Greed

The title and message are very blunt but the film's delivery is anything but. Using the film's runtime to full advantage, von Stroheim allows these characters to develop slowly and naturally and to let the various manifestations of greed reveal themselves slowly and to ever increasing negative effects. The acting is a big part of this as the effects on the characters' personalities are just as important as the actions. The finale is the culmination of everything that precedes it, perfection.

Four hours of this is enough, I don't even want to know how the hell it ever went on for over nine hours. As you would expect, the story is extremely blunt and one-note. To Stroheim's credit, though, he does manage to get a lot of mileage out of that note. Despite making its point early and often, the film somehow never feels repetitive. For such a lengthy work, it goes by pretty quick, culminating with one hell of an ending.

Silent, but deadly.

von stroheim claimed that this was his only fully realized work, i find that hard to believe, though the most complete existing version of this movie is hardly even half of it's original run time. i can't deny that this movie is a strong installment in every possible way, but feel that von stroheim, in his age had confused the concept of "fully realized" with "horribly under-edited".

this may be presumptuous, but i'm not sure the 'skeleton of [erich's] dead child' needs a more sweeping, even-handed arc, nor sideplots to humanise the characters and delineate theme more comprehensively. the truncated studio cut is brutally spare and careens into grotesque, primal madness at a frightful pace, which suits a film of beasts gnashing their teeth and hungering for jewels (it's about sex as well as money), with a desolate final act that makes child's play of ...sierra madre

Totally uncompromising and harsh, especially when you consider the era in which it was made. The ending sequence is total perfection, completely capturing the insanity of the situation and the tortured logic of the pathetic characters. The ending is brilliantly abrupt and hopeless. A brutal, unrelenting film.

Every scene, every story beat feels essential to von Stroheim's vision. No one alive has seen the original version of "Greed," and while it's hard to imagine sitting through the film for nine hours, it's equally hard to imagine that maybe von Stroheim's conceptualization of the story was less gratuitous self-indulgence and more the only way to bring it to life. Alas, now we'll never know.

Normally I'm not a fan of not finishing a movie in one go, but I think taking breaks in-between helped digest this 4-hour epic a bit better and prevented the constant hammering home of the unsubtle themes from getting grating. All in all, this is a (for its time) daring piece that really lets the viewer connect with the characters only to have them get corrupted and doomed by their own hubris. Unflinching at times, with an impressively nihilistic finale. Worth the time investment for sure.

Von Stroheim eases us in to the characters, giving them time to feel authentic, and their plights believable. Despite its length, I was hooked the whole way through. I began to really care about these people. I've seen a lot of silent movies, and I can confidently say that this is the one that has most effected me on an emotional level. It pulled me in deep. I've cited The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari as my favorite silent, but I think it just got dethroned. This movie is an absolute masterpiece.

I can't imagine it going for ten hours, four was more than enough to develop the characters and hammer the themes again and again (and again). The film works with it's time, though, and it's certainly a singular work on its subject--much like Intolerance, though told on a more personal level. It takes a while but it does get emotional and even exciting. It's a basic film, but it does well what it sets out to do.

It's interesting to see how Stroheim is able to carry what is essentially a one-note story for four hours and avoid boring the audience. The pacing is brisk, the variety of characters helps keep the action varied, and the settings are often visually distinctive (esp. death valley). That said, the main narrative revolves around the same three characters doing the same kinds of things to each other for most of the film's run time, albeit with a predictable escalation.

More than a masterpiece. Sets out to tell all the truth about man's lust for wealth.The finest piece of mad realism ever perpetrated. Von Stroheim took his actors to Death Valley so that they could really sweat out those climactic passions, and it shows. Pitts does fine work as a tragedienne.

# 64

coldeki climax, detaylar ve imgeler (kedi, akordiyon, kuslar) manyak sahneler (cenazeli dugun, altınlarla dolu yataga girme)

# 64

It feels a bit too one note at points for its four hour runtime, and the characters often drift in to caricature, but there's still something quite magnificent about it. The sheer scope of it, the relentlessness (culminating in one of the best and most startlingly grim endings I've ever seen), the wealth of emotion. I'm not convinced it it the masterpiece everyone says it is, but I still found it to be great.

64

Magnificent. However butchered it may have been by the studio after they took it out of von Stroheim's hands, this is one of the best silent films that somehow escaped the ashcan

An unnerving, ugly but equally sentimental and off beat moral tale. A few scenes will be hard to forget forget. Drawing of characters is at times a little strange, but there are plenty of odd touches that make this like an early Cohen brothers film.

89.50

The four-hour version is a little slow (and as subtle as a punch to the face), but that's not unexpected for a sprawling Dickensian epic that fits in a few more of the deadly sins (and a few later ones, like spousal abuse). The excising of the side-stories was probably a good idea in the long run; still, I would have liked to have seen more of the Maria portion. Sad that the one with the most sense to save for a rainy day is portrayed like Macbeth's wife. Great ending to wrap it all up.

I saw the two hour version, which was good. At some point I'll hunt out the four hour which might well be better!

"How did this movie fit into their project?" "It didn't." http://illusionpodcast.blogspot.com/2015/11/episode-80-unedited-commentary-track.html

Good film.

The building up of tension towards an expectedly brutal end is as effective as it could, and the long running time only makes it better. Great storytelling, acting and use of symbolism.

Fuckin' hell, Mac.... calm down!

Visionary.

So very plodding. Also that poster is almost misleading. Hard to believe there was like a 6 hour cut of this, urrrrgh.

67

Quite plainly a masterpiece, a model of a kind of psychological realism that shocked and horrified most people, because it gave them no one in the film to like. All one can say about Greed is that it is essential, frenzied yet under control, and one of the great indicators of film and its future. It is still very hard to make pictures about people the audience does not like - but, remember: At the movies, the audience is afraid of the dark. It wants comfort.

132-minute version.

The version of this film which I saw was of terrible quality. The film may have been good in 1924 but by today's standards and with the deterioration of the film it is not watchable.

The version I saw was a 130 minute one--maybe the 4 hour one with stills is stronger. Ending is great, rest of the movie solid, with a timeless message. Probably even more famous for backstory than quality, as it was originally a 9 hour movie completely butchered by the studio and the full version was only ever seen by a very small handful of people. I felt like he got his point across fairly well in two and a half hours, though. It's hard to imagine what a nine hour version covered.

#69

One of the very most influential of all silent films, its attempted reconstruction is four hours of close-to-unwatchable clutter. But if you make the effort, you will find yourself impressed throughout by the baroque detail in all the characters' looks, especially Gibson Gowland's powerfully expressive face, become anchors for a distinctly scuzzy reality.

Honestly, I preferred *Treasure of the Sierra Madre* a lot more. At the same time, the version I saw wasn't complete--they used stills to fill spots of lost footage. I feel sad about the way the studios butchered the film. (ps:78)