Unknown footsie in Upstream
Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 12:48 pm
This 1927 silent film entitled "Upstream" According to the New Yorker blog, it was lost for some time, but was found a few months ago in the New Zealand Film Archive. A link to the blog with a description of the scene is below.
The warm-hearted, family-like bonding of the threadbare thespians in their cocoon-like enclosure fits into Ford’s world like Fort Apache or the cavalry post in “She Wore a Yellow Ribbonâ€â€”it’s a bastion of a not-too-orderly order in the midst of a world that ranges from menacing to indifferent to beneficent, but in no foreseeable way, and a distillation of a great heritage and its humane wisdom. In effect, Ford is, as ever, unfolding the genius of the system, or, rather, the manifold touches of daily grace that collectively render the system ingenious—as well as the arrogance that threatens to turn the system monstrous. And he realizes his essentially political vision with warm yet salty humor (as with an old roué’s unfortunate dinner-time game of footsie) and a trenchant visual daring (he has the audacity to realize a silent musical scene and a silent staging of “Hamletâ€).
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/m ... z1cMKVXkal
The warm-hearted, family-like bonding of the threadbare thespians in their cocoon-like enclosure fits into Ford’s world like Fort Apache or the cavalry post in “She Wore a Yellow Ribbonâ€â€”it’s a bastion of a not-too-orderly order in the midst of a world that ranges from menacing to indifferent to beneficent, but in no foreseeable way, and a distillation of a great heritage and its humane wisdom. In effect, Ford is, as ever, unfolding the genius of the system, or, rather, the manifold touches of daily grace that collectively render the system ingenious—as well as the arrogance that threatens to turn the system monstrous. And he realizes his essentially political vision with warm yet salty humor (as with an old roué’s unfortunate dinner-time game of footsie) and a trenchant visual daring (he has the audacity to realize a silent musical scene and a silent staging of “Hamletâ€).
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/m ... z1cMKVXkal