:43:01
both films inspired
by Roosevelt's New Deal
:43:04
and the Farm Security Administration.
:43:07
Films that tried to show
:43:09
the kind of forces of nature
that people were up against
:43:14
who lived in the country
and by the banks of the great rivers.
:43:18
Edge Of The World clearly belongs to
that great desire of the '30s
:43:22
to use cinema to show,
predominantly, city dwellers
:43:26
the kind of, erm, struggles
:43:29
that those who lived by the sea
or on the land faced.
:43:35
As the seasons turn,
:43:37
Ruth is now desperate
to make contact with Andrew,
:43:41
because their coming together
:43:44
has resulted in a pregnancy.
:43:47
And she knows that she's going to
give birth to Andrew's child
:43:52
but she has no way of reaching him,
:43:54
except through this extraordinary
primitive and yet poetic means,
:43:58
the letter boat.
:44:01
It could almost come out of
a film set in the South Seas.
:44:05
It's an invention,
as far as we know,
:44:08
on Powell's part.
:44:09
It isn't necessarily how any
of the islanders did communicate.
:44:12
But it fulfils a poetic function,
:44:16
because it's sending a small boat
out into the storm-tossed ocean,
:44:21
with only the possibility
that it might reach Andrew.
:44:25
It's the melodramatic function
of the film,
:44:28
its melodramatic dimension:
:44:30
The woman waiting by the sea
:44:33
for news
of the father of her child.