The River (1929) (1993 La Cinémathèque Suisse / La Cinémathèque francaise reconstruction by Hervé Dumont) introduced by Hervé Dumont

The River (1929). Charles Farrell (Allen John), Mary Duncan (Rosalee).

Rakkauden virta / Hennes frestelse / La Femme au corbeau. US © 1929 Fox. D: Frank Borzage. DP: Ernest Palmer. M: Maurice Baron, Hugo Riesenfeld, Ernö Rapée. Starring Charles Farrell (Allen John), Mary Duncan (Rosalee).
    Original Movietone version was 72 min
    Fragmentary material survives in 16 mm only.
    The Hervé Dumont reconstruction with film footage, stills, and explanatory titles based on the script (La Cinémathèque Suisse / La Cinémathèque francaise 1993: 16 mm Movietone 55 min. Presented by Hervé Dumont.
    Viewed at SEA, Orion, Helsinki, 20 Jan 2005.

Two strangers meet in the winter solitude of an abandoned sawmill: the innocent man and the woman who has seen it all. Borzage's version of the Garden of Eden has a mythical quality. It is extremely spare, but fully conscious of the elements: the river, the snow, the fire, the earth. There is primordial simplicity and directness in the Borzage touch. As Dumont says, this is a tale of desire, and the development of the mutual attraction is followed in enchanting scenes, as where the woman finds the naked man in the river, where the woman presses her body to the man to compare heights, where the man feels the woman's heartbeat, where the woman throws herself on the checkerboard that the man wants to suggest as the evening's entertainment, and where the woman rescues the man from freezing to death with the heat of her own body. The reconstruction makes sense of the whole. ****