Gesture, despite it's-- again, for me-- narrative predictability (does you-know-who, playing an unusually bratty, hi-volume part, turning out to be
really surprise anyone?) is a really fabulous film that constitutes Joe's last carefully modulated studio project that hits the same thematic and visual marks that the early Paramount films ooze in spades. I don't quite put it all the way up there with the best of his silents or the Marlene films like
Empress, Express, Venus, Morocco, or
Devil Izza, but it sure comes damned close.
After the big global letdown-- a major nostril-blow into the gutter of disappointment-- of the CC silents set being without exception
non Blu (not even DOCKS which looks astronomically well and is a huge favorite among fans), and with still with nary a whisper about
Shanghai Express which was supposed to be on the docket for 2009, according the guarded whispers floating around the back alleys of cine-rumor, which itself would be pure visual orgasm in Blu.. hell
any of those paramount titles would be pure visual orgasm in blu),
Gesture is without question a nice consolation prize, and a decent enough start in getting this man's work out on blu.
I mean he's only like y'know, perhaps the director with
the finest, and most acutely virtuoso visual sensibility in the whole of the sound era... at least the golden age of the big studios.