The Wind

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Audience Member As far as cinematography and acting, this is one of the best silent films you can watch today. The scenes of the windswept plain and the lovingly filmed segments featuring Lillian Gish make this a great work of art. For a silent, the acting is reasonably subdued and convincing. Unfortunately the film does not quite earn a 10 because it has a few small flaws. The ending doesn't work out perfectly. While her killing the evil rapist and burying him as well as her mind playing tricks on her afterwards, I couldn't believe the very end where she pledges her undying love to a man she barely knows and who she was so ambivalent towards. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/08/23 Full Review Audience Member This masterpiece from director Victor Sjöström is a poem of light and sweeping beauty. Lillian Gish never acted better and the story is heartbreakingly poignant. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/18/23 Full Review Audience Member Lillian Gish is a naïve Virginia girl who moves west to stay with her cousin's family, no doubt dreaming of a better life - but instead she discovers howling winds and a jealous wife who is anxious to get rid of her as soon as she arrives. A charming businessman seems the perfect suitor to take her away from this plight - but he turns out to be married and a creep on the make. So, she ends up with a cowhand who she doesn't love and becomes increasingly distraught, spending her days alone with that howling wind. In fact, the wind is virtually another character in the plot, beating at the windows, blowing through the doors, making clothes and hats flap, and undoubtedly adding to the stress and tension of life and driving Gish out of her mind. Director Victor Sjöström (who later played elderly Professor Isak Borg for Ingmar Bergman in Wild Strawberries) keeps the melodrama moving with a relative minimum of inter-titles, some spooky special effects (super-impositions of white horses representing the northerly winds) and excellent use of Gish and her expressive eyes for maximum impact. Yet, yet, I enjoyed Sjöström's earlier films, The Phantom Carriage (1921) and He Who Gets Slapped (1924), a bit more, despite the fact that, for many, The Wind is a masterpiece of silent cinema. I wonder then whether the musical accompaniment I experienced (seemingly of Italian origin on my copy) showed the film in its best light; perhaps I should watch it again in a different version. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/04/23 Full Review Audience Member The Wind is a captivating film centred around the Lillian Gush as the protagonist. The male characters around her shift roles as the film evolves. Based in 19th century Texas, the story portrays a young Virginian woman set to build a new life against her will and is forced to choose a man to survive. This has been a realistic circumstance for the history of civilization up to and excepting the modern era. The film has some very interesting cinematography and is well acted, with an interesting plot based on the book of the same name. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/15/23 Full Review Audience Member One of the greatest silent movies ever made. Swedish director Victor Sjöstrom takes the fairly simple storyline of a young au pair caught between the attentions of a dashing young horse-wrangler, his toothless old friend and the brutal womanising father of the children she has been employed to nanny, and allows all the emotion, drama and comedy room to breathe. The backdrop of the relentless dry sandstorms mirrors precisely the desperation of the central characters. Lillian Gish is sensational, and Carl Davis' score for the Thames Silents version is stupendous. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/27/23 Full Review Audience Member Although quite slow at times, when "The Wind" packs an emotional punch, it does so very strongly and is full of incredible, beautiful visuals. A great silent film.. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/22/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Wind

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