In a movie culture predicated in many ways on planned obsolescence, where most “new” stuff is already conceived as some sort of spin-off, it’s tempting to argue that newness has less to do with when a film is made as with its power to reach and change us. It’s also worth considering what we mean by “old”: as Jean-Luc Godard pointed out in the 1960s, we’re more apt to say, “I just saw an old Chaplin movie” than “I just read an old Dickens novel.”
(Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader)
HALLELUJAH (1929/USA)
A melo-drama in the original definition of the word: a dramatic story with music. An early "talkie" produced and directed by King Vidor for no pay as a concession to the studio. Perhaps the best film about the black experience until Sounder was released in the early 70s, certainly the most artistically conceived (Vidor received a most deserved Oscar nomination). The film lavishes attention on the daily routine and community life of African-Americans in the South (exteriors shot on location in Arkansas and Tennessee). Hallelujah opens with a series of scenes depicting sharecropping activities, a "pastorale" of great beauty and historical importance, then develops into a morality tale starring Zeke. The young man is torn between his unshakable religious faith and his weakness for women and vice. Hallelujah features an all-black cast who had scant opportunities to appear in films. Prominent among them, the "Black Garbo" Nina Mae McKinney, unforgettable in the role of the "hussy" or "flapper" Chick. The wonderful soundtrack includes a number of spirituals, early jazz tunes, and two Irving Berlin compositions: "Swanee River" and "End of the Road". The treatment of African Americans was advanced for the times but later some of Hallelujah's characterizations were justly criticized as stereotypical.
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