The Story of Film: An Odyssey 'The Hollywood Dream' (2011)
*** (out of 4)
The second film in Mark Cousins' series takes a look at another wide range of topics including new techniques including lighting as well as some of the silent comedy legends like Keaton, Chaplin and Lloyd. As with the first film, this one here jumps around quite a bit and I must admit that I'm not totally sure about the style of the series and especially since it's not telling any story in a certain way. Again, this episode is supposed to cover 1918-1928 but it jumps to other decades and other films to help show certain topics that eventually come up. This includes the famous desks sequence in THE CROWD and how both Orson Welles and Billy Wilder changed this somewhat for their films THE TRIAL and THE APARTMENT. We also get a brief rundown on the career and madness of Erich von Stroheim and the issues surrounding his film GREED. I will say that this episode kept me entertained just like the first one did but at the same time I beginning to worry that this isn't going to reach the greatness that I was hoping for. Still, I think film buffs will enjoy seeing the various film clips and there's no question that this is an original way to approach telling the history of film. Cousins does a nice job with the narration and there's no doubt that he's at least giving us an original look at the history of cinema even if I'm not sure it's going to pay off throughout a total of more than 15-hours.