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Borderline

"This experimental narrative was an early attempt to deal with the racism of white society. Paul Robeson (appearing with his wife Eslanda) has a nonstereotyped role, one of the few times this happened in his movie career. Shot in Switzerland and set in a Swiss mountain resort, the film examines the effect on several people when a black couple arrives. Light and shadow become metaphors for the racial attitudes of characters. The film is notable not only for its experimental quality but also for its cast. The director, Kenneth MacPherson, was also the editor of the film journal 'Close-up', and as a consequence the film includes the poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Bryher (H.D.'s lover and MacPherson's wife), and Robert Herring (MacPherson's lover), all of whom wrote regularly for 'Close-up'". -- [MOMA catalogue].

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type

about

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actor

alternateName

http://schema.org/alternateName

  • "Borderline"
  • "Border line"@en
  • "Grenzlinie"
  • "Close up [videorecording]"
  • "Paul Robeson: Outsider"
  • "Kenwin [videorecording]"

contributor

creator

description

http://schema.org/description

  • "This experimental silent film, made in Switzerland by an independent British film company, is chiefly remembered as Paul Robeson's first film. Boldly blending Eisensteinian montage and domestic melodrama, the film features Robeson and his wife, Eslanda, as lovers caught up in a tangled web of interracial affairs."
  • "A silent, experimental film about a woman named Adah, who is in an inter-racial love affair with a white man called Thorne."
  • "Indiqué sur la jaquette : Borderline occupies a unique place in British cinema history. Kenneth MacPherson's masterpiece was made only a year after Dziga Vertov's Man witha movie camera (1929) and it features iconic star Paul Robeson and his wife Eslanda, as well as other members from the editorial board of the film journal Close up, such the poet H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), Robert Herning and Bryher. Heavily influenced by the psychological realism of G W Pabst and Sergei Eisenstein's montage, Borderline is a matrix of racial and sexual tension moving between the boundaries of black and white, male and female and the conscious and the unconscious."
  • "Adah, a negro woman, has an affair with Thorne, a white man, much to the dismay of some of the predjudiced townfolk and Thorne's wife, Astrid. Adah attempts a reconciliation with her man, Pete, but eventually leaves him and the town. Meanwhile, Astrid goes mad and cuts Thorne's face and arm with a knife, but then mysteriously dies. Thorne is tried but acquitted. Because of the events, the mayor sends Pete a letter asking him to leave town for the good of all concerned. Paul Robeson is Pete."
  • ""Adah, a negro woman, has an affair with Thorne, a white man, much to the dismay of some of the predjudiced townfolk and Thorne's wife, Astrid. Adah attempts a reconciliation with her man, Pete, but eventually leave him and the town. Meanwhile, Astrid goes mad and cuts Thorne's face and arm with a knife, but then mysteriously dies. Thorne is tried but acquitted. Because of the events, the mayor sends Pete a letter asking him to leave town for the good of all concerned. Paul Robeson is Pete."--Container."
  • ""This experimental narrative was an early attempt to deal with the racism of white society. Paul Robeson (appearing with his wife Eslanda) has a nonstereotyped role, one of the few times this happened in his movie career. Shot in Switzerland and set in a Swiss mountain resort, the film examines the effect on several people when a black couple arrives. Light and shadow become metaphors for the racial attitudes of characters. The film is notable not only for its experimental quality but also for its cast. The director, Kenneth MacPherson, was also the editor of the film journal 'Close-up', and as a consequence the film includes the poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Bryher (H.D.'s lover and MacPherson's wife), and Robert Herring (MacPherson's lover), all of whom wrote regularly for 'Close-up'". -- [MOMA catalogue]."@en
  • "Een gecompliceerde driehoeksverhouding tussen een blank en een zwart stel die speelt in een tijd waarin interraciale verhoudingen uit den boze waren en die uitmondt in een drama."
  • "Adah, a black woman, has an affair with Thorne, a white man, much to the dismay of some of the prejudiced townsfolk and Thorne's wife, Astrid. Adah attempts a reconciliation with her man, Pete, but eventually leaves him and the town. Meanwhile, Astrid goes mad and cuts Thorne's face and arm with a knife, but then mysteriously dies. Thorne is tried but acquitted. Because of the events, the mayor sends Pete a letter asking him to leave town for the good of all concerned. [imdb.com]."@en
  • "This film is both a curiosity and a notable early attempt to deal, in a radical way both thematically and formally, with the issue of race by overturning racial stereotyping and by the use of experimental techniques. The theme of race prejudice and emotional conflict centres on two couples - one black and one white - in a Swiss mountain village. The film is interesting for the metaphorical use made of light and shadow (black imagery symbolising virtuosity, light symbolising evil) and for the expressive use of framing and montage. It had only very limited circulation in Europe and was seen mainly by cineastes. MacPherson (the editor of the film journal, Close Up) had a special interest in Eisenstein."@en
  • ""Heavily influenced by the psychological realism of G W Pabst and Sergei Eisenstein's montage, Borderline is a matrix of racial and sexual tension moving between the boundaries of black and white, male and female and the conscious and unconscious"" -- Container."

director

genre

http://schema.org/genre

  • "Drama"
  • "Drama"@en
  • "Video recordings"@en
  • "Melodrama"
  • "DVD-Video"
  • "Features"
  • "Films ethnographiques"

name

http://schema.org/name

  • "Borderline (Motion picture : 1930)"
  • "Borderline"
  • "Borderline"@en

performer

workExample