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Frank Borzage: The Life and Films of a Hollywood Romantic
This work brings to readers of English a comprehensive and engaging treatment of one of America's greatest, if largely forgotten, film directors. Dumont's celebrated 1993 study, translated from the French by Jonathan Kaplansky, offers complete coverage of Borzage's entire career--the more than 100 films he made and the effect of those films on movie audiences, especially between 1920 and 1940. Lavishly illustrated with 120 photographs, the book also contains a complete filmography, a chronological bibliography, and an index.
- GenresFilmNonfiction
428 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2006
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December 19, 2023
I knew Frank Borzage because he has directed many of my favorite actresses like Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich and Margaret Sullivan. And I knew he got the first Oscar for directing, and that Janet Gaynor got the first Best Actress Oscar for two Borzage films, “Seventh Heaven” and “Street Angel” (and also Murnau’s “Sunrise”). I knew his adaptation of “A Farewell to Arms” which Hemingway fans don’t like. I watched as many of his films as I could find in tandem with reading about them in this book. I was blown away by the emotional maturity in his silent films like “Back Pay” with Seena Owen and “The Lady” with Norma Talmadge (what I wouldn’t give to see a restored version of this). I was also impressed with the performances he got out of nearly everybody in every film. I’ve always thought of George Cukor as the greatest director of actors, but now I think Borzage is far superior. He was also a very collaborative director, open to experimentation, and worked well in disparate genres.
This book was a master class in melodrama. I’ve been studying film for 30 years and I must say that reading this book and watching these films deepened my ability to read/experience melodrama. And in many ways, it was also like studying romantic love – how to portray it and how to experience it. The author sums up Borzage’s films thusly, “Like Mozart’s characters, his lovers are fundamentally predestined towards a supreme union. First, they must possess two attributes […] the first being the ability to love to the extent of forgetting oneself, if necessary, to the ultimate sacrifice. The second faculty is to establish a protective enclave […] in which the couple will be able to carry out the alchemical process.”
This sense of a ‘new life’ was perhaps the influence of the Masons which Borzage joined in 1919. Although this book focuses more on textual analysis of the films, there is also behind the scene detail on each film, and also biographical detail on Borazge, particularly his marriages. The first was long and unhappy. She sounds like a selfish villainess of one of his films, married to our hero who deserves better. The second marriage was short and unhappy which was to be expected as he completely fell apart (drinking and leaving a picture) after his divorce. The third was long and happy, lasted until the end of his life, and he projected his own ‘seventh heaven’ onto it.
His characters are far from perfect. Through their supreme love they become beautiful in response to an ugly world. Borzage wanted to bring to the screen the joys and sorrows of ordinary life. His closeups of his actors highlighted a luminous quality that drew an audience in, letting them read the characters’ minds and feeling some of their emotions. There are quite a few deaths in his films; even though they strengthen the love between the two people it somehow comes as a surprise, as though they never thought their story could possibly end. In his best films, there may follow some kind of look of resignation which can be very powerful in his silent films, but is also there in “Farewell to Arms” and “Secrets” where it is enacted by Mary Pickford in her final film. The reaction to death remains an indelible part of his later films like “Three Comrades”, “The Mortal Storm”, “Flight Command” and “China Doll”.
As great as Borzage is with drama, he can be equally adept at breezy comedy. He gives tremendous depth or believability to trifles like “The Vanishing Virginian”, “Seven Sweethearts” and “His Butler’s Sister”. I could recognize his signature touches, like old couples reflecting on their lives, or the bonds of family or loyalty testing a person’s mettle. The combination of Borzage and Lubitsch collaborating on “Desire”, starring Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper, results in one of the most sublime (and underseen) romantic comedies of the 1930s. The film is often credited more to Lubitsch but Borzage’s touches are there, like the giant man/small woman combo, the rehabilitation of a character’s morality, and a sensuality whose power goes beyond this physical realm.
I disagree with the author (and most Borzage fans) about “History is Made at Night” – I don’t think it pulls itself together, and I don’t think the characters are particularly redeeming. On the other hand, I found “Big City” with Luise Rainer and Spencer Tracy to be much more charming than the author, and perhaps anyone else. I was not expecting much with “China Doll” but the author had written well about it, and I felt it was a minor, late masterpiece full of Borzage touches like the initially wary but eventually intense coupling, the desire to exist in a world apart from all the horror, a community of oddballs that recognizes the uniqueness of the couple. It was so much like one of the Gaynor/Farrell films.
I was also never particularly motivated to see the surviving fragment of “The River”, which is only about half of the film. But the author sold it, stating that it may have been Borzage’s highest achievement. I believe it! I would probably recommend it over the complete Gaynor/Farrell films because of the nuance in its portrayal of a gradual awakening to love.
Now I can see Borzage’s influence in other films, like in Nicholas Ray’s “They Live By Night” which starts with the focus on the young couple’s love rather than any crime, and came out a year after Borzage’s noir, “Moonrise”. Borzage is now the standard by which I judge portrayals of romantic love, the passage of time, death and grief, civilians in wartime… oh my goodness, I forgot to mention the German trilogy of “Little Man, What Now?” and “Three Comrades” and “The Mortal Storm” – all starring the sublime Margaret Sullavan, who became a new kind of muse for Borzage after his path diverged from Janet Gaynor. Sullavan also co-starred in “The Shining Hour”.
