The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

Discuss internationally-released DVDs and Blu-rays or other international DVD and Blu-ray-related topics.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
myrnaloyisdope
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:41 pm
Contact:

The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#1 Post by myrnaloyisdope » Wed Apr 01, 2009 12:16 am

Thanks to tojoed who ordered me a copy to save on shipping, I purchased this DVD from the Welsh Film Archive.

A little backstory about the film's history from the Welsh Film Archive:
Maurice Elvey's silent biopic maps out the life of British Prime Minister Lloyd George from childhood to the end of the Great War. In 1918, the film disappeared, as £20,000 was paid to The Ideal Film Company to stop its release. The film then mysteriously disappeared until 1994, when it was found by the Wales Film and Television Archive. The film was painstakingly restored and premiered in Cardiff in 1996 and has since been screened around the world.
No one knows the exact reason the film was squelched, though it appears to be in part due to anti-semitism (the film's producers were predominantly Jewish, and feared to be pro-German).

The film is very impressive, Kevin Brownlow felt that it would have been the British "Birth of a Nation", had it been released in 1918. It's not hard to see why, the film has an epic scope, and is so unabashedly pro-George that it borders on propaganda. Hell it is propaganda. It's the spiritual predecessor of Gance's Napoleon and Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln The film follows George's life from birth right up to last months of World War I, documenting each period of his life in a series of newsreel-esque vignettes. It's a really fascinating means of telling the story, as it gives the film a documentary quality, unhindered by melodrama, love interest, or complication.

That said there are some wonderful artistic flourishes, including a sequence flashing back to the story of David and Goliath (ala the historical cross-cutting of Intolerance), reimagining George as David, and The Kaiser as Goliath. There's another sequence that worked really well in which George is shown fighting for bill on health benefits for workers, and the scene cuts to a wife and her sick husband, backed a wall of china, followed by cut to the same location, but this time the wife is sans husband, and china. Her husband is dead, and she is poor because her husband couldn't take time off work. It's all so brief, and subtle, but it tells the story far better than a longer sequence would have. The film is filled with quick effective sequences like that, that serve to enhance the narrative of George's life as well as keeping the film moving forward.

Perhaps the most impressive sequences in the film are the several crowd scenes. There's a scene involving a police riot that features an astonishing 10,000 extras, that looks like documentary footage. Another great sequence involves a group of riotous woman's suffragettes fighting with police. The tension of these sequences is palpable, and gives one the sense of watching history unfold. The whole film in fact feels like history unfolding. The sensation I would compare it to would be my feelings whilst watching the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in The Birth of a Nation which had be almost in tears, as if I were watching the real thing.

This film is very close to being a masterpiece, if it's not one already. I would argue the film is absolutely essential for silent-film buffs, though I'm not sure a film can be essential if no one's seen it.

The 2-Disc DVD is flawless, with a wonderfully restored print, and nice 16 page booklet, and interviews with Kevin Brownlow, and composer Neil Brand, as well as an intro by actor Philip Madoc. Plus it's R0, so there's no excuse for not picking this one up. This is the DVD of the year for me, at least until The Crowd comes out :wink:.

User avatar
tojoed
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:47 am
Location: Cambridge, England

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#2 Post by tojoed » Wed Apr 01, 2009 5:45 am

As soon as I received it and read the cover notes I realised I should have bought myself a copy. Reading your thoughts has convinced me, so it's on its way.

The shipping costs of the National Library of Wales don't make any sense. They produce a Region 0 edition of a rare Silent film and then, more or less, prohibit overseas buyers by charging £20 for postage. Crazy.

User avatar
Tommaso
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 10:09 am

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#3 Post by Tommaso » Wed Apr 01, 2009 6:52 am

They even charge 10 GBP to send the disc to mainland Europe (the real costs would be at a maximum of 2,50 GBP). Ridiculous.

User avatar
HerrSchreck
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#4 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:23 am

That just killed my otherwise guaranteed order.

Fuck them, I'll see it some other way.

