Despite its title, this brevity is somewhat romantic. We do see the ogre, however. He inverts himself into the action throughout the film. As usual, the action is partly symbolic, partly surreal (if those two can ever be separated). Toward the end, Eadweard Muybridge still-sequences are brought to life briefly. As usual, the backgrounds are chosen for their color quality.
"THE OLD HOUSE PASSING is, to me, more than just a 'great film' / 'a work of art.' It is, as a matter of careful thought, the only motion picture drama I have ever seen which engenders vision, rather than cutting it back to 'sights' of minded hieroglyphs in movement and / or shifts of symbol stas...
In many ways a more searching (and certainly a more complex) film than OUR LADY OF THE SPHERE. We are first presented a cobweb castle, filled with the haunting doubts of the young protagonist. Spirits appear on the screen and are heard on the soundtrack. Gradually a female guide emerges and escor...
The film was completed in 1956 in its present form using a Dmitri Shostakovitch track although some of the footage was photographed in the winter of 1952-1953 at Harvard University. Although Lawrence Jordan worked on other films during this time, he considers this be his first truly completed fil...