Greed
Posted by martinteller on April 12, 2008
The four-hour restored version. I believe that much of the love for this film (and there’s an awful lot of it) stems from the fact that so much footage is missing. Like the Beach Boys “Smile” album, we always imagine that the thing we can never experience must have been the greatest thing ever. I’m unimpressed with what I’ve heard of “Smile”, and similarly less than bowled over by this film. Four hours of this is enough, I don’t even want to know how the hell it ever went on for over nine hours. And how about that subtle title? They should do this with modern films. Crash could be renamed Racism, and Requiem for a Dream could be Drugs. As you would expect, the story is extremely blunt and one-note. To Stroheim’s credit, though, he does manage to get a lot of mileage out of that note. Despite making its point early and often, the film somehow never feels repetitive. For such a lengthy work, it goes by pretty quick, culminating with one hell of an ending. Worth watching… once. If I were to see it again, I’d probably go for the shortened version. Rating: 8
