Borderline

"With high expectations I went along to the Academy Theatre on Monday to see "Borderline", a silent film produced by Kenneth MacPherson, editor of Close-Up, and starring Paul Robeson with his charming wife Eslanda. At the end I was dumbfounded. Mr MacPherson has apparently attempted to make a film story out of the amazingly suitable screen material provided by what is called "the negro question." No one could deny the possibilities of such a story. But Mr Macpherson buries his intentions in a conglomerate of weird shots and queer situations, worked out around a dissolute set of unsympathetic characters. He thinks too much of close-up and not enough of border-line. The result is a wholly unintelligible scramble of celluloidian eccentricity. The film is not, at the moment, being offered by any renter for public exhibition, though it is certified "A" by the B. B. F. C. I doubt if it will be. It is not for one moment entertaining, and only stimulates one's natural desire to see and hear Paul Robeson in a first-rate "British" talkie, made for the public. In a synopsis we are reminded among other biographical facts, that Kenneth Macpherson "is himself, you might say, border-line among the young cinema directors." Until he can do better than this for the box-office he is unlikely to be allowed over the border-line." (BIOSCOPE, 15 October, 1930)

In the fall of 1927, a British film magazine appeared titled "Close Up." Of its purposes, it was trying to elevate film to the status of "art", it was trying to promote the educational qualities of film, it was trying to kick the British film industry into high gear (indeed, all the articles lamenting the poor British film industry grow wearisome), etc., etc. Of these purposes, it was also championing the minorities, blacks in film being one of the main focuses of this purpose.

The brainchild behind this "Close Up" was a man named Kenneth MacPherson, whose name you'll also notice under the Writing and Directing credits of "Borderline", the film in question of this review.

I watched "Borderline" because I'm a fan of this old magazine. Back in these days, the writers had a much clearer sense of film and its potentials, and their writing has a pop and vigor, the type that would transform into the raging "wit" that today's writers pass off. With MacPherson, two others edited and contributed to "Close Up". The first of these is Winifred Ellerman, pen-name Bryher. The second is Hilda Doolittle, pen-name H.D., American poet, actor in "Borderline." Other personalities, of course, frequently appear in the publication, but it is these three whom I'm quite fond of, especially the two women. Quite naturally, I had to see these personalities materialize on film, their only film.

It's amazing how well this film corresponds to these personalities I've loved. The rhythm, the technique, the good-humor of "Borderline" is so apparently theirs. Of course, I say this from bias, but I still say it is uniquely the product of MacPherson, of his person and people. And the jazz score on the Criterion disc compliments this personality well, I feel. It compliments the film. It compliments the rhythm, the technique, and the good-humor. Oh, I should probably define these. Hmm... The rhythm is difficult to describe. The cutting is strange and... jazz-like (undoubtedly, the jazz score again biases me). The story is more rhythmic than coherent, and apparently this throws people off (as evidenced by the few uninformed narrative junkies who have submitted embarrassingly bad reviews to this humble IMDb page). The technique is often impressionistic. "Borderline" is beautifully photographed, if I may say so, and the Criterion quality is the standard of excellence. The thoughtful angles, the focus and lighting, the good-humor... all shines through on the DVD. Oh, the good-humor! Well, that's something you have to experience.

I'm thankful MacPherson made a film. He should have made more. Well, anyone who's interested has some writings they can turn to. In fact, more than "Borderline" I'd like to recommend "Close Up" to the intelligent film-scholar. You'd be surprised how finely clear these writers' thoughts are and you'll get a very good look at the industry of the time (and the people who drove it). Worthwhile.

P.S. Robeson is really good, too.

