Hollywood showman Cecil B. DeMille’s vroege epos van Jeanne d’Arc toont de verwachtingspatronen voor vrouwen door de (film)geschiedenis heen. Joan the Woman was DeMille’s eerste historische film, waarin hij de notoire operazangeres Geraldine Farrat benoemde als hoofdrolspeelster.
Preceding Ruben Östlund’s splashy Triangle of Sadness by more than a century, Cecil B. DeMille’s prescient satire gleefully turns upper-class snobs into island castaways. Deprived of her luxurious comforts, Gloria Swanson’s snotty yet endearing socialite learns a tough lesson about life—and love.
Considered one of the earliest cinematic examples of the psychological drama, Cecil B. DeMille’s crime-and-punishment parable is a visionary masterwork. Employing then-nascent techniques of superimposition and parallel editing, The Whispering Chorus scales the weight of a guilty conscience.
Based on a play by Arthur Schnitzler, who also penned the source novel behind Eyes Wide Shut, Cecil B. DeMille’s sex comedy fizzes with naughtiness. Delightfully flighty as an upper-class newlywed, Gloria Swanson ushers in the roaring twenties and its carefree attitudes towards love and marriage.