Borderline (1930 film)
Encyclopedia
Borderline is a 1930 film, written and directed by Kenneth Macpherson
and produced by the Pool Group
in Territet, Switzerland. The silent film, with English inter-titles, is primarily noted for its handling of the contentious issue of inter-racial relationships, using avant-garde experimental film-making techniques, and is today very much part of the curriculum of the study of modern cinematography.
The film, which features Paul Robeson
, Bryher
and HD, was originally believed to have been lost, but was discovered, by chance, in Switzerland in 1983. An original 16mm copy of this film is now held in the Donnell Media Center, New York City Public Library. In 2006, the British Film Institute sponsored the film’s restoration by The George Eastman House and eventual DVD release with a soundtrack, composed by Courtney Pine
. Its premiere at the Tate Modern gallery in London attracted 2,000 people. In 2010, the film was released with a soundtrack composed by Mallory Johns, and performed by the Southern Connecticut State University Creative Music Orchestra.
was particularly influenced by the cinematic techniques of G.W. Pabst and Sergei Eisenstein
, whom he first met in 1929. In Borderline, he uses avant-garde experimental film-making techniques, blending Eisenstein
’s montage innovation and Pabst’s psycho-analytical approach, to identify the emotional and psychological states of the film’s characters. These techniques called for unconventional post-production editing, the use of light and shadow, and exaggerated movement on the part of the actors. “Macpherson
’s brilliance lies in his ability to photograph small movements as nuanced, meaning-producing gestures”.
“Taking heed from the Soviet montage school of thought, Macpherson
incites action and reaction through a bravura demonstration of editing that wilfully distorts the viewer’s grasp of his visual rhetoric. The film bemuses with its expeditious cutting rates and its excisional framing – the latter’s reduction of human figures to dissected body parts powerfully accentuating the characters’ physical detachment from their internal desires. Together, these core tenets invoke an overwhelming tsunami of kineticism that obliterates the audience’s understanding of the film’s spacial and temporal dimensions until all that’s left for us to cling to is an immediate, raw visceralism; the ultimate purification of the cinematic experience.”
It would be decades before the cinematic community would once again tackle the subject matter raised in Borderline. At the time of its release, Borderline was a film that confused and bewildered critics leading the London Evening Standard’s Clive MacManus to advise Macpherson
“to spend a year in a commercial studio” before attempting something as difficult again. Deeply upset by its hostile reception, Macpherson
archived his film and withdrew from film directing. Macpherson
’s work would go on to influence future film-makers such as Nathaniel Dorsky
and Robert Beavers
.
A booklet that Macpherson
and HD wrote to accompany the film concentrated not on narrative coherence but on psychological metaphors. The booklet was later published in the Pool Group
's literary journal, Close Up.
Kenneth Macpherson
Kenneth Macpherson was born in Scotland, 27 March 1902, the son of Scottish painter, John 'Pop' Macpherson and Clara Macpherson. Descended from 6 generations of artists, Macpherson was a novelist, photographer, critic and film-maker...
and produced by the Pool Group
Pool Group
The Pool Group were a trio of interwar period artists, filmmakers and poets consisting of Hilda Doolittle, Kenneth Macpherson and Bryher . Their work has been studied by poetry and film historians as well as by scholars of mysticism, feminism, psychoanalysis and LGBT history...
in Territet, Switzerland. The silent film, with English inter-titles, is primarily noted for its handling of the contentious issue of inter-racial relationships, using avant-garde experimental film-making techniques, and is today very much part of the curriculum of the study of modern cinematography.
The film, which features Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
, Bryher
Bryher
Bryher was the pen name of the novelist, poet, memoirist, and magazine editor Annie Winifred Ellerman. She was born in September 1894 in Margate. Her father was the shipowner and financier John Ellerman, who at the time of his death in 1933, was the richest Englishman who had ever lived...
and HD, was originally believed to have been lost, but was discovered, by chance, in Switzerland in 1983. An original 16mm copy of this film is now held in the Donnell Media Center, New York City Public Library. In 2006, the British Film Institute sponsored the film’s restoration by The George Eastman House and eventual DVD release with a soundtrack, composed by Courtney Pine
Courtney Pine
Courtney Pine CBE is an English jazz musician. At school he studied the clarinet, although he is known primarily for his saxophone playing. Pine is a multi-instrumentalist, also playing the flute, clarinet, bass Clarinet and keyboards...
. Its premiere at the Tate Modern gallery in London attracted 2,000 people. In 2010, the film was released with a soundtrack composed by Mallory Johns, and performed by the Southern Connecticut State University Creative Music Orchestra.
Cast
| Paul Robeson Paul Robeson Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century... |
Pete Marond (an American negro) |
| Eslanda Robeson | Adah (Pete’s wife) |
| Gavin Arthur | Thorne |
| Helga Doorn (HD) | Astrid (Thorn’s wife) |
| Bryher Bryher Bryher was the pen name of the novelist, poet, memoirist, and magazine editor Annie Winifred Ellerman. She was born in September 1894 in Margate. Her father was the shipowner and financier John Ellerman, who at the time of his death in 1933, was the richest Englishman who had ever lived... |
The Manageress |
| Charlotte Arthur | The Barmaid |
| Robert Herring Robert Herring (poet) Robert Herring was a Scottish writer and poet, remembered as an early film critic and editor of the significant literary magazine, Life and Letters Today.... |
The Pianist |
| Blanche Lewin | The Old Lady |
Storyline
The film revolves around an inter-racial love triangle and its effects on the local townsfolk. The story is based in a guesthouse occupied by a set of liberal, hedonistic young people sympathetic to the emerging black American culture. In what would have been completely frowned upon at the time, the manageress has let out a room to a black couple, Pete Marond and his wife, Adah. Adah has an affair with Thorne, a white man, much to the dismay of the prejudiced townsfolk and Thorne's wife, Astrid. Pete attempts a reconciliation with Adah, but she eventually decides to leave him and the town. Astrid confronts Thorne on the affair and attacks him with a knife. In the scuffle, Astrid is killed. The film concludes with the aftermath of Thorne’s trial for murder and the townsfolk’s resolution of the issue.Cinematic Techniques
MacphersonKenneth Macpherson
Kenneth Macpherson was born in Scotland, 27 March 1902, the son of Scottish painter, John 'Pop' Macpherson and Clara Macpherson. Descended from 6 generations of artists, Macpherson was a novelist, photographer, critic and film-maker...
