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Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
Jun. 17th, 2019 08:24 amAfter doing so much reading about silent film, I decided that I ought to see one of the classics, so I watched Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, which stars America’s Sweetheart Mary Pickford and was written by her best friend, Frances Marion.
For the non-silent-film-buffs in the audience, Mary Pickford was a huge star in the 1910s and 1920s, whose legions of adoring fans demanded that she continued playing little-girl characters like Rebecca right up into her thirties. The visual limitations of film stock make this somewhat understandable - basically the picture is unclear enough that you could take twenty-five-year-old Mary for eleven-year-old Rebecca - but nonetheless I think this probably says something distinctive about film audiences of the time.
My suspicion is that it’s saying something about cultural discomfort with female sexuality, but I haven’t watched enough Pickford films or read enough about silent film to say this for sure.
Anyway! This film is definitely a period piece - I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’ve got a yen for silent film in the first place - but a charming one, and surprisingly close to the original book. Of course there are liberties (I’m pretttty sure that the original book didn’t have the circus scene), but nowhere near as egregious as the Shirley Temple version where Rebecca becomes a radio star for some godforsaken reason.
Also, re: Cari Beauchamp’s book about Frances Marion, the circus scene came about when Frances described to Mary some of the games that she and her friends used to play when they were children, and Mary laughed till she cried because she never got to play such games as a child; when she put on a show it was as a vaudeville performer who was the sole breadwinner for her fatherless family.
So really, if anyone ever deserved to mess around with a homemade circus scene, it was clearly Mary Pickford.
For the non-silent-film-buffs in the audience, Mary Pickford was a huge star in the 1910s and 1920s, whose legions of adoring fans demanded that she continued playing little-girl characters like Rebecca right up into her thirties. The visual limitations of film stock make this somewhat understandable - basically the picture is unclear enough that you could take twenty-five-year-old Mary for eleven-year-old Rebecca - but nonetheless I think this probably says something distinctive about film audiences of the time.
My suspicion is that it’s saying something about cultural discomfort with female sexuality, but I haven’t watched enough Pickford films or read enough about silent film to say this for sure.
Anyway! This film is definitely a period piece - I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’ve got a yen for silent film in the first place - but a charming one, and surprisingly close to the original book. Of course there are liberties (I’m pretttty sure that the original book didn’t have the circus scene), but nowhere near as egregious as the Shirley Temple version where Rebecca becomes a radio star for some godforsaken reason.
Also, re: Cari Beauchamp’s book about Frances Marion, the circus scene came about when Frances described to Mary some of the games that she and her friends used to play when they were children, and Mary laughed till she cried because she never got to play such games as a child; when she put on a show it was as a vaudeville performer who was the sole breadwinner for her fatherless family.
So really, if anyone ever deserved to mess around with a homemade circus scene, it was clearly Mary Pickford.