User avatar
tojoed
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:47 am
Location: Cambridge, England

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#5 Post by tojoed » Wed Apr 01, 2009 9:35 am

EDIT: Offer now over.
Last edited by tojoed on Fri Apr 03, 2009 6:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
lubitsch
Joined: Fri Oct 07, 2005 4:20 pm

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#6 Post by lubitsch » Wed Apr 01, 2009 12:38 pm

Tommaso wrote:They even charge 10 GBP to send the disc to mainland Europe (the real costs would be at a maximum of 2,50 GBP). Ridiculous.
I agree, but ordered nevertheless because that should be one of the most important films of the 10s e.g. cited in Salt's "Film Style" as the first example of intellectual montage which means Elvey was even faster than Pickford who predated this Russian hack Eisenstein many years.
I was completely unaware of this release, so thanks very much for the information.

User avatar
Tommaso
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 10:09 am

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#7 Post by Tommaso » Thu Apr 02, 2009 5:39 am

The problem is that you're probably completely right about the importance of the film, Lubitsch. And ever since I saw the wonderful "Hindle Wakes" I've been wanting to see more Elvey anyway. So I think I'll have to order it, too, sooner or later...


User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#9 Post by MichaelB » Sun Apr 05, 2009 4:56 am

I've been less than wowed by the Maurice Elvey films that I've seen, though as they were all from the sound era I'm quite happy to give him the benefit of the doubt regarding his silents.

Not least because I've watched most of Anthony Asquith's output, and his silent work is so much better than his sound films (or at least more cinematically interesting: The Winslow Boy and The Browning Version admittedly have outstanding acting) that it's hard to credit that it was the same filmmaker.

User avatar
lubitsch
Joined: Fri Oct 07, 2005 4:20 pm

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#10 Post by lubitsch » Sun Apr 05, 2009 6:43 am

MichaelB wrote:I've been less than wowed by the Maurice Elvey films that I've seen, though as they were all from the sound era I'm quite happy to give him the benefit of the doubt regarding his silents.
I'm only familiar with THE WANDERING JEW, but the same strange failed adjustment to sound is at work with many outstanding silent directors like L'Herbier, Sjöström, Schwarz and so on. Nevertheless alone directing HINDLE WAKES the way he didmakes clear that he was a major director.
MichaelB wrote:Not least because I've watched most of Anthony Asquith's output, and his silent work is so much better than his sound films (or at least more cinematically interesting: The Winslow Boy and The Browning Version admittedly have outstanding acting) that it's hard to credit that it was the same filmmaker.
I wonder if we would talk about Asquith like about e.g. Bresson who has a much higher reputation as serious artist, would the majority still think that it's a decline of artistic powers and cinematic expression or rather a shift of interest and different use of the rexpressive richness film has to offer to artists. Why not see Asquith' sound films as a pure expresion of script and acting stripped from any technical fireworks like Dreyer or Bresson?

I'm not 100% serious and slightly provocative, but nevertheless I fail to see while PYGMALION or BROWNING VERSION shouldn't be counted among the major films of their respective decades.

User avatar
GaryC
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:56 pm
Location: Aldershot, Hampshire, UK

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#11 Post by GaryC » Sun Apr 05, 2009 8:21 am

MichaelB wrote:I've been less than wowed by the Maurice Elvey films that I've seen, though as they were all from the sound era I'm quite happy to give him the benefit of the doubt regarding his silents.
Can't comment, as I haven't seen any of his silents. However, he did direct Sally in Our Alley, which is by far Gracie Fields's best film. (I sat through a box set of seven of them last year.) It's surprisingly dark and gritty considering the time and its star - especially when you compare it to Elvey's other Fields film (Love Life and Laughter), which is very much of the formula Fields's films soon descended into.

Elvey tends to be known in many quarters, if he's mentioned at all, for being Britain's most prolific film director.

User avatar
myrnaloyisdope
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:41 pm
Contact:

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#12 Post by myrnaloyisdope » Sun Apr 05, 2009 12:38 pm

In the Kevin Brownlow interview on the DVD, he talks about meeting Elvey, and how Elvey described with great pride how he made "200 films, all of them bad, but still 200 films".