was particularly influenced by the cinematic techniques of G.W. Pabst and Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
, whom he first met in 1929. In Borderline, he uses avant-garde experimental film-making techniques, blending Eisenstein
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
’s montage innovation and Pabst’s psycho-analytical approach, to identify the emotional and psychological states of the film’s characters. These techniques called for unconventional post-production editing, the use of light and shadow, and exaggerated movement on the part of the actors. “Macpherson
Kenneth Macpherson
Kenneth Macpherson was born in Scotland, 27 March 1902, the son of Scottish painter, John 'Pop' Macpherson and Clara Macpherson. Descended from 6 generations of artists, Macpherson was a novelist, photographer, critic and film-maker...
’s brilliance lies in his ability to photograph small movements as nuanced, meaning-producing gestures”.
“Taking heed from the Soviet montage school of thought, Macpherson
Kenneth Macpherson
Kenneth Macpherson was born in Scotland, 27 March 1902, the son of Scottish painter, John 'Pop' Macpherson and Clara Macpherson. Descended from 6 generations of artists, Macpherson was a novelist, photographer, critic and film-maker...
incites action and reaction through a bravura demonstration of editing that wilfully distorts the viewer’s grasp of his visual rhetoric. The film bemuses with its expeditious cutting rates and its excisional framing – the latter’s reduction of human figures to dissected body parts powerfully accentuating the characters’ physical detachment from their internal desires. Together, these core tenets invoke an overwhelming tsunami of kineticism that obliterates the audience’s understanding of the film’s spacial and temporal dimensions until all that’s left for us to cling to is an immediate, raw visceralism; the ultimate purification of the cinematic experience.”
Conclusion
"Judged on its own merits, Borderline is a ground-breaking work, dealing as it does with issues of race and sexuality at a time when such subject matter was still largely taboo and had only been previously tackled cinematically through oblique inference".It would be decades before the cinematic community would once again tackle the subject matter raised in Borderline. At the time of its release, Borderline was a film that confused and bewildered critics leading the London Evening Standard’s Clive MacManus to advise Macpherson
Kenneth Macpherson
Kenneth Macpherson was born in Scotland, 27 March 1902, the son of Scottish painter, John 'Pop' Macpherson and Clara Macpherson. Descended from 6 generations of artists, Macpherson was a novelist, photographer, critic and film-maker...
“to spend a year in a commercial studio” before attempting something as difficult again. Deeply upset by its hostile reception, Macpherson
Kenneth Macpherson
Kenneth Macpherson was born in Scotland, 27 March 1902, the son of Scottish painter, John 'Pop' Macpherson and Clara Macpherson. Descended from 6 generations of artists, Macpherson was a novelist, photographer, critic and film-maker...
archived his film and withdrew from film directing. Macpherson
Kenneth Macpherson
Kenneth Macpherson was born in Scotland, 27 March 1902, the son of Scottish painter, John 'Pop' Macpherson and Clara Macpherson. Descended from 6 generations of artists, Macpherson was a novelist, photographer, critic and film-maker...
’s work would go on to influence future film-makers such as Nathaniel Dorsky
Nathaniel Dorsky
Nathaniel Dorsky is an experimental filmmaker and film editor who has been making films since 1964. He intends that his 16mm silent films "create a state of prayer" not by treating Buddhism as a subject but by expressing "the view that comes from Buddhism".Dorsky was born in New York City,...
and Robert Beavers
Robert Beavers
Robert Beavers is an American experimental filmmaker. Born and raised in Massachusetts, he attended Deerfield Academy which he left before graduating to move to New York in 1965 to pursue filmmaking...
.
Film and legacy details
For many years, Borderline was largely inaccessible to film scholars, with rare copies in a few archives around the world. It was seldom screened in public. Many film historians of avant garde and experimental film-making, feel that it represents one of the last examples of modernism of the 1920s, when many artists had hoped that artistic experimentation and commercial viability need not be mutually exclusive.A booklet that Macpherson
Kenneth Macpherson
Kenneth Macpherson was born in Scotland, 27 March 1902, the son of Scottish painter, John 'Pop' Macpherson and Clara Macpherson. Descended from 6 generations of artists, Macpherson was a novelist, photographer, critic and film-maker...
and HD wrote to accompany the film concentrated not on narrative coherence but on psychological metaphors. The booklet was later published in the Pool Group
Pool Group
The Pool Group were a trio of interwar period artists, filmmakers and poets consisting of Hilda Doolittle, Kenneth Macpherson and Bryher . Their work has been studied by poetry and film historians as well as by scholars of mysticism, feminism, psychoanalysis and LGBT history...
's literary journal, Close Up.