Greed

Three passages are now located, while their theoretical relation remains a candidate reading constrained by counterevidence. From 02:51:30 to 02:57:31, the giant gold tooth sign is first proposed for sale as an exchange object; the old meat and demand for change that immediately follow still belong to ordinary exchange and a practical budget. The passage therefore first contests the claim that a golden object is automatically a fetish. From 03:02:06 to 03:02:42, Trina counts her savings, brings the money close to her face, and addresses it as second-person 'you': grasping and hoarding as real behaviours or gestures may be symptom candidates. Only when money is withdrawn from exchange and use into something solely kept and caressed does it approach a fetish candidate. From 03:50:45 to 03:55:39, the money bag, money, dead horse, broken canteen, handcuffs, and caged bird enter one exhausted desert milieu, but money, teeth, and the caged bird cannot be collapsed in advance into one class of object-fragments or fetishes: the canteen, handcuffs, and bird first belong to material relations of water loss, restraint, and exhausted life respectively. Page 125 generally defines the four structural terms and symptom or fetish while directly listing Greed's desert ending as a localized originary world. Page 128 directly names the film's impulse for gold, then defines partial object and fetish in general; pp. 126–130 also develop descent, entropy, and environmental exhaustion. Exact timecodes, the tooth's exchange function, the caress of money, and distinctions among the final objects remain the atlas's responsibility.

Film details

Original title: Greed
Director: Erich von Stroheim / 埃里克·冯·施特罗海姆
Year: 1924
Region: United States

Film analysis: how shots organize concepts

SHOT AND CONCEPT ANALYSIS

Gold tooth, savings, and the money bag in Death Valley occupy three different object-relations: the tooth first remains exchangeable, countering a premature fetish claim; repeated counting and holding separate symptom from fetish candidate; and Death Valley tests whether acquisitive impulse exhausts character, object, and milieu together.

01
Three passages first separate two sign classes
Grasping, counting, and hoarding behaviours or gestures first become symptom candidates. Money, teeth, and the caged bird must each be tested for severance from use and seizure by impulse as object-fragments before they enter fetish candidacy.
The reading remains under test and must not collapse every golden object, recurring thing, and grasping behaviour into one fetish sign.
02
The gold tooth counters premature classification
Around 02:51:55, the gold-tooth sign is first proposed for sale; the old meat and demand for change that immediately follow still operate within ordinary exchange, so it first remains an exchange object.
If ordinary use adequately explains the object, the fetish claim must be withdrawn; the framework on p. 128 becomes applicable only when the object leaves exchange and becomes something solely to possess.
03
Death Valley tests exhaustion, not an inventory of fetishes
The passage containing 03:54:15 compresses the money bag, colour-highlighted money, broken canteen, handcuffs, birdcage, salt ground, and dying bodies together.
Money may remain a fetish candidate, but canteen, handcuffs, and bird first organize thirst, constraint, and exhausted life and do not all automatically become fetishes; the naturalist test concerns whether impulse empties the derived milieu as a whole.

Shot timecodes and visual descriptions

02:51:55
McTeague stands beside the enormous gold-tooth sign outside the shop, his body and the tooth framed within the street.
The gold tooth is first proposed for sale; the old meat and demand for change that follow remain ordinary exchange, countertesting the equation of a golden object with a fetish.
Open local high-resolution still Watch from 02:51:55
03:02:30
Trina sits with both hands raised near her face and her gaze directed toward what she holds.
Counting, grasping, and refusal to release are symptom candidates; money becomes a fetish candidate only when severed from exchange and made an object solely to be kept.
Open local high-resolution still Watch from 03:02:30
03:54:15
Across a gold-tinted open salt flat, two bodies remain several metres apart low in the frame, with no visible shelter beyond the horizon.
Money and the money bag may continue to function as fetish candidates, but canteen, handcuffs, and bird do not all automatically become fetishes; they first compose thirst, constraint, and exhausted life.
Open local high-resolution still Watch from 03:54:15

Open the long reconstruction of Greed on Bilibili

The public carrier has a decoded-stream duration of 03:56:21 and is a long-form narrative reconstruction, not the lost complete original cut; still coordinates apply only to this carrier.

Atlas analysis · shots located; passage boundaries and conceptual limits accompany each scene.

