Too many words have been devoted and expended on the elusive Swedish Sphinx for the meagre words that I write to illuminate or deepen the discourse.Is there really anything new to be said, by anyone, that will enhance our understanding of the tight-lipped, late legend? Yet fans, writers, and critics by the millions remain entranced, enamored and intrigued by the star and her secretive ways, nearly seventy years after she last appeared on movie screens.
Acting-wise,she was competent and distinct, with a handful of memorable performances.She famously made the transition to sound late in the change-over, her cold mystery enhanced by her thick accent:she was no foreign-throated casualty.Yet her greatest roles were in silents,where her innate mystery was bound tightly to her muteness.Her strength as a performer shone through in her incandescent expressiveness.The ability to convey the universe with a single look--in the dart of an eye or twitch of the lips--was the true victim of the sound era.It took with it subtleties and nuances, and broad sweeps of emotion, that have not been witnessed since.
Garbo's appeal also resided in a shocking, pulsating sexiness that was entirely absent from her sound films. Watching her burn across the screen--especially in tandem with her brief, real-life lover John Gilbert--must come as an unexpected gift to anyone who has only seen her Depression-era historical films, mild and tamped down stuff in comparison.She was effective and restrained in the latter yet entirely without the emotive,pliant passion found in even her crudest silent.
The legend that is Garbo has been swallowed whole, without consideration of nuances, and spit back out in a few small yet readily identifiable pieces. Most of those remaining pieces are concerned with her private, post-film life rather than the work and craft that made us interested in her in the first place.Her personal choices,while certainly iconoclastic,remain separate from her real legacy:it would be an act of beauty and rebellion to remember her for her occasionally accomplished artistry and always magnificent presence.
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