Stürme

What struck me most about this film is how it achieved by purely visual means to evoke the threatening nature of the environment in which the female lead (Letty Mason, played by Lillian Gish) finds herself. The way the wind drives the sand and pushes against windows and doors and the very walls of the cabin makes it look and feel truly frightening. Lillian Gish is fantastic as an initially weak young woman who arrives in this environment as a total stranger, is hated by a woman on whom she depends and deceived by a man who (seemingly) offers to marry her, but who nevertheless finds inner strength in the end. 'The Wind' is a truly haunting film with an optimistic ending. Highly recommended!

An awesome, dark & atmospheric film. Gish is superb as the fragile Letty driven to the brink of madness by the incessant wind whipping up the sand. Her portrayal, with her wide staring eyes & tensing hands as the madness threatens to overwhelm her is stunning. The film takes its time to establish its characters, with a constant backdrop of the menace of the environment & also the danger of violence & the descent into madness, building to a thundering & almost unbearably tense experience with the actual sand storm itself. A true classic of the silent era capturing a performer at the peak of her powers-the image of Letty staring wide eyed through the window as the sand uncovers the body will stay with you.

Lillian Gish plays her usual virginal character thrown into adverse and unjust circumstances, but here she does so much with the part as we watch her slowly unravel and lose her mind. She plays Letty, a girl from Virginia who comes to live with relatives in a dust bowl town. The atmosphere into which she travels doesn't make sense in many ways. The people there supposedly make their living from cattle ranching, but with the constant sandstorms I don't see how anything is supposed to survive in such an environment. However, that is not really the point. The constant wind and storms are just metaphors for Letty's own mental state and feeling of entrapment. Her cousin's wife is hostile to her from the start, convinced that Letty wants to take her husband away from her, and eventually forces her out of the home. As a result she marries a man she doesn't love, and once this is clear to him he accepts the situation and makes it a goal to raise enough money to send Letty back to Virginia where she will be happy. On top of this there is the constant specter of a wealthy married man who wants to take Letty's virtue for the recreation of it all.

The visual work on this film is spectacular, much like Murnau's "Sunrise" except in reverse - this film starts out on an upbeat note with Letty looking forward to the new direction her life has turned, and it being all downhill from there. Thus we come to the familiar topic of the abrupt upbeat ending and how it didn't make any sense in the context of the rest of the film. It was an early example of studio suits interfering with the artistic vision of the filmmakers, and so upset director Victor Sjostrom that he never directed another film in America.

Like Murnau's "Sunrise" and "The Crowd", 1928's "The Wind" is an example of silent film-making at its peak. This level of art in movies would be lost at the dawn of sound until the problems with the static camera could be overcome and the novelty of sound wore off to the extent that plot and meaningful dialog became important. The first problem - technical - was remedied much more quickly than the second problem, which was largely a matter of psychology and experience.

Highly recommended for silent film fans.

Lillian Gish's legendary career was nearly as lengthy as her life. Time and time again, she has shown audiences that she was truly one of the finest actresses who ever lived. A perfect example of her power and artistry is in "The Wind".

Miss Gish plays "Letty", a young girl from Virginia who moves to her cousin's house on the wild, open plains of Texas. The plot is very interesting and very fluid. Miss Gish is wonderful as usual (the sequence of events at the end of the movie is among the finest performances on film) but the real star of the movie is Swedish heartthrob Lars Hanson. A real delightful performance, with real charisma.

A must-see film that deserves more recognition.

Peculiar, but brilliantly filmed silent classic starring Gish as a young woman who battles for her life as she lives in the windy Texas desert, and is torn between two men who want her. Special effects are quite breathtaking for its time and since it was filmed in the scorching Mojave Desert in California.