Gone To Earth (Powell & Pressburger, 1950): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 5.50pm
This 35mm presentation, part of the Powell & Pressburger season, also screens on October 28th and November 22nd. Full details here.
Time Out review:
A film much maligned in its time, not
least by producer David O Selznick, who issued an American version
retitled The Wild Heart,
incorporating additional footage directed by Rouben Mamoulian and
running only 82 minutes. Mary Webb's 1917 novel was the archetypal
bodice-ripper - wicked squire, pious yokels, adultery and redemption -
out of which Powell and Pressburger made a visually spellbinding
romance. Christopher Challis'
photography evokes Shropshire and the Welsh borders so that you can
smell the earth. Menace, the bloodlust of the chase (of the fox or the
outcast sinner), is omnipresent as trees bend and wild creatures panic
before an unseen primal force. Cruelty besides beauty sweeps these
pastoral vistas. Forget Jennifer Jones' rustic English (Kentucky? Australian?)
and the melodramatic clichés (boots trampling posies): the haunting,
dreamlike consistency recalls that other fairy story of innocence and
menace, The Night of the Hunter.
Martin Hoyle
Here (and above) is an extract.
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