FILMS RETROSPECTIVES: FRANK BORZAGE

A regular chapter in the Festival retrospective section has been a cycle dedicated to a classic director, enabling us to appreciate the little or virtually unknown work of such filmmakers as Robert Siodmak, James Whale, William Dieterle, William A. Wellman, Gregory La Cava, Tod Browning, Mitchell Leisen, Mikio Naruse, John M. Stahl and Carol Reed.

Frank Borzage

Sam Fuller said: Frank Borzage is one of the greatest American directors of all time. Josef von Sternberg didn't think twice about proclaiming his unlimited admiration for his work and Marcel Carné had a special predilection for the movies of this filmmaker. Georges Sadoul talked about a great man, on an equal standing with his contemporaries, Ford, Hawks or Vidor; in 1980 Jean Mitry wrote: Somewhere around fifteen of his films are sure to earn him a place of honour up there alongside the greatest directors; ten years later, Bertrand Tavernier and Jean-Pierre Coursodon attributed to him one of the top places in the seventh heaven of great filmmakers.

Born in 1894 in Salt Lake City he died in 1962 in Los Angeles. Borzage directed some hundred films over a 40-year career. His cinema covered a multitude of subjects. But were we to define these topics in a few words, the best way to do so would certainly be after the fashion of Hervé Dumont in his book on this director: The immutable central storyline of the borzagian filmography is Love; or more precisely, as written by critic Andrew Sarris: Frank Borzage loves people who love. For Borzage, love is capable of bringing the best of life to the humble and the abandoned. Love, sentiment, emotion, the essence of melodrama, but sophisticated melodrama, where realism is mitigated by the romantic flavour of the storyline, as we can see in films like "Seventh Heaven" (1927), "A Farewell to Arms" (1932), "Desire" (1936) or "Three Comrades" (1938).

Having said this, we could ask ourselves the same question as J.C. Tacchella: Why is this prodigious filmmaker, the first person to win an Academy Award for Best Director in the history of cinema with Seventh Heaven, practically unknown today? The best answer is to bring the magnificent filmography of this great director to new spectators. That's the intention of the Donostia-San Sebastian Festival with this retrospective organized as always with the collaboration of the Spanish Film Archive, and which will be accompanied by the publication of the splendid book written by the Director of the Swiss Cinémathèque, HervéDumont.

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