Foolish Wives
I just referred to the film as “20 minutes of story and 2 hours of bla” when telling Pixelmatsch about it, and in essence this is exactly what the film is. He responded with “That is because they cut out 2 hours of story and 4 hours of bla” – which I think is most likely also accurate. That is just what Stroheim’s films always are, and the hours of blabla are what make his films great. Most of the times, the storyline is okayish at best (though I thought that “Blind Husbands” had an engaging, amusing story), it is the way Stroheim portrays his Schnitzlerian characters and the lavish environments that make his films into what they are. If you cut the film down to just its story, there won’t be much left. Stroheim knows how to make a picture. As for me, I am totally going to watch the 4-hour-version of “Greed” and I wish the 8-10 hour version was still there.
In essence, I think Stroheim was just ahead of his time. What he really needed was the concept of the modern TV series. His 8-10 hours of Greed could easily have become a 13 episode series with ~45 minute episodes. “Foolish Wives” as a story has enough material for at least a 6 episode mini-series. If the first part of Queen Kelly is going roughly at the pace that Stroheim wanted, I think that prologue could easily have become the first 2 episodes of a longer series. After all, at the end of the day Stroheim was not even able to get to the actual story.
With that in mind, it is hard to judge a Stroheim film. With the story being largely altered or not explained deeply enough due to all the cuts, one has to focus on the looks of the film. As always, those are impeccable. Stroheim’s Monte Carlo is a feast of stylishness and a gem of history. Nobody else is able to use so much splendid decor and make it feel so natural instead of pompously silly. Furthermore, Stroheim himself is the perfect actor for the role of the evil swindler who appears to have every bad character trait in the world including cowardice (and it still surprises me how well he was able to pull off the good guy in “La Grande Illusion”).
I think that Stroheim is a completely crazy old man, but at the same time I greatly appreciate his movies. I don’t think history will repeat itself. Someone like Stroheim is a one of a kind, absolutely unique thing in all of history, and movies like his will never be made anymore.
Your idea about Stroheim as a TV show director is brilliant. I never thought about it this way but it makes so much sense!
It’s too bad the 4-hour-cut of Greed already consists of an awful lot of still images. What a heinous crime destroying negatives is, almost like burning books…
Yeah as you might remember “Queen Kelly” only had still images at the end as well. That just defies the point of filmmaking, huh? “Metropolis” suffered under a similar problem, where parts of the movie just absolutely make no sense without additional info.