Event

SLIFF - Greed

Greed
Erich von Stroheim, U.S., 1924, 140 min.
Saturday, Nov. 23, 8 p.m., Webster U./Moore
SLIFF reprises Erich von Stroheim's classic silent film "Greed" (1924), which played to a standing-room-only audience at this year's Greater St. Louis Humanities Festival. The Rats & People Motion Picture Orchestra again provides live musical accompaniment and performs an original score written by the band's members. Based on Frank Norris' novel "McTeague," "Greed" documents the manifold troubles that ensue after the wife (ZaSu Pitts) of McTeague (Gibson Gowland) wins a lottery prize of $5,000. Striving for maximum realism, von Stroheim produced a nearly eight-hour version of the film, but MGM eventually edited "Greed" down to the extant 140-minute version. The director's epic cut is considered lost, but even in its truncated state, "Greed" is widely regarded as one of cinema's towering achievements. Declaring the film "essential viewing," the Chicago Reader's Jonathan Rosenbaum writes: "'Greed' remains one of the most modern of silent films, anticipating 'Citizen Kane' in its deep-focus compositions and Jean Renoir in the emotional complexity of its tragic humanism." With live accompaniment and an original score by the Rats & People Motion Picture Orchestra.