La Boheme

Aroview: Silent film adaptation of the 1896 opera by Giacomo Puccini, with Lillian Gish starring alongside John Gilbert as doomed lovers Mimi and Rodolphe, a seamstress and an aspiring playwright, in 1830's Paris.

As this point the talented Gish was successful enough from her work with D.W. Griffith to negotiate a high salary from MGM, along with significant creative control of the project. She chose to portray Mimi less as a passionate bohemian lover and more of a realistically impoverished, exhausted and pale figure. She visited sanatoriums to research for the role, and her incredible performance of early method acting shocked everyone on set.

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