Melbourne, Australia 23 Oct: THE BIG PARADE (1925)

[mrbertiewooster]

The Big Parade
King Vidor (1925) 140 mins

Melbourne Cinémathèque
8.45pm, 23 October 2013

In 1917 a spirited young American (John Gilbert) joins the army and is sent to fight in France. Near the battlefront he meets a local girl, is wounded and ends up marrying her. Vidor’s widely lauded and massively successful film balances social criticism, irony, a tender love story and realistic battle scenes choreographed like “symphonic” dances. This epic but intimate melodrama was a key influence on the war film for the next two decades. As Charles Silver has argued, “The greatness of The Big Parade lies in its manic romanticism, its total commitment to absurd peasant girls and doughboys, to individual happiness above all other values”.

35mm print courtesy of the Library of Congress

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