboration as she's so in keeping with the mobile style and expressive nature of actresses Borzage typically favoured. The scene where Gilly slips into her school persona while waltzing with Danny is some downright creepy play-acting. There are deliciously nuanced performances from Rex Ingram as wise farmer Mose, Harry Morgan as persecuted local Billy Scripture and Lloyd Bridges as despicable trader Jerry Sykes.
Alan Ladd & Gail Russell
'Moonrise' was originally set to be directed by William Wellman at Paramount Studios but the project was cancelled. The property got handed to Republic Pictures who were pleased with Frank Borzage's recent pictures for them and offered him the opportunity to direct. The resultant picture is a sultry slice of southern gothic set in small town Virginia. Like Wellman, Borzage was a keen visual stylist who employed his own signature shots and took an unconventional approach to framing. In 'Moonrise', the use of foreground and background smacks you square in the face as Borzage revels in the power of imagery. Take, for example, a scene at the lonely Hawkins mansion in which Danny is addressed by his grandmother (played by Ethel Barrymore) who's standing behind him, her face framed over his shoulder, while Danny's face is partially obscured by an active goldfish bowl - through pure artistry, Borzage is able to evoke the loneliness, isolation and frustration of two peoples' lives in a single picture.
"The issues at stake in Frank Borzage's cinema, far from being old fashioned, could hardly be more urgent. In particular, they repeatedly address the implications of extreme sexual and romantic desires in relation to cultural or political environments that cannot fully account for these desires. In their fusion of the erotic and transcendent, and in their very instability, these desires repeatedly threaten to destabilize the social order. That Borzage's films are also beautiful pieces of cinema, acts of seduction performed on the viewer, only intensifies the audacity of what Borzage has achieved. Borzage the Old-Fashioned Romantic? How about, for argument's sake, Borzage the Romantic Modernist? Frank Borzage (pronounced Bor-ZAY-gee) was born in 1894, the son of Italian-Austrian and Swiss parents. His mother Maria gave birth to 14 children, six of whom died from influenza during Frank's childhood. The family was poor but extremely tightly knit and many of Borzage's films would reflect the importance of a strong, loving family amidst the uncertainty of poverty. Also, Borzage's origins inform a number of his films set in lower and working class milieux. The Catholic Borzage family lived in Salt Lake City, with its large Mormon population. Later on, Borzage became a lifelong Freemason - perhaps one reason staircases, a Masonic symbol for spiritual ascension, figure so prominently in his work. He was a true child of the West, even working in a gold mine at the age of 13, in addition to working in construction with his father."
- Daniela Diva, Cinecollage
"If Harold Bloom is correct in his argument that American culture is fundamentally Gnostic in its religious inclinations, emphasizing the experiential aspect to religion above all else and believing that it is possible to enjoy a direct communication with God, then Borzage’s life and work present us with one variation on this American tendency. Borzage was born in Salt Lake City, the home of one of the most American of all religions, Mormonism. Borzage’s family was actually Roman Catholic but they appear to have gotten along well with their Mormon neighbors. Furthermore, Borzage himself was never formally baptized. According to Herve Dumont, Borzage was (like a number of major figures in Hollywood at the time) a Freemason, eventually rising very high within the order of the Ancient and Approved Scottish Rite. As “custodians of holy architecture in the Western World,” the Masons, while maintaining certain links to Judeo-Christian ideology, were devoted to politically progressive concepts of tolerance within a broad notion of a universal brotherhood. Consequently, Dumont argues that many of Borzage’s major films should be seen as Masonic texts. On the one hand, then, Borzage is brought up within a family whose religion is strongly tied to pre-Reformation Europe; on the other hand, during his childhood and youth he is surrounded by a religious culture that is not only diametrically opposed to Roman Catholicism but which is American and experiential to its core. What Borzage ultimately adopts as his ‘religion,’ however, is not quite a religion and not quite a philosophy but a set of deistic precepts with strong roots in a post-Enlightenment Europe. At the same time, many of the figures associated with the establishment of American democracy were Freemasons and the American dollar bill contains a crucial Masonic symbol of the pyramid. America, then, embraces certain Masonic elements at its inception while Borzage’s own cinema may be seen as incorporating some of these Masonic tenets."
