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Posts tagged ‘Frank Borzage’
January 4, 2011  |  An Auteurist History of Film
Frank Borzage’s History Is Made at Night

History Is Made at Night. 1937. USA. Directed by Frank Borzage

History Is Made at Night. 1937. USA. Directed by Frank Borzage

These notes accompany the screening of Frank Borzage’s </i>History Is Made at Night</a> on January 5, 6, and 7 in Theater 3.</p>

Frank Borzage (1893–1962) (like last week’s subject, Leo McCarey) was a great romanticist who deserves to be better remembered. In the silent period, after a decade-long apprenticeship as a director and sometime actor, he made such visually striking, stylish, and deliriously romantic films as Seventh Heaven (winner of the very first Oscar for directing), Street Angel (which we looked at last spring), The River, and Lucky Star, all starring Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor (except for the forgettable Mary Duncan in The River.) Borzage’s career took a few strange turns in the sound period, especially for a former minor silver miner from Salt Lake City.

March 30, 2010  |  An Auteurist History of Film
Frank Borzage’s Street Angel

Street Angel. 1928. USA. Directed by Frank Borzage

Street Angel. 1928. USA. Directed by Frank Borzage. Gift of Twentieth Century-Fox. Preserved with funding from the Louis B. Mayer Foundation

These notes accompany the screening of </i>Street Angel, March 31 and April 1 and 2 in Theater 3.</p>

From the opening shot of Street Angel (1928), it is evident that Frank Borzage (1893–1962) had been enraptured by watching F. W. Murnau shoot Sunrise the preceding year at the Fox studio. Through atmospheric light and shadow, the camera prowls around elaborate Neapolitan sets in long, complicated takes. Borzage had won the first Oscar for best director for Seventh Heaven in 1927, but he evidently realized that Murnau and his team had brought something new to Hollywood, and his career over the next thirty years never cast off Murnau’s spell.