the silent film thread

"Plot bores me. These days Noda and I don't rate story very highly. Content, social relevance, and story logic aren't what we're after....What we seek to leave is a good aftertaste."

according to the recent cahiers before making his new movie alain resnais rewatched lubitsch's lady windermere's fan and a bunch of charley chase comdies. (he also professes to own lots of dvds and to have loved "unbreakable")

Meaning? This is rot, you ask me. I don't hate Ozu, but this sort of thing is incredibly dumb -- assuming that it's even possible to leave out 'social relevance'.

i think he means that he was interested in giving a sense of life and emotions which would affect the audience, but without recourse to conventions of plot design and structure or to the kind of contrivances that usually equate to social relevance.

B-b-but of course he was using conventions! Just not the same as, I dunno, Stanley Kramer. His decision not to have much sense of society is just another political position -- I'm curious about it, I've only seen 'Tokyo Story', and as I've said I'd like to see a reading of Japan's tumultuous decades through his films. I think it would be very strange to go out to make films during such a time without paying any attention to what goes on around, don't you? But I really don't see that his m.o. is any less 'contrived' than anyone else's.

yeah yeah, very funny. I can follow what happened in the film, but it is very much this happens then this happens then this happens, and is essentially all a bit so what. It does not have the kind of narrative coherence that the other Murnau films I've seen have, nor is anything that happens in it as interesting.

I feel that Murnau's "Nosferatu" is one of the ten greatest films ever made, and suspect that the only reason people go on about "Sunrise" is that critical opinion does not like to accord just levels of acclaim to a film about a bloodsucking vampire (although I accept that you prefer this film).

i dont prefer sunrise. i think nosferatu is if anything more popular, witness the umpteen versions available on dvd. perhaps in certain critical circles its not as highly rated but that is due as much to the fact of its unavailability for several decades as its being retroactively considered a genre film.

everything has to be a simple conspiracy it seems with some of you...there always have to be a reason, one reason, why something is supposedly not in critical favor (even though you are talking about two movies that are among the most well known of all 1920s films) and if it is in favor you have to denigrate it.

sunrise is a very different film from nosferatu in many ways not just the theme and plot. although i'd agree that there is something very canny and perfect about nosferatu, its various subplots and themes are articulated with great precision and beauty.

i dunno about form/content i find sunrise pretty fucking movng and so do a lot of other people.

see gilberto perez's wonderful essay on that film in his book "the material ghost"

also you are being disingenuous. i of course dont expect everyone to like or love sunrise, nor do i care if you like it (as i said above, i prefer nosferatu, and there are many films i prefer to both) but you made some hypotheses about why sunrise has a supposed greater critical reputation than nosferatu, and speculated that it might be "overrated" for sundry reasons, and i was contesting those reasons.

i'm not really a lumieriste though

also the one of the baby walking is pretty great.

I'm going to ge silent movies on DVD to play in my new computer. 1st chouce = steamboat bill jr, 2nd = Pandora's Box. Can "The Perils of Pauline" be obtained on DVD I wonder.

Also, I'd really like to get like dvds of "fantomas", if they were available.

it probably has more to do with the fact that Sunrise is still a moving film, but Nosferatu (great tho it is) really isn't scary anymore. horror doesn't age well, sadly.

Just saw my first silent film screening with live accompaniment (Red Heroine), and I must say that it is somehow more satisfying knowing that there is a guy sitting there watching the film and weaving together different themes in a coherent whole, non-stop, without any sheet music. Whether or not he memorized the piece or improvised it, very impressive. It doesn't exactly feel totally different than watching a silent film with an added score, but it feels just slightly subliminally fuller.

Also: Tom -- Murnau's 'The Last Laugh' is out soon on DVD -- for a long time this was even more highly regarded than 'Sunrise'.

i havent seen a murnau film i haven't adored--right now i'm big on his faust

Girolamo: No, it is actually out, on Eureka, and I know this because I now possess it! :) I just ask because I won't be able to watch it until March; i.e. my DVD player is at home while I'm at University.

a) that's where my december paycheck went
b) oxford doesn't have a fopp grrr

They've also had in stock (or did, anyway) "...Caligari", "The Blue Angel" and a special edition "Nosferatu". Is the "Nosferatu" package recommended?

--KING VIDOR