La Boheme [VHS]

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La Boheme [VHS] Review

Puccini, along with his librettists (Illica and Giacosa), brought a bourgeois sentimentality to Henri Murger's 1851 earthy novel ("Scenes de la Vie Boheme"), but oh what a whitewash. La Boheme premiered in 1896 (under the baton of Toscanini), and it has remained among the most popular of operas for well over a hundred years now.

King Vidor's silent movie classic owes most (not all) of its cinematic focus to Puccini's opera rather than the harder-edged novel by Murger. Sadly, however, the composer was already dead two years, when the MGM film made it to the silver screen in 1926.

Had Puccini been alive to see it, he would have been moved to blissful tears by the incredibly astonishing (dramatic) portrayal of his frail, consumptive heroine, Mimi, by the "First Lady of the Silent Screen," Lillian Gish. As an actress, Gish was without peer. She had the most expressive eyes, the most delicate face, and she can't have weighed more than a small canary. [I've read that Irving Thalberg actually referred to her, as Mimi.]

That being said, this is a fine film. John Gilbert is persuasive, as Rodolphe, (if a bit over the top, in a couple of scenes), and the movie, quite effectively, uses Puccini's melodies to complement the film's poignant pathos.

Given its age, the film has been, surprisingly, well preserved. Technically, the only complaint I have is a very minor one: in about three spots the film needed to be paused because the cue cards were flashed on the screen too quickly to be read (Warner should have had the diligence to fix this easily remedied glitch). Lastly, I would mention that it can be purchased relatively cheaply at Warner Archive (the listed price of which also includes shipping).

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