Janet Gaynor

She is certainly the less sexiests actress i can think about. She is a nice person, rather than a seducing women. By Murnau, you will never find a true romance with a beautiful woman, Chaplin's muse, Paulette Goddard, Louise brooks, etc, because he isn't interested in women. This is true you can't find a single great women character in Murnau's work. There are plenty else where.

Janet Gaynor is the right actress to inspire tenderness or pity rather than love. This movie is rather about attachment, faith, or redemption than love. Faith based on nothing real, coming from a sudden decision. Usually there is a love triangle, here it collapse at the beginning, 2 humans.

I could not live with a guy who just attempted to kill me. The whole movie is about love erasing hate, but Freud would say you can't, not by denying it.

So first, Murnau tries to make us believe the homicide motion was just an accident, but then why make the movie ? Its deployment relies on the initial evil impulsion, witch it tries to deny. This is the paradox, the movie wants to deny something put as irrelevant, but its existence prove the opposite.


That's said, graphically there is also nothing remarkable, not a frame you would set as print on your desk. He uses wide angle, ok, and some travelings. Murnau is a solid movie craftsman but nothing striking, at least here.