the silent film thread

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'Sunrise' love has a bit to do with 'deep focus tradition' as drawn up by Andre Bazin, which includes Stroheim, Murnau, Dreyer, Renoir, Rossellini... The long travelling shots etc.

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 8 December 2003 12:23 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah... I do get the impression the film is liked more for its form than its content.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 8 December 2003 12:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I can't remember... does Murnau do the door thing in Sunrise like he does in ALL his other films?

― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 8 December 2003 12:45 (twenty-two years ago)

In Bazin form=content: long takes mean mo' respekt for erm, like fullness of humanity or something as against nasty materialism of the eisensteinian montage. someone with knowledge of catholic art crit to thread...

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 8 December 2003 12:47 (twenty-two years ago)

i dont think thats why the film has found a new audience lately though. bazin doesnt exert much influence any more. besides which he was sort of in error as sunrise has not so much deep focus as deep staging, and even then its sparse--the film is nothing if not varied in its technical aspects.

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.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 8 December 2003 12:47 (twenty-two years ago)

i mean jesus christ if you want fallen from critical maps check out the ouevre of i dunno pal fejos or something.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 8 December 2003 12:48 (twenty-two years ago)

i find nosferatu moving too

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

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 8 December 2003 12:49 (twenty-two years ago)

i mean one thing that bugs me is how silent film appreciation sometimes seems like a game of musical chairs where the players stay the same and just get shifted around critically. theres a huge body of work out there to be discovered and enjoyed by more people if you'd stop arguing over whether sunrise is "overrated"

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 8 December 2003 12:51 (twenty-two years ago)

for fuck's sake, you're arguing more than me! you're posting three times for every one of mine on the subject. Let it lie, man. Everyone can't like all films.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 8 December 2003 13:09 (twenty-two years ago)

i was responding as much to enrique and to his and others' consistent harping on "overrated" films and "underrated" films, all of which are extremely famous and well-cited.

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.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 8 December 2003 13:13 (twenty-two years ago)

also is it possible to have an argument here without someone resorting to a rhetorical fallacy?

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 8 December 2003 13:14 (twenty-two years ago)

that's what the Nazis said.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 8 December 2003 13:16 (twenty-two years ago)

aside to enrique: im not claiming nor is ozu claiming that he broke free from all filmic conventions. but if you can find one director of narrative films who went farther in the direction of developing his own stylistically exhaustive conventions, of avoiding the cliches of contemporary plot structure, please let me know. (the only possible candidate i know is robert bresson and he's a long way off.)

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 8 December 2003 13:17 (twenty-two years ago)

could this thread turn into a Lumiere Brothers films Search/Destroy? My favourite is the one where the guy is watering the lawn and then some naughty child stands on the hose so water stops coming out, and the guy looks into the hose AND THEN the boy steps off the hose so water squirts out into the guy's face! This is the funniest film ever made.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 8 December 2003 13:24 (twenty-two years ago)

no idea. i can't quite map plot on to form here. there are plenty less conventional directors -- resnais, for one. i can't compute the question, soz.

― enrique (Enrique), Monday, 8 December 2003 13:25 (twenty-two years ago)

DV that's L'Arroseur arrosé (the waterer watered) and is one of the first staged films, i.e. not an "actuality"

i'm not really a lumieriste though

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 8 December 2003 13:28 (twenty-two years ago)

the best part of that movie though is when the gardener runs to chase after the naughty boy and they go off camera and the camera doesnt move at all, it just waits until they go back into frame a few seconds later.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 8 December 2003 13:33 (twenty-two years ago)

my favorite lumiere is a shot of a bunch of boys floating toy boats in a fountain in paris. one little boy steps right in front of the camera and you see this cane reach around from the side of the frame (presumably it belongs to the cameraman), rap the little boy on the shoulder whereupon he runs off to the side.

also the one of the baby walking is pretty great.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 8 December 2003 13:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Obv then a film of a brick wall being knocked down is the most exciting ever made, seeing as it causes ladies in the audience to faint & have the vapours.

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.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 8 December 2003 13:44 (twenty-two years ago)

i dont think so. the whole thing is like 6 hours i think.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 8 December 2003 13:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I remember seeing this clip from it when I was a kid - pearl white is on one of those railway trolleycarts, IIRC, a pedal one as opposed to a hand-cranked one, and she's trolleying on down this single track railway line which is supended precariously on the side of a cliff. She rounds a bend, and HORROR!! There's this enormous steam locomotive coming towards her. To this day, I've never found out how she got out of that one.

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

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 8 December 2003 14:17 (twenty-two years ago)

the entire 1913-14 fantomas serial is on a dvd set from gaumont in france. it only has french intertitles but you can get by with a good dictionary i'd imagine, if you don't read french.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 8 December 2003 14:26 (twenty-two years ago)

thx!! I thought you'd know abt this.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 8 December 2003 14:29 (twenty-two years ago)

amateurist you are a national treasure!

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 8 December 2003 16:37 (twenty-two years ago)

one month passes...

Does anyone have the UK "Sunrise" special edition DVD yet? If so, are there any opinions on the audio/visual quality, and the special features?

