Ouro e Maldição

It's pretty tiresome to watch four hours of a black and white silent movie, which was cut to two hours seventy years ago and then, in our time, restored to original length by using photos from shooting to replace lost material... But it is definitely worth your patience. In the beginning, it may seem too stretched and even boring, but as you watch for some time it starts to pull you in and all shortcomings slowly fade from sight until you are left with a strong impression.

7/10

The one great myth about this movie is that it would have been better if it had been four time longer. It's extremely good, at it is highly unlikely that the "unmutilated" version would have been better. In all likelihood, it would simply have been boring. It's a matter of faith among the conventional cinema intellegentia that the studio bosses routinely butchered great films. Judging from the self-indulgent dreck pumped out by unleashed geniuses once the studio system broke down, this is untenable. Stroheim was doubly lucky that the studio cut this film; the cutting made it good and further gave rise to the legend that an even better movie lived in the director's cut.

I saw the Turner Classic Movies version of this with the still pictures implanted in missing scenes. Although a certain flow is lost, it comes across as a great film. What a shame that so much was destroyed. It tells the story of two pretty good people who should never have got together. Zasu Pitts who looks pretty glamorous at first, is obsessed with money. This obsession ends up destroying her life and McTeagues. There are scenes that are just uncomfortable and others that are horrible. The jockeying for position in the family with the husband willing to bend only so far leads to tragic consequences. Avarice will eventually take one down and Von Stroheim showed this to us. The scene with the two men fighting it out in the desert at the end is one of the most painful ever. Neither can ever hope to survive, yet their fixation on gold goes beyond their love of life. It is so pathetic. Even with all that missing footage, everyone should see this for the masterful presentation of the sick and dying characters. Deep down inside, I've always hoped that someone will open a vault or a supply cabinet, and there will be the rest of Von Stroheim's masterpiece. We can only hope, can't we.

You don't have to watch "Greed" for very long to become impressed with the masterful technique of von Stroheim and his cast. Sometimes it relies on fancy methods such as the occasional use of gold tinting (which must have demanded some painstaking work), and at other times it relies on flawless direction, carefully chosen details, and a keen understanding of what is happening in the characters' lives. The tense finale is especially memorable, a sequence you won't forget for a while.

The only real questions about "Greed" have to do with its length. Hardly anyone disputes the folly of the studio decision to chop the original down to a couple of hours. The restored version uses stills and title cards to fill in the most important scenes that were left out in the studio release, and from this you can also piece together what was actually included in the shorter version. Several significant secondary characters were almost completely eliminated, which took away some of the relationships that were supposed to serve as important comparisons with the central relationship between McTeague and his wife. Even if they had been right to cut the film to a quarter of its length, the choices they made left much to be desired.

Would it really have been better with several more hours of material? Although there is plenty of plot, there isn't anything in the story thematically that would require anything longer then the restored version. It's a gripping study of human flaws, especially greed, but goes no farther. It is admirable to see a director try to hold so closely to a novel, but the Frank Norris novel, while detailed, convincing, and well-conceived as far as it goes, doesn't have the depth or the multi-dimensional characters of the greatest novels. There is no doubt that the lost footage would have provided many more examples of fine film-making, but most of it would not have added very much to the story itself.

What would probably have been perfect is something close to the length of the restored version, with the actual (but now lost) footage instead of the patchwork reconstruction. Since that is impossible, we are very fortunate to have the restored version that includes all of the most important parts of the story and that gives new life to one of the fine classics of silent cinema.

Erich von Stroheim made his film version of Frank Norris' novel ‘McTeague', and, as is well-known, it lasted over eight hours. The version which has survived is obviously nothing near that length, and cuts out many of the subplots from the book which had been planned and filmed.

What has survived is a broken masterpiece, starring Gibson Gowland, ZaSu Pitts, and Jean Hersholt, which is full of memorable images (not just the final sequences in the desert, but the trip out where McTeague and Trina fall awkwardly in love, and the scene where Trina rolls literally in the golden coins strewn on her bed) and makes you long for more of this film to turn up from the vaults.

There is a marvellous book available which reconstructs much of the lost material through stills, and much of this was amalgamated with the existing footage to ‘restore' the film during the late 1990s. Even in its butchered state, Greed is well worth a look.