Greed

Erich von Stroheim - 1924
I watched the restored version, which uses still photographs, cutting around them, and pan and scan. It's difficult to say much about this; except to note that the framings are closer than in the film footage, and that it is not entirely succesful as a storytelling device.
Stroheim's camera frames a little off; from a slightly (actually, quite extreme) low or high angle, but for his shots and reverses he also uses an angle at a slight diagonal. His faces are lit from the side, often with one side quite harsh, or both ears lit but the centre in relative darkness.
The editing is quick here, breaking down scenes from establishing, closer, then surprisingly out again, in an around. This is the principle of a thousand different angles, different views on what we see, enhanced by the use of narratives that are not causally connected. It is trying to, by small displacements, gain the clearest and most subtle view possible.
Stroheim uses some extremely long shots, most notably at the end, but throughout he is happy to show, say, a whole house with closer small figures. Yet there is great variety here, he goes closer as a principle than, say, the Griffiths of 'Intolerance', with medium shots (waist) seeming to be the point moved from.
Depth also comes into it. Though the photography in this print can be very soft, he frequently uses two plains that are connected (though depth enhanced by different shades overlapping).
That brings us to the use of colour; with some photos in full paint, and throughout the gold as gold. Their is a terrific use of filters also, notably at the end, where the gold horizon gives that horrible washed out view, half way horizon and endless sand all the same.
There is a remarkable scene of McTeague behind Marcus, with depth, when we focus on that, and only half way through is the establishing shot made, we realise Marcus is at a table of people. von Stroheim doesn't follow the perhaps obvious 'establishing first', though it seems to always be there. His use of intertitles has a similar schema; it is only once we have had the image, or half way through the action, that we get the title. Focus on the image? It seems to all be used to concentrate the viewer on one aspect.
This idea of focussing on one thing is combined with a camera that almost never moves, completely refuses expressive movement, as indeed the narrative refuses 'expressive' detail, little titbits. Obviously von Stroheim comments, but his comment is in choosing what to show, not what he does show. There is a distance through this lack of expressiveness, certainly. But he is keen in giving a critical protrait of a society. This is real nineteenth century realism. It is perhaps closest, though, to Zola's naturalism (this reminded me of 'L'Assomoir') in its idea of subterranean brutality, sexual motifs like a locomotive, running underneath.
And this idea, and the double character of our complex hero, also put one in mind of 'Berlin Alexanderplatz'; Franz Bierkopf too would be capable of cuddling a bird, then killing a man. McTeague remains, thoughout, unkowable; von Stroheim, and again naturalism here, seems not so much interested in giving us consciousness, but rather its consequences, its actions (in contrast to Griffiths wanting to give us actions that have never once been mediated by consciousness).
The film is obviously about capitalist asceticism; it breeds pure insanity, not even as logical as Bunuel. McTeague's pleasures may be wild and unruly, but the complete renunciation is the real madness. In fact, the two meet.