"Madame X," like many of the very first talkies, is incredibly difficult to sit through.
Difficult not because of the subject matter. No, It literally makes you want to turn it off because the technology is so bad you can barely watch the movie anyway. For the first few minutes of the movie, I thought the sound had gone out on my T.V., because it's utterly silent -- not even any music over the opening titles -- and then, when the sound does finally come in, it's so muffled and distorted you can barely understand what the actors are saying. The sound seemed to improve over the course of the movie, either because the film crew actually got better at recording it as they went along, or because I got used to it. But sound doesn't help matters much. This was filmed in the days before anyone knew how to make a movie both move and talk at the same time, so most scenes are shot in long, static takes. If a character moves to the edge of the frame, the camera doesn't follow but remains pointed doggedly at the center of the room. Lionel Barrymore received an Oscar nomination for directing this film. He was apparently the first person to think of mounting the boom on a fishing pole that could be carried around the set and follow the actors as they spoke their lines, giving them greater freedom of movement. That innovation might be what nabbed him the Oscar nom, but it's little consolation to the viewer; even with that trick, the camera barely ever moves.
Ruth Chatterton also received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, and it becomes clear why as the film moves into its later half. She's dreadful at first, still acting like she's in a silent film as she plays a wayward wife and mother who comes begging at the door of the husband she walked out on in order to see her young child. But over the course of the movie, she transforms into a drunken woman of the world, and she's fascinating to watch. I'd already seen Chatterton in later films like "Female" and "Dodsworth," where she's spectacular, so I was surprised when this movie started at how bad she was. But the Ruth Chatterton of the later scenes is the one who went on to have a career in sound films.
It's nearly impossible to watch movies like this now for the sheer joy of watching films, and it's really not fair to review them using the same criteria you would for other movies. These early talkies feel far creakier and more antiquated than many silents that came out years before them. Instead, you almost have to approach them from a film study perspective, and if approached from that angle, they can be fascinating in their own right. It's kind of perversely fun to watch the product of a bunch of people who didn't really know what they were doing, and if you are interested in the history of film making, watching these silent to sound transitional films is like capturing a little bit of history in a bottle.
Grade: C
Difficult not because of the subject matter. No, It literally makes you want to turn it off because the technology is so bad you can barely watch the movie anyway. For the first few minutes of the movie, I thought the sound had gone out on my T.V., because it's utterly silent -- not even any music over the opening titles -- and then, when the sound does finally come in, it's so muffled and distorted you can barely understand what the actors are saying. The sound seemed to improve over the course of the movie, either because the film crew actually got better at recording it as they went along, or because I got used to it. But sound doesn't help matters much. This was filmed in the days before anyone knew how to make a movie both move and talk at the same time, so most scenes are shot in long, static takes. If a character moves to the edge of the frame, the camera doesn't follow but remains pointed doggedly at the center of the room. Lionel Barrymore received an Oscar nomination for directing this film. He was apparently the first person to think of mounting the boom on a fishing pole that could be carried around the set and follow the actors as they spoke their lines, giving them greater freedom of movement. That innovation might be what nabbed him the Oscar nom, but it's little consolation to the viewer; even with that trick, the camera barely ever moves.
Ruth Chatterton also received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, and it becomes clear why as the film moves into its later half. She's dreadful at first, still acting like she's in a silent film as she plays a wayward wife and mother who comes begging at the door of the husband she walked out on in order to see her young child. But over the course of the movie, she transforms into a drunken woman of the world, and she's fascinating to watch. I'd already seen Chatterton in later films like "Female" and "Dodsworth," where she's spectacular, so I was surprised when this movie started at how bad she was. But the Ruth Chatterton of the later scenes is the one who went on to have a career in sound films.
It's nearly impossible to watch movies like this now for the sheer joy of watching films, and it's really not fair to review them using the same criteria you would for other movies. These early talkies feel far creakier and more antiquated than many silents that came out years before them. Instead, you almost have to approach them from a film study perspective, and if approached from that angle, they can be fascinating in their own right. It's kind of perversely fun to watch the product of a bunch of people who didn't really know what they were doing, and if you are interested in the history of film making, watching these silent to sound transitional films is like capturing a little bit of history in a bottle.
Grade: C