movies on television

One of my mother's many obsessions is the cable channel Turner Classic Movies. This is a fixation I can fully understand. If I had cable and a DVR, I'd be amassing quite a collection. This week I saw The Passion of Joan of Arc (C.T. Dreyer, 1928), Beyond the Rocks (with Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino, 1922), and Stolen Moments (the last "pre-star" film of Valentino and the last in which he plays a villain, here a "devious novelist," 1920).

The Passion of Joan of Arc is a repeat viewing for me, every bit the masterpiece, a film everyone must see and whose every shot is a closeup (save for a number one could count on one's hands). Beyond the Rocks is a romance whose saving grace is its de rigueur travelogue format and the fact that the characters fantasize by inserting themselves into images culled from the historical past. Stolen Moments was edited down to half its length once Valentino became a star, and is a remarkable document for the rather slapdash, irrational, and impressionistic way this editing was done (as in: who's the bald guy suddenly trying to kill Valentino in the final ten minutes?).