( If you think I am kidding about delicate emotional scenes, rent “Broken Blossoms”, and get a
hankie handy).
OK, the frame speed discussion is closed, but I just wanted to say that this is definitely a two hankie film, just make sure you get a “stretched,” or otherwise compensated video-- or better, a real film version. Some libraries have a super-x version, and even sixteen mm rentals cost just around sisty dollars.
You haven’t seen Lillian Gish until you’ve seen this film. More: it’s interesting because it was made in 1919; it has a totally unsentimental view of families. This was two generations before Father Knows Best.
Also, if you have a taste for the bizarre, read the short story, “The Chink and the Child,” from Limehouse Nights by Thomas Burke. It reads, I swear, like a really bad translation of something that was good in the original. I finally found out that Burke had a love for Chinese poetry and philosophy, but could only read them in dime-novel translations. Just fascinating.
–Rowan
Shopping is still cheaper than therapy. --my Aunt Franny