For all his romanticism, Borzage tried to keep his characters rooted in reality. In his Pre-Code films there was premarital sex and even abortions were discussed, along with the crude gossip of others. There was nothing salacious in these instances, as we often think of Pre-Code, but rather they were just a part of ordinary life. And that beautiful moment when Margaret Sullavan runs through a soundstage field in “Little Man, What Now?” and we can see her panties. There’s nothing lurid about it; it’s pure, swooning romance. And so is this book, for the most part. A great way to get to know a period of cinema (late silent/early sound) and a director who straddled these eras. An interesting way to reevaluate what constitutes love and loyalty and the passage of time.
This book was a master class in melodrama. I’ve been studying film for 30 years and I must say that reading this book and watching these films deepened my ability to read/experience melodrama. And in many ways, it was also like studying romantic love – how to portray it and how to experience it. The author sums up Borzage’s films thusly, “Like Mozart’s characters, his lovers are fundamentally predestined towards a supreme union. First, they must possess two attributes […] the first being the ability to love to the extent of forgetting oneself, if necessary, to the ultimate sacrifice. The second faculty is to establish a protective enclave […] in which the couple will be able to carry out the alchemical process.”
This sense of a ‘new life’ was perhaps the influence of the Masons which Borzage joined in 1919. Although this book focuses more on textual analysis of the films, there is also behind the scene detail on each film, and also biographical detail on Borazge, particularly his marriages. The first was long and unhappy. She sounds like a selfish villainess of one of his films, married to our hero who deserves better. The second marriage was short and unhappy which was to be expected as he completely fell apart (drinking and leaving a picture) after his divorce. The third was long and happy, lasted until the end of his life, and he projected his own ‘seventh heaven’ onto it.
His characters are far from perfect. Through their supreme love they become beautiful in response to an ugly world. Borzage wanted to bring to the screen the joys and sorrows of ordinary life. His closeups of his actors highlighted a luminous quality that drew an audience in, letting them read the characters’ minds and feeling some of their emotions. There are quite a few deaths in his films; even though they strengthen the love between the two people it somehow comes as a surprise, as though they never thought their story could possibly end. In his best films, there may follow some kind of look of resignation which can be very powerful in his silent films, but is also there in “Farewell to Arms” and “Secrets” where it is enacted by Mary Pickford in her final film. The reaction to death remains an indelible part of his later films like “Three Comrades”, “The Mortal Storm”, “Flight Command” and “China Doll”.
As great as Borzage is with drama, he can be equally adept at breezy comedy. He gives tremendous depth or believability to trifles like “The Vanishing Virginian”, “Seven Sweethearts” and “His Butler’s Sister”. I could recognize his signature touches, like old couples reflecting on their lives, or the bonds of family or loyalty testing a person’s mettle. The combination of Borzage and Lubitsch collaborating on “Desire”, starring Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper, results in one of the most sublime (and underseen) romantic comedies of the 1930s. The film is often credited more to Lubitsch but Borzage’s touches are there, like the giant man/small woman combo, the rehabilitation of a character’s morality, and a sensuality whose power goes beyond this physical realm.
I disagree with the author (and most Borzage fans) about “History is Made at Night” – I don’t think it pulls itself together, and I don’t think the characters are particularly redeeming. On the other hand, I found “Big City” with Luise Rainer and Spencer Tracy to be much more charming than the author, and perhaps anyone else. I was not expecting much with “China Doll” but the author had written well about it, and I felt it was a minor, late masterpiece full of Borzage touches like the initially wary but eventually intense coupling, the desire to exist in a world apart from all the horror, a community of oddballs that recognizes the uniqueness of the couple. It was so much like one of the Gaynor/Farrell films.
I was also never particularly motivated to see the surviving fragment of “The River”, which is only about half of the film. But the author sold it, stating that it may have been Borzage’s highest achievement. I believe it! I would probably recommend it over the complete Gaynor/Farrell films because of the nuance in its portrayal of a gradual awakening to love.
Now I can see Borzage’s influence in other films, like in Nicholas Ray’s “They Live By Night” which starts with the focus on the young couple’s love rather than any crime, and came out a year after Borzage’s noir, “Moonrise”. Borzage is now the standard by which I judge portrayals of romantic love, the passage of time, death and grief, civilians in wartime… oh my goodness, I forgot to mention the German trilogy of “Little Man, What Now?” and “Three Comrades” and “The Mortal Storm” – all starring the sublime Margaret Sullavan, who became a new kind of muse for Borzage after his path diverged from Janet Gaynor. Sullavan also co-starred in “The Shining Hour”.
For all his romanticism, Borzage tried to keep his characters rooted in reality. In his Pre-Code films there was premarital sex and even abortions were discussed, along with the crude gossip of others. There was nothing salacious in these instances, as we often think of Pre-Code, but rather they were just a part of ordinary life. And that beautiful moment when Margaret Sullavan runs through a soundstage field in “Little Man, What Now?” and we can see her panties. There’s nothing lurid about it; it’s pure, swooning romance. And so is this book, for the most part. A great way to get to know a period of cinema (late silent/early sound) and a director who straddled these eras. An interesting way to reevaluate what constitutes love and loyalty and the passage of time.
Displaying 1 of 1 review