East of Eden (1955)

Second viewing. The first was on April 12, 1987.

In 1917, the U.S.A. has not entered the war yet. A man has two sons, his wife has left him a long time ago. One son feels unloved by his father, and looks for his mother, who owns a nightclub (and whorehouse, probably) in the adjacent town. Etcetera.

Remarkable drama, with melodramatic tinges, and symbolic ones, verging on abstraction. Great and many themes are approached. Christopher Mulrooney makes some insightful considerations, "knowledge" is, according to him, a central theme. This is most apparent, I think, in regard with the mother, who was kept a secret, and is the pivot of a crisis.
As happens in melodramas, or, to use a different expression, in stylized  storytelling, a joke aspect is inevitable. Cal's gauche quest for love is doomed from the beginning, he goes about things the wrong way (well, he is human and he needs to be loved, just like everybody else does -- hey, what do you know, he is like the guy in that Smiths song...). That does not prevent things to be straightened out in the end, though -- if things can ever be straightened out, that is.
To reach its punchline (and beyond it), the film goes through several lyrical moments, all of them wonderfully acted.
Seen in ugly pan-and-scan.

Rating: 72 (up from 69)