- Joe McElhaney, Senses Of Cinema
- Daniela Diva, Cinecollage
"If Harold Bloom is correct in his argument that American culture is fundamentally Gnostic in its religious inclinations, emphasizing the experiential aspect to religion above all else and believing that it is possible to enjoy a direct communication with God, then Borzage’s life and work present us with one variation on this American tendency. Borzage was born in Salt Lake City, the home of one of the most American of all religions, Mormonism. Borzage’s family was actually Roman Catholic but they appear to have gotten along well with their Mormon neighbors. Furthermore, Borzage himself was never formally baptized. According to Herve Dumont, Borzage was (like a number of major figures in Hollywood at the time) a Freemason, eventually rising very high within the order of the Ancient and Approved Scottish Rite. As “custodians of holy architecture in the Western World,” the Masons, while maintaining certain links to Judeo-Christian ideology, were devoted to politically progressive concepts of tolerance within a broad notion of a universal brotherhood. Consequently, Dumont argues that many of Borzage’s major films should be seen as Masonic texts. On the one hand, then, Borzage is brought up within a family whose religion is strongly tied to pre-Reformation Europe; on the other hand, during his childhood and youth he is surrounded by a religious culture that is not only diametrically opposed to Roman Catholicism but which is American and experiential to its core. What Borzage ultimately adopts as his ‘religion,’ however, is not quite a religion and not quite a philosophy but a set of deistic precepts with strong roots in a post-Enlightenment Europe. At the same time, many of the figures associated with the establishment of American democracy were Freemasons and the American dollar bill contains a crucial Masonic symbol of the pyramid. America, then, embraces certain Masonic elements at its inception while Borzage’s own cinema may be seen as incorporating some of these Masonic tenets."
- Joe McElhaney, Senses Of Cinema
Charles Farrell & Janet Gaynor
"One might speculate on what John Garfield, Alan Ladd, Burt Lancaster or James Stewart – who reportedly had all been considered for this part – might have made of the role. Dane Clark, in any case, perfectly embodies that peculiar combination of immediate sensuality and a somewhat childlike innocence, which is so typical of Borzage’s lovers. An old, vacant plantation mansion serves as the refuge, which is a prerequisite for love in almost all of the director’s films. A “safety zone” is what Trina (Loretta Young) calls such a refuge in Man’s Castle, and, as is so often the case with such special places in Borzage’s cinema, Blackwater Mansion seems to transcend time. “It seems like all the clocks in Virginia stopped at once”, Danny remarks, before Gilly playfully assumes the role of the erstwhile plantation owner, thus defusing the erotically charged situation. Yet, unlike, for example, the refuge in Seventh Heaven, Danny and Gilly’s “safety zone” does not stand the test of the outer world. Instead, their second rendezvous at the mansion is cut short by the sheriff’s search party, which might remind one of Street Angel, where Angela (Janet Gaynor) has to leave Gino (Charles Farrell) and their “safety zone”, because a policeman waits outside for her to turn herself in. The first scene at the Blackwater Mansion is also reminiscent of some minor Borzage works. When the floorboards creak in a ghastly way and when the former owner’s portrait inspires Gilly to imaginarily transpose herself into the past, one is reminded of the first meeting of the couple from Smilin’ Through (1941). When Gilly, upon entering the dark salon, appears as a mere silhouette, the mise en scène seems like a reprise of the only truly Borzagean moment from Stage Door Canteen (1943). The movie repeatedly references visual motifs from the Borzage’s earlier works, though. To give just one more example: when Danny regains consciousness, after having jumped from a Ferris wheel in paranoia, the point-of-view-shot of Gilly’s face entering his field of vision calls similar scenes from A Farewell to Arms (1932) and in The River (1929) to mind. But, for the most part, the mise en scène in Moonrise is strikingly different from the style that had made the director famous. "Borzage does not create, in the same frame, tension or opposition between foreground and background, between characters and environment. A unifying sfumato neutralizes these conflicts, eliminating despair ...", is how Herve Dumont accurately summarizes one element of this auteur’s visual style. (19) With Moonrise, however, quite the opposite is the case. Instead of sfumato, Borzage repeatedly employs the chiaroscuro of noir, and he constantly creates dynamic tension between the protagonist and his environment, between fore- and background. It is, above all, this mise en scène which articulates the despair of an outsider, who fears arrest for murder."
