Close Up (Jan-Jun 1929)

CLOSE UP Whereas in Eisenstein or Preobrashenskaja, you see more intensely. You hold in your hand what you had grasped before with the Russians. The first thing that you get from consideration of The Divine Woman is cynicism. At first it has seemed an ordinary film (and it never becomes a very extraordinary one) of a girl who loved a soldier, became an actress ; became the mistress of a producer to go on being an actress ; and gave up being both in order to settle down with the soldier. But simply because Seastrom has earned respect, you look more closely, and that rewards you. For one thing, there is the shape, as I tried to show in giving the plot. Then, the way the girl got what she wanted, and, as the action swung between actress and love, the director's emphasis swung between " divine and woman Was it by mistake that the divinity was so very tinsel ? Then again, it was remarkable that for once Seastrom was so little occupied with his background. The stage, furs, flowers, receptions . . . you would have thought all this would have been seized on. God knows, it has been often enough. Well, the furs and the chrysanthemums are there, but they're not insisted on, not even stressed dramatically, certainly not relished visually. They are background. Miss Arzner brings her backstages to life, but here Seastrom suddenly concentrates on the woman. He concentrates on the effect of the furs and flowers on the woman. In his old habit, but it is not in his habit to show only the woman. I do not think this is because the woman is Garbo, a star, because Garbo is handled much less as a star than she has been in America. He is not too impressed by her importance or her beauty, which is good for all of us, and Garbo becomes amus 24