Slideshow
THE WIND
♪ Live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner ♪
Introduced by festival curator Bruce Goldstein and Scott McGee, Senior Director of Original Programming, TCM, with recorded greeting by KEVIN BROWNLOW (filmed October 20, 2025 at BFI Southbank, London, especially for this series).
U.S., 1928
Directed by Victor Sjöström
Written by Frances Marion
Based on the novel Dorothy Scarborough
Starring Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson, Montagu Love
Approx. 72 min. DCP.
Shy Virginian Lillian Gish travels West, where she’s taunted by a jealous woman, wooed by an insentient field hand, victimized by a lecherous rogue, and tormented by the demonic tempest that relentlessly besieges her tiny cabin. Sjöström’s American masterpiece reaches the expressive heights of silent drama.
Restored by The Museum of Modern Art with support from the Lillian Gish Fund for Film Preservation.
Presented with support from The Ada Katz Fund for Literature in Film
Reviews
“Demonstrates such imagination and assurance that it remains completely modern… its climactic sandstorm sequence has to be seen to be believed.”
– Geoff Andrew, Time Out
“No one would deny that THE WIND is a work of art or, after seeing it, cavil much at the opinion of a French critic, who said that Sjöström was capable of making ‘the most beautiful films in the world.’”
– Derek Malcolm, The Guardian