Mamoulian's latest film [Queen Cristina] is the result of a defect both of sentimental intuition and of culture. We should not need to speak of culture if sentimental intuition and the breath of art had inspired the producer or the actress [Greta Garbo] on behalf of the producer. Who cares whether Shaw's Joan of Arc is really the Joan burnt at the stake by the English or if Shakespeare's Coriolanus is really the tragic Roman patrician? Their strong artistic vitality excludes all possibility of criticism. The humanity of the characters gives them a superior reality of their own.
When, however, the producer is not inspired with a creative capacity, culture may save his work in another direction, another zone of ideal interests. Has not Mamoulian himself shown this to be the case both in the Song of Songs and Dr. Jekyll? He certainly did not rise to any special heights in revivifying and remoulding the material of this ancient German romance [Song of Songs]; but in his reconstruction of the atmosphere and conditions of Imperial Germany he observed a quantity of minute details and showed a precise knowledge of the bombastic baroque style of the "fin di siècle". (p. 329)
In Dr. Jekyll …, Mamoulian's illustrative and suggestive talent is well revealed in seeking to overcome the repugnance evoked by the grossness of the central idea of the plot as shown by means of an art which is capable of the subtlest tricks and devices. If we recall the atmosphere of Hyde Park, the hall of the University, the prostitute's house and, in general, the early Victorian air of Stevenson's time, one recognizes all the signs of the decorative and documentary temperament in which the Armenian's originality shows itself. Even in Queen Cristina, within these narrow limits, a certain scrupulousness of construction is shown. In this film, Mamoulian is … bound to an actress with a certain "type"…. In addition, he chose or was given in default of a creative inspiration, an historical argument which called for a sense of responsibility, of which there is no trace in any aspect of Queen Cristina.
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