What to expect
Even in its drastically shortened release form, von Stroheim’s film makes objects, rooms, teeth, food, money, and heat accumulate into a material history of obsession. Its mutilated production history has become inseparable from its power.
How to ease in
The surviving film is already a reduction of a much larger design. Follow the changing meaning of money and notice how domestic details become more severe as the characters’ world contracts.
Heads-up
A former miner’s marriage and friendships collapse after a lottery win turns ordinary insecurity into consuming possession.
Coins begin as a promise and end as dead weight. I feel the tragedy in the way every object grows more important while the people holding it become less able to see one another.
Open the note ↓
Coins begin as a promise and end as dead weight. I feel the tragedy in the way every object grows more important while the people holding it become less able to see one another.
— Momo
Credits & versions
Version map
Where to go next
Want a gentler, shorter, or stranger next film?
Ask Momo for something like this →
Momo is on shift. Visit Momo Cinema →
