Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Do This / Film Another week, another great set of free programs at the U. of C. Film Studies Center
Posted By Ben Sachs on 05.13.14 at 04:52 PM
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When I reported on the opera series a couple weeks ago, I failed to mention that the director of Prince, Zheng Dasheng, will attend the screening and take part in a postshow discussion with Chinese literature professor Paolo Iovene. Also I was unaware two weeks ago that Zheng is the son of filmmaker Huang Shuqin, who directed the previous film in the series, Woman, Demon, Human. (Perhaps Zheng will share stories about that movie as well.) The FSC summary suggests that Prince has stylistic affinities with Demon—like Huang's work, it's said to combine realistic and theatrical devices, including Brechtian alienation effects that reveal how the film is being made as we watch it.
Lubitsch completists generally consider Three Women a minor work (making it, after Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, the second minor Lubitsch to play Hyde Park this week). This also appears to be how moviegoers regarded it in 1924. "This is a work of art so far as the direction is concerned, but the story is weak in comparison," wrote Mordaunt Hall in the New York Times. "Nevertheless we advise picture enthusiasts to see it as there is so much in it that is enjoyable." For what it's worth, this doesn't sound like an impersonal project for Lubitsch. Taken from a novel by Yolande Maree (which is almost as good a name as Mordaunt Hall), the film is a romantic roundelay about a middle-aged socialite, her 18-year-old daughter, and the paramour who comes to fancy them both.
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