It is very difficult to write a review of this experimental silent film. The people involved in making it (in Switzerland) are very interesting people for numerous reasons. Of some of them, no other moving film images exist. And then there is the strange presence of Paul Robeson in a film without sound, so that he has no chance to sing with that magnificent voice, as his rendition of 'Ole Man River' in SHOW BOAT (1936, see my review) has made so famous to those who might not otherwise have heard of him. During his lifetime he was very famous, but memories fade and people are soon forgotten, even people as tall, forceful and charismatic as he was. Here he appears in numerous shots shooting up at his face shown against clouds in the sky, as if he were a god. The director must have had a crush on him. Robeson's wife Eslanda Robeson also appears in the film opposite him, which was her only credited appearance in a film (she appeared in two later ones uncredited). Apart from the Robesons, none of the actors in this film ever appeared in another film. Despite their complete lack of training or experience, they all do a really good job. Moral: is drama school really necessary? Before describing the largely incomprehensible film itself, we need to consider the personalities involved, apart from the Robesons whom I have already mentioned. The key figures were the lesbian couple consisting of Hilda Doolittle, who wrote under the pseudonym H. D., and Winifred Ellerman, who wrote under the pseudonym of Bryher (the name of her favourite Scilly Isle). Although Bryher's work is largely forgotten today, the poetry of the famous imagist poetess H. D. is very much still in print and continues to be highly regarded, not least by myself, I must say. I have some of her early publications including one or two signed by her. She and Ezra Pound had a fling when they were young together in Philadelphia. She later moved to London to join Ezra and Dorothy Pound. Dorothy told me that in those days her two closest friends were Hilda Doolittle and Gaudier-Brzeska, and she truly adored them both. (Gaudier was at that time having his affair with Nina Hamnett.) Hilda lived in the same building with the Pounds for a while in Kensington, but she did not follow them to Paris and Rapallo later. Bryher married Robert McAlmon in order to hide from her parents the fact that she was gay. McAlmon was gay himself, so the marriage was for show. For an account of all this one should read McAlmon's wonderful memoir BEING GENIUSES TOGETHER. (It is very much better to read the original than the heavily edited and hacked-about version by Kay Boyle.) In 1927, Bryher tired of McAlmon and divorced him, marrying instead Kenneth MacPherson, who directed this film and also had been having an affair with H.D., who unlike Bryher was vaguely bisexual. They all lived together. All three of them were film-mad and they founded an arty film magazine called CLOSE UP in 1927, which lasted for a few years. I do not have a complete set of it, alas, but I do have a bound volume of numerous issues. They also founded an entity of some kind called Pool to make some experimental films, of which this is apparently the only survival. They had meanwhile introduced Sergei Eisenstein's films to the Western world. This film has countless examples of jump shots and rapid editing in imitation of Eisenstein's style, without the ability to make it work effectively, however. But at least MacPherson was trying. They had all seen and been influenced by the earlier silent experimental films of Man Ray, and this film is much better than anything he ever achieved on cinema. They were also heavily influenced by the German expressionists, as the angles and shots and atmosphere show clearly. To go into all their theories about the cinema would be out of place here, as taking too long. This film therefore has historical significance both for the history of experimental filmmaking and for those interested in the people appearing in it, and many of those will perhaps have little or no knowledge of or concern for the cinema per se. Lovers of poetry will get a shock when they see Hilda Doolittle, because her photos tend to be idealised and serene, but when you see her in this you can see how scary and weird she really was. She wrote a lot about ancient Greece, which was her chief obsession, but if one were to class her as a character at that time, one would have to place her amongst the maenads. One wonders whether one would really have wanted to know them. Both they and the film itself, and much that they wrote as well, concern extremes of passion. I don't have much interest in extreme passions myself, being too cerebral perhaps. And anyway, extreme passions do take up a lot of time and require a great expenditure of energy which could more profitably be put to use in studying something far more interesting. But this film is nothing but extreme passion, shown disjointedly and with insufficient continuity to make out who is really doing what to whom or why. Hilda Doolittle ends up dead, which is pretty shocking. It all goes to show that quarrelling lovers should never play with knives. The protracted knife scene in this film is very harrowing. The film also strenuously promotes the cause of black people, and as an example of racial prejudice, has a little old lady saying that all 'negroes' should be removed from Switzerland immediately (another n word is used also which I do not repeat). In the story it seems that Hilda's husband has had an affair with Robeson's wife and it drives them all mad. Most of the film consists of them being overwrought.

This little-seen experimental film definitely won't be to everyone's taste, but I was impressed by how modern it looked (apart from the lack of sound, it wouldn't have looked out of place in the late-1950s, early 1960s) and the bohemian atmosphere it created. The film makes very little use of intertitles, and so the story can be a little tricky to follow at times, but it isn't all that complicated and an attentive viewer should be easily able to fill in any gaps along the way.

Paul Robeson stars as the husband of a half-caste woman who has had an affair with a white man in a small village in Switzerland. She has ended the affair, but too late to save the marriage, and her lover – who is also married – is having trouble coming to terms with the split. The racial tolerance subject matter and message is fairly rare for the time, and is handled with a surprising amount of maturity. For the peripheral figures caught up in the fallout from the affair, life eventually continues unchanging, and the entire film is pervaded with an air of melancholia.

Although the story does drag a little at times, and the director's choice of shot is sometimes open to question, the look and feel of the film, and the way it brims with innovative ideas (for its time) make this worth watching.

Film historians say Kenneth Macpherson's movie was fifty years ahead of its time in terms of subject matter. The Scottish filmmaker's only feature film could have never been produced in Hollywood at the time, let alone seen nationwide distribution to theaters, especially in the South. His silent film, October 1930 "Borderline," was a mix of experimental and avant garde elements, with a heavy dose of Sergei Eisenstein-type montage editing.

To film such a bold movie, cinema's first look at black/white love relationships, took financial resources most filmmakers don't have. Macpherson married into money in 1927 when he linked up with a shipping magnate's daughter, Annie Ellerman, an English writer known as Bryher. To say their marriage was not of the traditional kind is putting it mildly. It was more of an artistic alliance between the couple, with Annie favoring women while Kenneth loved both genders. Moving to Territet, Switzerland, soon after their wedding, the pair gathered other artists in the community to form the 'Pool Group.' Its members adopted the French and German experimental forms of art, frowning upon commercial formats for more expressive 'art forms,' centered on feelings rather than plot narratives.

After producing three short movies, Macpherson embarked on his first (and only) feature film. He remarkably was able to secure the acting services of African-American actor Paul Robeson, who was on the London stage at the time, and his wife, Eslanda. "Borderline" sees the pair renting a room upstairs from the owners of the house, a white couple. The two couples separately have affairs with the other, setting off a firestorm in the town after a murder takes place. The film is delivered by way of spare inter titles and relies on the actors' expressions rather than dialogue. Said film critic Richard Deming,"Macpherson's brilliance lies in his ability to photograph small movements as nuanced, meaning-producing gestures." A recent review claimed, "Judged on its own merits, Borderline is a ground-breaking work, dealing as it does with issues of race and sexuality at a time when such subject matter was still largely taboo and had only been previously tackled cinematically through oblique inference." Viewers used to traditional Hollywood movies were dumbfounded by Macpherson's feature film. One London newspaper reviewer recommended the filmmaker "spend a year in a commercial studio" before embarking on another project as complex as his "Borderline." The "Pool Group" leader was so stung by such negative criticism he withdrew the prints from distribution and gave up his ambitions to direct any movies in the immediate future.