“Everywhere… in every town, in every street… we pass, unknowing, human souls made great by love and adversity.” Street Angel is not just the story of a gutter waif (Janet Gaynor) and an itinerant painter (Charles Farrell) who fall in love and must persevere against all the obstacles the world throws at them. Instead, Borzage elevates them to the level of gods. The streets they walk are not those of Naples, but of a mythological space akin to Mount Olympus. Everything, and everybody, is the absolute embodiment of an ideal: life is hardship, love is divine, fate is always against us, and people are either saints or devils. Or, as the title suggests, angels—fallen from the heavens, and left to battle here on earth.
Read my full review of Street Angel here at Not Coming to a Theater Near You.
http://www.notcoming.com/reviews/streetangel/
1 comment:
what beautiful writing. i have loved those opening lines for a long time, and now i love your words too, so clear and illuminating.
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