DUEL IN THE SUN (144')
by King Vidor
cast: Jennifer Jones, Gregory Peck, Joseph Cotten, Lionel Barrymore, Herbert Marshall, Lillian Gish
USA, 1946
Restored in 4K in 2024
by The Walt Disney Studios and The Film Foundation
in collaboration with George Eastman Museum and MoMA
Print courtesy of The Walt Disney Studios
by arrangement with Park Circus
Introduced by Riccardo Triolo
A drama of love and death in Texas, in the late nineteenth century. Against the backdrop of a wild and blazing landscape, a tragic love story unfolds between Pearl, a mixed-race woman with a tormented sexuality, and the impetuous Lew. This is perhaps the most costly super-western in the history of Hollywood: 8 great actors, 50 medium actors, 6500 extras, 6 directors (Vidor at a certain point stepped down after a clash with producer David O. Selznick, the true author of the film just as he had been for Gone with the Wind; the other directors, who did not appear in the credits, were Josef von Sternberg, William Dieterle, Otto Brower, B. Reeves Eaton and Selznick himself). A massive dose of sex. A rifle that shoots declarations of love. Lionised by some for its frenzied Baroqueness, disparaged by others for its cruelty and excesses that make it a cartoon of passions. It won Gish, as well as Jones, the nomination for an Oscar. (Morando Morandini)
The final duel, of death, between the two lovers on the wild mountains, becomes incandescent material for the visionary, unbridled talent of post-war King Vidor: it is a ritual, hyperbolic act of amour fou beyond death; it bears the mark of a brilliant kitsch tragedy. (Gianni Volpi)