Reading attribution: Atlas editorial synthesis · Sources and locators

Close-reading questions

01
From 02:51:30 to 02:57:31, the gold tooth sign is offered for sale, while the old meat and demand for change that follow remain within an ordinary budget. If it first functions as an exchange object here, what later framing or gesture could turn it into a fetish, and what claim should be withdrawn if no such change occurs?
02
From 03:02:06 to 03:02:42, Trina counts her savings, brings the money close to her face, and addresses it as second-person 'you'. When do counting and grasping remain real behaviours of saving, and when might they become symptoms of an elementary impulse? How far must the money leave exchange and use before it becomes a fetish candidate?
03
From 03:50:45 to 03:55:39, the money bag, dead horse, broken canteen, handcuffs, coins, and birdcage enter the salt-flat composition in turn. Which might become seized object-fragments, and which first remain material conditions of lost water, bound bodies, and animal death? What would be lost by calling them all fetishes?

Scene–concept relations

01
The gold tooth is first something saleable, not a fetish on sight
Countertest：Impulse-image
Criterion for holding or withdrawal: These are first ordinary economic actions: if the tooth remains an exchangeable commodity, meat an actual use, and change a real budget, the fetish classification should be withdrawn. A fetish candidate arises only when the object is detached from exchange and use to become a partial object repeatedly seized by impulse.
02
Counting, holding, addressing money: symptom and fetish separate here
Atlas candidate reading：Impulse-image
Criterion for holding or withdrawal: Symptom is the appearance of impulse in counting, holding, and address; fetish is the appearance of seized money as partial object, and the two must not be conflated. If later evidence shows the savings still serving a concrete life plan, the fetish relation should be weakened or withdrawn while the gestural symptom candidate may remain.
03
Death Valley exhausts use: is money the only fetish candidate?
Atlas candidate reading：Impulse-image
Criterion for holding or withdrawal: The money bag and chromatically stressed money are fetish candidates as objects seized by impulse after losing survival use. Broken canteen, dead horse, handcuff, and bird first mark material exhaustion and relations of restraint; they must not all be called fetishes. If seizure as a partial object cannot be demonstrated, the fetish label for that object should be withdrawn.

About scene-relation labels

Support requires one scene's audiovisual facts and textual relation to be checked, with a named source and locator. Candidate readings, adjacent concepts, and countertests carry separate labels.

Shots and scenes

McTeague stands near the large gold-tooth sign outside the shop; the sign hangs beside him amid street and storefront. — 02:51:55The gold tooth is first something saleable, not a fetish on sight
These are first ordinary economic actions: if the tooth remains an exchangeable commodity, meat an actual use, and change a real budget, the fetish classification should be withdrawn. A fetish candidate arises only when the object is detached from exchange and use to become a partial object repeatedly seized by impulse.
Open viewing position ↗

Trina sits with both hands raised near her face and her gaze directed toward what she holds. — 03:02:30Counting, holding, addressing money: symptom and fetish separate here
Symptom is the appearance of impulse in counting, holding, and address; fetish is the appearance of seized money as partial object, and the two must not be conflated. If later evidence shows the savings still serving a concrete life plan, the fetish relation should be weakened or withdrawn while the gestural symptom candidate may remain.
Open viewing position ↗

Across a gold-tinted open salt flat, two bodies remain several metres apart low in the frame, with no visible shelter beyond the horizon. — 03:54:15Death Valley exhausts use: is money the only fetish candidate?
The money bag and chromatically stressed money are fetish candidates as objects seized by impulse after losing survival use. Broken canteen, dead horse, handcuff, and bird first mark material exhaustion and relations of restraint; they must not all be called fetishes. If seizure as a partial object cannot be demonstrated, the fetish label for that object should be withdrawn.
Open viewing position ↗

Primary texts, scholarship, and locators

Theory coordinate: Cinema 1, Minnesota 1986, ch. 8, pp. 125–130 (esp. pp. 125, 128)

01
Cinema 1: The Movement-Image
Standard Minnesota English translation and a principal citation edition in Anglophone scholarship.
Open the atlas source record →

Consult the primary-text locator above.

Douban film searchsearch.douban.com Bilibili film searchsearch.bilibili.com

Viewing gateways and editions

Verified complete Bilibili carrier: 贪婪 (1924)bilibili.comOpen film page ↗
Page access
Accessible when checked
Version extent
Cut or altered
Source type
User-uploaded page
Edition note: A single-part long reconstruction from surviving material · 3:56:22. The original full cut is lost.
Link checked: 2026-08-14
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