- Holger Romers, 'The Moral Of The Auteur Theory : Frank Borzage’s Moonrise And Theodore Strauss’ Source Novel'
- Holger Romers, 'The Moral Of The Auteur Theory : Frank Borzage’s Moonrise And Theodore Strauss’ Source Novel'
"My book, Sundown Towns, tells of a rich white family from Alabama that, after moving to a sundown town in Indiana, had to send their maid back to Alabama, lest she be killed. Midwestern newspapers did not comment on the whiteness of towns—they thought it "natural." In Northern locations where black exclusion actually happened, Hollywood covers it up. Take Grosse Pointe Blank, for example, a John Cusack vehicle. This film not only fails to tell that Grosse Pointe was all-white on purpose, it inserts a black alumnus or two into the major character's high school reunion. The filmmakers had to have known better: Grosse Pointe was not only sundown when the Cusack character went to high school, it was all-white at the time of the reunion scene. Indeed, it remained sundown in 1997 when the movie was shot. Hoosiers, a basketball movie starring Gene Hackman, similarly obfuscates the racial reality of 1950s Indiana. Hoosiers is about one small Indiana sundown town defeating another in basketball; the key game is played in Jasper, a larger sundown town. Nevertheless, African Americans crash cymbals in the band and play other roles they could never have played even in 1986, when the movie was filmed. As one Jasper resident wrote in 2002, "All southern Hoosiers laughed at the movie called Hoosiers because the movie depicts blacks playing basketball and sitting in the stands at games in Jasper. We all agreed no blacks were permitted until probably the '60s and do not feel welcome today." Nonfiction media also follow this rule of portraying sundown towns in the South, where they are rare, and ignoring them in the North, where they are widespread. Oprah Winfrey broadcast a live TV show from Forsyth County, Georgia, in 1987, the 75th anniversary of the expulsion of Forsyth's black residents. Robby Heason's gripping 1990 documentary treats Corbin, in southern Kentucky, which had expelled its African Americans in 1919. Jacqueline Froelich and David Zimmermann produced a fine radio documentary telling how two race riots by whites in Harrison, Arkansas, drove out its black population shortly after 1900. In 2006, Paula Zahn broadcast a CNN segment on sundown towns from Vidor, Texas. The next year, Marco Williams produced Banished, which focuses upon Forsyth (again), Harrison (again), and Pierce City, Missouri, which the film emphasizes lies in southern Missouri. No production, fiction or nonfiction, on stage, screen, radio, or any other medium has ever told the story of Medford, Oregon; Appleton, Wisconsin; Tonawanda, New York; or any other sundown town or county in the North. Two productions to my knowledge have discussed exclusion in suburbs. Gentleman's Agreement, Elia Kazan's movie of Laura Hobson's novel, won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1948. It treats the agreement by which the power elite in Darien, Connecticut, kept out Jews. Interestingly, it makes no mention of Darien's exclusion of African Americans. Brian Copeland's one-man show, Not a Genuine Black Man, describes growing up in San Leandro, California, then a sundown suburb of Oakland, but for his family. As well, a few plays and movies, notably Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, treat residential discrimination in the North but do not hint at sundown towns and suburbs."
- James W. Loewen, 'Sundown Towns On Stage And Screen'
- James W. Loewen, 'Sundown Towns On Stage And Screen'
Janet Gaynor
Robert Taylor & Janet Gaynor in William Wellman's 'Small Town Girl' (1936)
Joan Crawford plays backgammon with Frank Borzage
Joan Crawford & Margaret Sullavan
Gail Russell
'Late In The Evening' - Paul Simon
'Moonrise' is an unexpected surprise from the tail-end of Frank Borzage's filmmaking career that I can't recommend highly enough. My thanks to spiderwort for prompting me to check out something new from one of America's great directors. As film theorist Tramon Wayne noted in his essay 'America's Silent Masters', "Frank Borzage was born in Utah in 1894, the same year King Vidor was born in Texas, two pioneers from the West who helped shape American cinema during its difficult transition from silence to sound."