― Tom May (Tom May), Sunday, 1 February 2004 21:31 (twenty-two years ago)

if anyone is in paris this february email me i have a special event to tell you about

― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 1 February 2004 21:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I watched that Britney Spears movie with the TV on mute. Does that count?

― El Spinktor (El Spinktor), Sunday, 1 February 2004 21:44 (twenty-two years ago)

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

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.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 2 February 2004 00:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Tom, I think the DVD may not be out yet, since the BFI is set to release a new print in Soho in the next few days. I'd guess it would be make more sense to release the DVD shortly after the theatrical run? Dunno.

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.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 2 February 2004 01:52 (twenty-two years ago)

nosferatu is totally scary wtf

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 2 February 2004 09:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I just saw a British 1926 adaptation of 'A Tale of Two Cities' (called 'The Only Way,' which was apparently an extremely successful stage play -- which the film more or less recreates). Because it's not particularly well-remembered or leved, I ended up enjoying this far more than other sitlents, and has given me the itch to see a whole load more. With so many silents I feel oppressed by the idea that the film is a major leap forward in film language -- I can't just watch the thing, i have to recognize how significant that cut or this track is. This film broke that spell. So I'm gonna see 'Sunrise' (for the third time) when it's out.

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

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 2 February 2004 09:54 (twenty-two years ago)

how long of a time? the two years between their release dates?

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

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 2 February 2004 13:36 (twenty-two years ago)

'The Last Laugh' got mo' love from the 'socially concerned' critix cos of the whole neue sacherlicht (sp!) thang. I think.

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 2 February 2004 13:39 (twenty-two years ago)

"The Last Laugh": great news... I've heard a fair bit about that. Not perhaps as praised as "Sunrise" but not too far off (and how is that a problem when "Sunrise" is one of my few favourite films?).
May well pick up "Faust" today for £7 in Fopp...

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.

― Tom May (Tom May), Monday, 2 February 2004 15:46 (twenty-two years ago)

ARGH don't remind me of Cambridge Fopp

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

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 2 February 2004 15:48 (twenty-two years ago)

;-) Only "Faust" and the (mentioned on ILM; loads of classic late 70s/80s disco-r'n'b) "Pure Groove" compilation this time, I think. Though I got the Upsetters' "Super Ape" for a fiver a few days ago, too.

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

― Tom May (Tom May), Monday, 2 February 2004 15:56 (twenty-two years ago)

one month passes...

recommended, highly: the king vidor version of 'la boheme' with lillian gish

― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 20 March 2004 23:10 (twenty-two years ago)

KING VIDOR I LOVE YOU CAN I BE IN ONE OF YOUR MOVIES PLEAS!!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 21 March 2004 00:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I AM DEAD SORRY

--KING VIDOR

― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 21 March 2004 12:14 (twenty-two years ago)

THX SORRY

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 21 March 2004 17:29 (twenty-two years ago)

eleven months pass...

I just found Sjoman's The Phantom Chariot. I'm going to probably watch it on Monday.

― A Nairn (moretap), Sunday, 6 March 2005 04:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd really like to see 1923's Trilby, i'm not even sure if there are any prints of it left but I've been fascinated since I bought a production still of ebay of it.

http://photos3.flickr.com/5930783_db2693c8c6.jpg

It starred Audree LaFayette and Philo McCoullough

― kate/baby loves headrub (papa november), Sunday, 6 March 2005 04:34 (twenty-one years ago)

sjostrom--i hope you like it! i hope you found a good copy. a good-looking print of the film will be positively gorgeous. it's a very moody and subtle film (though not as subtle as some of his other films).

i can check to see if that one exists. somehow i think it does, but i may be wrong.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Sunday, 6 March 2005 08:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Silent drama can be avery dangerous thing. If it's not made by a great visual stylist (Murnau, Lang, Vidor etc), the going can be tough.

I was gifted with the Keaton box last Christmas. Still, his films are best seen first on the big screen, cuz it's vital to see his face.

Orson Welles said, purely on aesthetics, silents should have continued alongside talkies as a distinctly different art form.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Monday, 7 March 2005 14:44 (twenty-one years ago)

two months pass...

Edison box set! Anders als die Andern FINALLY available on home video!

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 29 May 2005 14:48 (twenty-one years ago)

And then there's this enticing forthcoming little number.

― L'Histoire d'Eric H. (Eric H.), Sunday, 29 May 2005 16:01 (twenty-one years ago)

wow! that looks amazing.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 29 May 2005 16:22 (twenty-one years ago)

By the way, my favorite Edison (based on the dozen or so I've seen) is this:

http://www.railwaybridge.co.uk/images/topsyelectrornd.jpg

Seemingly establishing the format as being capable of great cruelty, et al.

― L'Histoire d'Eric H. (Eric H.), Sunday, 29 May 2005 16:24 (twenty-one years ago)

The only Keaton I've been underwhelmed with so far is The Navigator. But the scene where Keaton and his love interest chase each other around the ship's deck, trying to catch up with each other's phantom presence for what seems like five minutes is teh roffle.

― L'Histoire d'Eric H. (Eric H.), Sunday, 29 May 2005 16:28 (twenty-one years ago)

The somewhat grim stories of ">Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse and Topsy the Elephant.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 29 May 2005 16:37 (twenty-one years ago)

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