A House Divided
 

Posted on 20.10.2023

A House Divided is full of fury. The fury of the weather that runs through it, with its perpetual wind and cascading rain. Fury at the idea of the night where anything is possible. Fury at the very nature of men, and more specifically a widower in his 40s, who’s in the habit of imposing his way of life on everyone, especially his son.

The sweet, golden-haired young man spends his time scrutinising his father's face, trying to guess his mood. Before long, the father gets remarried to a very young woman, adorable in her fragility. Wyler is the filmmaker of men who are hurt of which A House Divided is a prime illustration. It raises the question of what to do when you cross paths with a terrible man. A man you can't get rid of, because he's either your father or your husband, a man with physical strength on his side and an insatiable temperament of natural, raw ferocity. Wyler's solution is infinitely novelistic: to oppose this phenomenal being with gentleness, tenderness and love, all those feelings that seem to weigh no more than a feather, but which a storm cannot undo.

A House Divided, 1931, Walter Huston With His Arm Around Helen Chandler  © NBC Universal

A steadfast director, Wyler films a script impeccably written by John Huston like a choreography. His camera favours wide frames in order to understand the whirlpools of human bodies struggling around the infernal figure of the father. Right to the end, everything is performed in an impressive ballet of physical and moral vitality.

Virginie Apiou

SCREENINGS

A House Divided by William Wyler (1931, 1h10)
Pathé Bellecour – Friday, 20 October at 7.45pm
Lumière Terreaux – Saturday, 21 October at 8.15pm