FILM FILM - University of Macau Library

Europeans in Hollywood
The Shadow of the Silents – A Lady to Love 131
In the case of A Lady to Love, no parallels were drawn to Sjöström’s Swedish
career, possibly for the reason that the transition to sound has generally been
considered to mark such a break in film history that sound cinema didn’t seem
to allow for comparisons to the silent era – though, as we have seen, elements of
a former “silent style” could still remain. The theme as such was also without
any real counterpart in Sjöström’s former career, though even here, central elements
– adultery, conflicting loves and loyalties, guilt, forgiveness – are reminiscent
of his previous films.
The “phantasm of origins” associated with Swedish landscape, as it appeared
for example in relation to The Wind, thus seems to have disappeared completely
here – as has the landscape as such. Only a few images in the film seem to
suggest a Californian vineyard. At the same time, the phantasm instead reappears
in another guise, now rather on the thematic level connected to the characters,
as a phantasm of Europeanness in an American context.
What is perhaps most striking with this film, however, is its multicultural
character.
As Film Europa had come to an end, European perspectives were included in
an American film. The European aspects in the film would probably have
passed unnoticed had the film been a silent feature, whereas within sound cinema,
they became almost too obvious. Indeed, even the way that the film was
conceived seems to have been the result of the transition to sound – a possibility
to handle narratively the different ethnicities involved in the shooting, by inscribing
them into the plot, and thus also turning a possible problem into an
advantage, in addressing spectators of different ethnicities in a multicultural
American society. Last but not least, with the different versions, the concept
would also allow for export. 29
The different ethnicities are most obviously marked by the heavy accents already
mentioned, in the case of Tony’s character only further emphasized as he
is supposed to play an older Italian immigrant, but also in Lena’s case it is motivated
by the plot. The role of music, underlining his Italianness, has already
been discussed. The fact that Lena is a foreigner is also clearly marked, as we
have seen, by the photo of her old home, located respectively in Switzerland or
Hungary. Tony’s status as Italian is also marked visually, not least by the numerous
crucifixes present in several shots, but also by a portrait of Benito Mussolini,
Il Duce, hanging on the wall together with a portrait of the US president,
Herbert Hoover, under an American and an Italian flag, hanging side by side in
the room where the couple marries. This is even more apparent in the German
version of the film during the wedding scene, as the priest is shot from another