The Salvation Hunters

The Salvation Hunters (1925) is an American silent film, the first work directed by young Josef Sternberg, later known as Josef von Sternberg.

Production background

The film stars George K. Arthur and Georgia Hale and was released by United Artists. This was the first film directed by Josef von Sternberg. Produced by World Film Company of Fort Lee, New Jersey, it is sometimes described as the first American independent film, as it was shot on a small budget by an unknown director. Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford were impressed by this film, and Chaplin invited Sternberg (as he was then known) to work with him at his Hollywood studio.

Plot

The film opens with a foreword:

The "humans who crawl close to the earth" are introduced one after another. The Boy is a homeless, unemployed youth who fancies The Girl. He is a failure, the intertitles explain, because he believes in failure. According to The Boy, there are two types of people in the world—the poor, helpless "children of the mud" and the rich, successful "children of the sun" (note: drawn from a 1905 play by the same name by Russian playwright Maxim Gorky)—and he places himself somewhere in the middle. The Boy and The Girl live near a harbor and struggle to find food; eventually, they have to leave for the city: not only The Boy is unable to find a job, but also The Brute has been harassing The Girl, and The Boy is afraid of a direct confrontation. They leave, taking with them The Child, an orphan who lost his parents to an accident and was also a victim of The Brute.

The Salvation (Skyzoo album)

The Salvation is the debut album of Brooklyn rapper Skyzoo. The album was released on September 29, 2009, via Jamla Records, founded by 9th Wonder, which is a sub-label of Duck Down Records. Upon release Skyzoo described it as autobiographical and his most personal work. Primarily featuring Skyzoo's lyrics, among the contributing producers are Best Kept Secret, 9th Wonder, Nottz, Just Blaze, Illmind, Needlz and Black Milk. It charted on various Billboard charts, reaching No. 126 on the Billboard 200, No. 4 on the Top Heatseekers, and No. 14 on the Tastemaker Albums chart. The album was acclaimed. AllMusic gave it a positive review and a rating of 4/5, while XXL gave it 4/5.

Production and themes

The Brooklyn-raised emcee stated that he had been planning this album since he was 9 years old.The Salvation provides an intricate view into Skyzoo's life and experiences. The diverse range of production and the autobiographical nature is in contrast to his previous releases, with Skyzoo describing it at the time as his most personal work. A tactic taken by Skyzoo to emphasize the personal aspect of The Salvation was to not load the album up with features from other rappers, explaining that "the moment you pick up a pen or start rhyming as a kid, all you think about is getting an album out. This album isn't exactly the way I planned it out at 9-years-old, but it tells my story. With that being said, no one can help tell my story better than me. The Salvation is about me."

The Salvation (film)

The Salvation is a 2014 Danish western film directed by Kristian Levring and written by Anders Thomas Jensen and Levring. The film stars Mads Mikkelsen, Eva Green, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jonathan Pryce, Eric Cantona, Mikael Persbrandt, Douglas Henshall and Michael Raymond-James.

Plot

In 1870s America, Jon and his brother Peter, Danish settlers and former soldiers, await Jon’s wife and ten-year-old son who have just arrived in country. Peter stays behind while the family boards a stagecoach bound for their small residence. The stagecoach is also boarded by two recently released criminals. After a tense struggle, the two throw Jon out of the moving coach, rape his wife, eventually killing her, the child and the stagecoach drivers.

Jon catches up to the coach and kills his family's murderers. Unbeknownst to him, one of the them is the brother of Henry De La Rue, a notorious gang leader and land baron. In response, De La Rue kills three innocent citizens of Black Creek, the town that reports the deaths to him. He forces the townspeople to cooperate and find his brother's killer.