![]() Consequently, Dumont argues that many of Borzage’s major films should be seen as Masonic texts. As “custodians of holy architecture in the Western World,” (p.406) the Masons, while maintaining certain links to Judeo-Christian ideology, were devoted to politically progressive concepts of tolerance within a broad notion of a universal brotherhood. According to Dumont, Borzage was (like a number of major figures in Hollywood at the time) a Freemason, eventually rising very high within the order of the Ancient and Approved Scottish Rite. Furthermore, Borzage himself was never formally baptized. Borzage’s family was actually Roman Catholic but they appear to have gotten along well with their Mormon neighbors. Borzage was born in Salt Lake City, the home of one of the most American of all religions, Mormonism. If Harold Bloom is correct in his argument that American culture is fundamentally Gnostic in its religious inclinations, emphasizing the experiential aspect to religion above all else and believing that it is possible to enjoy a direct communication with God, then Borzage’s life and work present us with one variation on this American tendency. Instead I would like to cite, extend, and synthesize some of the approaches that have already been put forth in the hope that, through this process, a certain range of possibilities for understanding Borzage’s work will be apparent. My intention here is not to offer yet another bold central argument that will miraculously explain Borzage. At the same time, to completely ignore or dismiss the drive towards the transcendent in many of Borzage’s films runs another risk, a form of agnostic denial that does not do full justice to the work. On the contrary, the couple in that film remains perpetually and very touchingly earthbound. But where does this leave a film like Bad Girl? It is a major Borzage work but the world that we see here does not fully conform to this notion of romantic transcendence. Certainly Borzage’s cinema does not lack for moments to back up such claims, as the delirious final sequences of such films as Seventh Heaven, A Farewell to Arms (1932) and Three Comrades (1938) illustrate. The most persistent argument about Borzage is that he is a romantic transcendentalist, devoted to male/female love above all else-above politics, culture and history, above the limitations of the flesh, the limitations of time and space and even rational thought. For all of its importance, the literature on Borzage tends to be somewhat restricted in its methods of interpretation, driven towards uncovering an essence to Borzage. He died before he was able to enjoy the kind of rediscovery and canonization of other directors of his generation who managed to outlive him, such as John Ford, Howard Hawks or Raoul Walsh.īut part of the problem Borzage has in relation to contemporary reception may also lie with some of the commentary on his work. ![]() By this point Borzage and his films were largely considered relics of an earlier era. After leaving theatrical filmmaking for nine years, he returned for two final films, China Doll (1958) and the biblical epic, The Big Fisherman (1959). ![]() But a period of uncertainty began during the 1940s when his output also began to dwindle. 35) During the 1920s and ’30s, Borzage had been one of the most important directors in Hollywood, twice winning an Academy Award for Best Director: in 1929 for Sev enth Heaven (1927) and in 1932 for Bad Girl (1931). As Kent Jones writes, Borzage’s cinema “never partakes of the crisis of belief at the core of modern experience.” (p. By contrast Borzage seems old fashioned, devoted to pious and sentimental love stories. What is the problem? Commentators on Borzage have argued that the director’s sensibility is out of step with an emotionally distanced, post-modern culture, one more devoted to the supposed ironies of a Douglas Sirk or the wit and playfulness (amidst violence and melodrama) of an Alfred Hitchcock. And yet Borzage’s cinema does remain perpetually unfashionable. Lightning, Jean Mitry, Marcel Oms, Phil Rosen, Andrew Sarris, Robert Smith, Paul Willemen and, above all, Hervé Dumont have contributed significantly to the literature on Borzage. ![]() (There is probably more major work on Borzage than there is on a comparable figure like King Vidor.) Among others, Henri Agel, John Belton, Jean-Loup Bourget, Fred Camper, Tom Gunning, Michael Henry, Kent Jones, Ado Kyrou, Robert K. While much of the writing on Frank Borzage will invariably argue that he is a neglected filmmaker, his cinema has not significantly lacked important critical commentary. Web resources Frank Borzage: Architect of Ineffable Desires June 19, 1962, Los Angeles, California, USA April 23, 1894, Salt Lake City, Utah, USAĭ.
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