Brownlow also notes that had David Lloyd George been released, the career path of Elvey would likely have changed immensely, he would have been elevated to the very top of the British film industry, and would have had the time and budgets to make better films, rather than the so-called "quota quickies" he ended up making.

User avatar
HerrSchreck
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#13 Post by HerrSchreck » Sun Apr 05, 2009 1:29 pm

Supposedly he's the most prolific director in Brit film history.

Hey, the guy made Hindle Wakes, which is a beautiful film imho. And he managed to do the impossible according to superstition: he fillmed his own version of Don Quixote... and he completed it and exhibited it too!

User avatar
Gregory
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#14 Post by Gregory » Sun Apr 05, 2009 2:02 pm

I could not agree more that Hindle Wakes is a lovely piece, and I decided to buy Life Story of DLG mainly on the strength of it. How many of Elvey's silents survive, I wonder.

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#15 Post by MichaelB » Tue Apr 07, 2009 7:55 am

I'd just like to add to the chorus of praise for both film and DVD - it really does live up to the hype. I actually knew a fair bit of Lloyd George's life story in advance, which is why I was so sceptical as to whether the praise was more patriotically motivated than artistically justified.

But although the film doesn't quite match Abel Gance for sheer fecundity of inspiration (then again, even Gance's stuff hadn't scaled those heights by 1918), it's certainly closer to J'Accuse than a bog-standard potboiler. What's particularly impressive is the way that Elvey dramatises his material so intelligently (sometimes melodramatically, admittedly, but that's hardly unusual at this time), constantly devising visual stratagems in order to avoid excessive talkiness - which for a biography of a lawyer-turned-politician is no small achievement. Like Napoleon's Double Storm, the David-and-Goliath intercutting is ridiculously hokey when you step back and think about it, but it works splendidly well on screen.

As for the DVD, it's MoC/Flicker Alley quality. Granted, the original neg survived, so they had a built-in advantage over many silent film distributors, but the restoration looks superb (and was apparently a huge aesthetic as well as technical challenge), the tinting works beautifully, there are no transfer issues (it's interlaced, but I understand that's unavoidable when presenting video at slower-than-normal framerates), and Neil Brand's score fits it like the proverbial glove - even though it was clearly done on synthesisers, presumably for budgetary reasons, it sounds more than "orchestral" enough to satisfy all but the most pernickety purists. Great booklet too, with lots of stuff about the rediscovery and restoration, and biographies of the main players.

Wombatz
Joined: Mon Feb 02, 2009 6:19 pm
Contact:

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#16 Post by Wombatz » Fri Jun 05, 2009 6:07 am

Bought Hindle Wakes because of this thread. Unbelievable first half, the immediacy, the warmth, the musicality, then a sharp downturn once I guess the film moves closer to the play. My woman came home at about 60 minutes in, after I'd phoned her what a masterpiece this seemed to be. She watched a while then looked at me as if I'd had a couple of beers too much, and I can't blame her.

Solaris
Joined: Sun Jul 10, 2005 3:25 am
Location: Australia

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#17 Post by Solaris » Thu Jun 11, 2009 7:45 am

let's ban david hare from this forum guys

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#18 Post by knives » Thu Jun 11, 2009 11:08 am

He hasn't even posted in this forum.

User avatar
HerrSchreck
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#19 Post by HerrSchreck » Thu Jun 11, 2009 11:35 am

Solaris wrote:let's ban david hare from this forum guys
What in god's name are you talking about?? Biggest nonsequitor of the year.

User avatar
zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#20 Post by zedz » Thu Jun 11, 2009 11:11 pm

Solaris wrote:let's ban david hare from this forum guys
I vote we keep him as a pet!

User avatar
L.A.
Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 7:33 am
Location: Helsinki, Finland

Re: The Life Story of David Lloyd George (Elvey, 1918)

#21 Post by L.A. » Mon Feb 29, 2016 11:14 am

Hopefully you don't mind if I post this here, don't know where else to ask.

I am interested in the first Welsh talkie Y Chwarelwr / The Quarryman (1935). The price of the DVD isn't bad but the shipment costs on the other hand are. Any suggestions where I might find this cheaper?

Post Reply