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14 Transition and Transformation
overlap with the present study other than in details, as its aim was less specialized.
17 Previously, I have also published an article entitled “Victor Goes West:
Notes on the Critical Reception of Sjöström’s Hollywood Films, 1923-1930”,
which dealt with the reception of the films from his American period, relatively
limited in scope, but necessarily overlapping this study in its discussions dealing
with critical reception of individual films. 18
An earlier version including parts of the analysis concerning Name the Man
has been published in German, in the journal Montage/AV, as part of a more
general article on Europeans in Hollywood comparing Sjöström to Lubitsch. 19
A few short passages from an article in Film History in a special issue on émigré
filmmakers and filmmaking, mainly concerning He Who Gets Slapped and
The Scarlet Letter, have also been included in new versions and new contexts
in the present study. 20 Finally, the analysis of The Wind has also been previously
published in a slightly different version in Journal of Aesthetics and Culture.
21
If there exists a general view of Sjöström as a director it may well be summarized
by Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell concerning his Swedish period
in their influential textbook on film history, and also decisive for how the director
will be understood by new generations of film students:
Victor Sjöström was one of the most important directors of the entire silent era. His
style was austere and naturalistic. He used restrained acting and staged scenes in
considerable depth, both in location shots and in sets. His narratives frequently traced
in great detail the grim consequences of a single action. 22
The transition to Hollywood is described by Thompson and Bordwell through a
few key examples, and not evaluated as a whole in the same way as his Swedish
years. They state that: “His first American film, Name the Man, was a bit stiff. [...]
His next project, He Who Gets Slapped, was a vehicle for Lon Chaney.” As for The
Scarlet Letter, they note that “MGM insisted on a comic subplot that vitiated
the austere drama” and finally, they conclude that “The Wind was a powerful,
bleak film. Its grimness and its release as a silent film as sound was coming in
doomed it to failure, however, and Seastrom returned to Sweden, to his original
name, and to a long career acting in sound films.” 23 A story of a failure is thus
told, though not without a few grand moments. The general, remaining impression
is that Sjöström, perhaps being too austere, didn’t really succeed in adapting,
neither to the Hollywood style, nor to the demands of the time: that is,
sound cinema.
In her book on Ernst Lubitsch in Hollywood, Kristin Thompson simply proposes
as her main argument that “he rapidly absorbed the new style of Hollywood
once he became exposed to it”, 24 whereas others, as she also notes, were
slower to follow. Adapting to Hollywood, in this historical account, seems to