Recently I started reading World Cinema again. I returned to basics and watched DW Griffith's A Corner in Wheat which is critical of Capital. Something Cinema has lost in it's post-War era. I also watched Chaplin by Attenborough and stars Robert Downey, Jr. It's a great film. Epic, dramatic, great. Anyway I went to Cinemapolis to watch The General as part of their silent film month. The director of the film museum gave a short speech. As did a historian. The film was about an hour and half and it was very dated in some parts. One part was when Buster Keaton grabs the Confederate flag and waves it bravely in battle. I don't know why it was so popular to sympathize with the South in film. Keaton does it here. As does Griffith in Birth of a Nation. And, perhaps the greatest film that sympathizes with the Southj, Gone With the Wind. Are these the only ones? I don't know. Of course things changed in the 60s and films changed with the times.
The film is entertaining. Even by today's standards the story and the effects still resonate. Even if they come off as simplistic in some parts. There is one scene where a thunder bolt strikes a tree. It is places like here that the film shows it's age and lack of sophistication. On the other hand the sequence of scenes surround the demolition of the bridge weren't bad. The comedy is played up. As is the drama. Johnny Gray finally gets his enlistment.
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