Tram advertising the Hong Kong International Film Festival
-- a tradition of sorts! :)
Lady Windermere's Fan (U.S.A., 1925)
- Ernst Lubitsch, director
- Starring: Irene Rich, Bert Lytell, May McAvoy, Ronald Colman
- Part of the Hong Kong International Film Festival's Restored Classics program
Viewing a silent movie with live musical accompaniment is not an experience I'd wager that many people living in the 21st century have had. Almost unbelievably though, I've been treated to that experience twice in the past month! A few weeks back, I attended a screening of Buster Keaton's The General (1926), with live pipe organ accompaniment courtesy of Cameron Carpenter, that was part of the Hong Kong Arts Festival. And now I've also had the experience of viewing a screening of Ernst Lubitsch's Lady Windermere's Fan to live piano accompaniment by Bowen Li.
I suppose it's the nature of this events that one really notices the music being played. I'm not sure whether it was just me though who felt that the music being played for the first 10, even stretching to 20, minutes or so on the latter occasion seemed at odds with -- or, at the very least, more slower paced than expected of -- what I saw transpiring in the film. In any event, I must confess to having felt more distracted by -- or inclined to overly fixate on -- the music than one would think was ideal, and it took a longer while than expected for me to get to enjoying my viewing of this 1925 cinematic adaptation of Oscar Wilde's four-act comedy of manners that was not the first and also not the last. (There have been a number of film adaptations of Lady Windermere's Fan to date!)
Although Lady Windermere (played by May McAvoy) is the first person who appears in the movie, this work truly belongs to Mrs Erlynne and that actress who portrays her, Irene Rich. And although the initial impression I got was that she would be the villain of the piece, Mrs Erlynne turns out to be the character the film's audience are supposed to be sympathize -- or even empathize -- with the most. This even though one of her first main actions is to effectively blackmail Lord Windermere (essayed by Ronald Colman), the honorable nobleman who loves his wife more than she often seemed to realize!
Recently returned from abroad, Mrs Erlynne seeks -- nay, yearns -- to be accepted into and become a part of (high) Society. For this, she will need money, among other things. And the way she's decided to do this is to appeal to Lord Windermere to pay her to keep her mouth shut about her being the mother of his wife; a woman that Lady Windermere was told at her young age had died! This Lord Windermere agrees to do without much hesitation. And all would have been fine and dandy; except for such as, over time, Mrs Erlynne deciding that she wanted to meet her daughter and Lady Windermere mistakenly suspecting that her husband and the woman who was actually her mother were having an affair!
Early on in the offering, Lady Windermere's Fan looks to be peopled by self-absorbed members of nobility whose actions and conerns were pretty laughable. As one got deeper into the movie though, more than one character went from being one- or two- to three-dimensional. And by film's end, they come across as noble in spirit as well as social class; and even while the things they care and worry about understandable.
Despite it being helmed by the German-born Ernst Lubitsch and actually being a Hollywood production populated by thoroughly American actresses and actors, Lady Windermere's Fan looks to have very successfully pulled off the illusion of being set in the homes of British nobility and about British high society. The set and costume design are visually impressive indeed, as is the titular fan! Also, the cast really do look and act like they are to the manor born -- or, in the case of Mrs Erlynne, manor aspiring! All in all, it's a very commendable effort which, even while obviously dated in overall style and technique, still has actually stood the test of time pretty well; more so, I'll venture to state, than the one-year-younger The General!
My rating for this film: 7.5
2 comments:
Hi There,
Ah...... Mr Carpenter. He is a strange musician that need time getting used to as he usually interpreted traditional organ pieces in his own very way. But one has to admire his virtuoso even if one does not like his style of transcription of tradition pieces. On the other hand, he seems to pay more attention on the pedal then other organists.
T
Hi T --
I had no problems at all with Cameron Carpenter's organ playing. This being said, I must admit to having focused more on the visuals of "The General" than the music accompanying it!
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