Editing The Wind (1928 film) (section)

==Release==
Although it was completed by the summer of 1927, the film's release was delayed by the studio until November 23 in 1928, a full year after the release of ''[[The Jazz Singer]]'' (1927), when audiences wanted sound films. Gish recalled: “Mr. Thalberg said we had a very artistic film, which I knew was a veiled punch,” Like a number of films that appeared on the cusp of the new sound film era, The Wind was overlooked by critics, much as was [[Josef von Sternberg]]’s ''[[The Case of Lena Smith]]'' (1929).<ref>Hogart and Omasta, 2007 p. 33</ref><ref>Baxter, 1971 p. 58</ref>

===Box office===
[[File:The Wind (1928 film poster).jpg|thumb|Alternate theatrical release poster]]
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was nervous about releasing the film and did not release it for a full year until November 1928. It was released with a Movietone score and sound effects for theaters equipped with sound, however by that time, films with 100% dialogue/ talking sequences were being released in theaters, which contributed to ''The Wind'' recording an $87,000 loss.<ref>{{cite book |last=Eyman |first=Scott |date=2005 |title=Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jid5xNh89wgC&q=the+wind+film+happy+ending&pg=PA139 |publisher=Robson Books Ltd |page=139 |isbn=1861058926}}</ref>

===Contemporary response===
''The Wind'' is considered to be a classic, and one of Gish's most brilliant performances. It is the last silent film starring Gish, one of the last films directed by Sjöström in America, and the last major silent released by MGM. At its time it was simultaneously panned and hailed by American critics, and its late release at the dawn of the sound era contributed to a net loss for the production. However, the film had significant critical and considerable commercial success in Europe.

When the film first opened in 1928, many critics panned it. [[Mordaunt Hall]], film critic for ''[[The New York Times]],'' for example, was very critical of the film and he found it difficult to suspend his disbelief regarding the special effects and Lillian Gish's acting.  He wrote, "Yesterday afternoon's rain was far more interesting than...''The Wind,''...The rain was real, and in spite of the lowering skies there was life and color around you. In the picture, the wind, whether it is a breeze or a cyclone, invariably seems a sham, and Lillian Gish, the stellar light in this new film, frequently poses where the wind is strongest; during one of the early episodes she does her bit to accentuate the artificiality of this tale by wearing the worst kind of hat for a wind. Victor Seastrom hammers home his points until one longs for just a suggestion of subtlety. The villain's sinister smile appears to last until his dying breath."<ref>[https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9902E5D71231E33ABC4D53DFB7678383639EDE Hall, Mordaunt]. ''The New York Times,'' film review, November 5, 1928.  Last accessed: February 20, 2008.</ref>

===Retrospective assessment===
''The Wind'' has gained significant prestige retroactively.

The British newspaper, ''[[The Guardian]],'' in 1999 reviewed the work of director Victor Sjöström and they wrote,

{{Blockquote  | And in America his three most famous works—''[[He Who Gets Slapped (film)|He Who Gets Slapped]]'' (1924), ''[[The Scarlet Letter (1926 film)|The Scarlet Letter]]'' (1926) and ''The Wind'' (1928)—each dealt with human suffering. ''The Wind'' is almost certainly the best—a silent classic, revived in recent years by producer/director [[Kevin Brownlow]] with a [[Carl Davis]] score, which gave the great Lillian Gish one of the finest parts of her career...Sjostrom treats the inevitable clash between Letty and her new surroundings with considerable realism and detail, allowing Gish as much leeway as possible to develop her performance. The entire film was shot in the [[Mojave Desert]] under conditions of great hardship and difficulty and this was probably the first 'Western' that tried for truth as well as dramatic poetry. One of its masterstrokes, which looks far less self-conscious than any description of it may seem, is the moment
when Letty hallucinates in terror at the sight of the partially buried body of her attacker.<ref>[http://film.guardian.co.uk/Century_Of_Films/Story/0,4135,65594,00.html ''The Guardian'']. "Victor Sjostrom: The Wind,"  July 15, 1999. Last accessed: February 20, 2008.</ref>}}

In a retrospective of silent films, the [[Museum of Modern Art]] screened ''The Wind'' and included a review of the film in their program.  They wrote, "What makes ''The Wind'' such an eloquent coda to its dying medium is Seastrom's and Gish's distillation of their art forms to the simplest, most elemental form: there are no frills. Seastrom was always at his best as a visual poet of natural forces impinging on human drama; in his films, natural forces convey drama and control human destiny. Gish, superficially fragile and innocent, could plumb the depths of her steely soul and find the will to prevail. The genius of both Seastrom and Gish comes to a climactic confluence in ''The Wind.'' Gish is Everywoman, subject to the most basic male brutality and yet freshly open to the possibility of romance. As a result, the film offers a quintessential cinematic moment of the rarest and most transcendentally pure art."<ref>[http://www.moma.org/collection/printable_view.php?object_id=89498 Museum of Modern Art]. MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999, p. 174. Last accessed: February 20, 2008.</ref>

Biographer Lewis Jacobs compares ''The Wind'' favorably to Austrian-American filmmaker [[Erich von Stroheim]]’s 1924 masterpiece ''[[Greed (1924 film)|Greed]]'':
{{blockquote  | ''The Wind'' becomes the physical expression of the emotional struggle of the characters…the outstanding quality of the film was its documentary realism, which had much in common with Greed. Like Greed it penetrated into psychology of the characters by means of an objective treatment of their environment.<ref>Jacobs, 1967 p. 367</ref>}}

Jacobs adds that Seastrom, in his treatment of American [[Midwestern United States|Midwesterners]] was “as uncompromising as von Stroheim in depicting it.”<ref>Jacobs, 1967 p. 367-368</ref>