Hypocrites

Hypocrites by Lois Weber is a strong symbolic film. It is much different from other silent features of its day. The use of a nude must have really rattled folks of the day, but there is nothing sexual about it but rather symbolic that truth uncovers all. The film takes shots at religion, society, politics, and other institutions and shows them up against the nakedness of truth. Since most of these themes are timeless which the film shows by showing the hypocrisy of the medieval age the movie is still relevant today nearly a century after being made. The film itself has interesting effects such as double exposure and the camera isn't always stationary but instead moves around on a dolly. Overall one of the better silent films I have seen.

Grade B

Hypocrites follows the parallel stories of an early Christian ascetic and a modern minister with actor Courteney Foote in both roles, as well as numerous other actors in dual roles. The first story shows a medieval monk who has devoted his efforts to completing a statue of Truth, which gathers much attention from his village. However, when he reveals the statue, he is murdered by a mob when his work turns out to be an image of a naked woman. Gabriel, the lead of the contemporary story, is a minister for a congregation that is extrinsically motivated by the appearance of religion. In a dream, he leads his congregation up a steep path to find Truth, but because of their lack of faith and selfishness, he loses all of his followers on the rough terrain.

The director, Lois Weber, effectively achieves her goal of emphasizing hypocrisy in certain religious institutions. One of the film's inter-titles states, "Truth is welcome if clothed in our ideas" which emphasizes the double standards of the worshipers. This quote effectively sums up the basic message that Weber wanted to portray in the film. However, I feel that the use of inter-titles became a bit redundant. Her use of images and the portrayal from the actors was effective enough without needing any explanation.

From an entertainment standpoint, Hypocrites is slow and anticlimactic. There are numerous long takes that are used to emphasize the actions of the hypocrites. The film could benefit from some editing that would make it flow faster without losing the central message. However, when one considers the controversy involved in the topic as well as the risqué use of nudity, any cinephile would appreciate the influence of this film and of Lois Weber as it stands as social commentary.

This film marks a distinct change in the way narrative film making took place, with a plot that included flashbacks and interlaced story lines, this film is very interesting. While I personally did not enjoy it, it is hard to ignore how interesting this film is in terms of the history of modern film technique. The story, due to it's lack of sound, is quite difficult to follow, but instead presents itself as a series of allegorical quips meant to criticize the religious crowd of the time. The blatant presentation of truth as a naked woman (the naked truth) along with the way the wrath of God is simplified to the economies of a child (do something bad and you get hurt) will likely bother those inclined to religious belief or introspective thought.

It's good to see that the comments posted on this film are all well thought out. I agree with almost everything already said about this odd little film called "Hypocrites". This definitely isn't the easiest movie to get through. It's very slowly paced and so overly moralizing that I doubt many viewers would have even liked it much in it's time. Indeed the film is highly artistic, but also self-consciously so. Everything screams IMPORTANT in the movie, which isn't the flaw one may think it would be, but doesn't exactly help things either. The aura of "Hypocrites" is that of a revival meeting of sorts, the kind of old-time gathering in a tent that may still happen today in the more rural parts of America but is generally a hazy memory elsewhere. That is strange as well because the religious characters appear either Roman Catholic or high Episcopalian (or something along those lines), not evangelical at all. To further compound the confusion, the artistically justifiable insertion of Naked Truth could do nothing but anger religious folk of the time, and this was all done by a woman director (the trailblazing Lois Weber)!

The gimmick may well have drawn them in, at least to an extent. Which is the strangest aspect of "Hypocrites" - that in denouncing hypocrisy, even with such artful gestures, Weber demonstrates in no uncertain terms that even she isn't immune to it. It's all around us, part of humanity, part of everything we are. Just have to learn to control it, is what she seems to be trying to say. I do like "Hypocrites", watch it every so often and come away with something different each time, even if I soon forget what it was. Is this a classic? In a way. Is it entertaining? Sometimes, could be, depending on what mood you're in and what you're looking for in a film. I don't think most people would like it at all. But for what it is, and as an example of the work of Weber (it seems most of her films no longer exist), "Hypocrites" is indeed IMPORTANT.

Viewed in context, Lois Weber's Hypocrites is an illuminating period piece. It opens a window onto not only the author's moral concerns, but the larger context of "progressive" reform that influenced much of early twentieth-century America, resulting most notably in anti-trust and child labor legislation, Prohibition, and women's suffrage. Shockingly depicting "truth" incarnate via a diaphanously-filtered-but-fully-naked actress, Weber turns the filmic mirror on political graft, economic materialism, twisted gender dynamics, and, of course, demonic dancing and beach-and-party-going. She not only critiques "secular" decadence, however, but spares neither mainstream Protestants nor Roman Catholics from her judgments. Somewhat unclear is Weber's own remedy for hypocrisy. Both medieval and modern ascetics wind up dead in the film, which suggests that she held little hope for males to lead women to the promised land--wherever it might be. Perhaps, then, this first-wave feminist filmmaker hoped that her critique alone would motivate viewers (and especially women) to take political action on behalf of justice. If this appears to us a naive, and perhaps even sectarian, faith, in its context it had significant power. As an antecedent of Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry (for which he received the first Nobel Prize in Literature ever awarded an American), Weber's Hypocrites deserves attention as an important piece of evidence in the history of progressive moralizing, and more broadly in American cultural production