the silent film thread

abel gance, Napoleon

jean renoir, the little match-stick girl

http://users.chariot.net.au/~dkoks/BettyBronson/Pictures/1-344.jpg

wendy, one girl is more use than twenty boys:-)

http://users.chariot.net.au/~dkoks/BettyBronson/Pictures/1-45.jpg

and the little match-stick girl is worth checking out if you get the opportunity ... very over-the-top visuals and un-Renoiresque -- almost a parody of contemporary German expressionist films -- and also quite touching (yet ironic -- this is Jean Renoir, after all).

http://www.murray.swinternet.co.uk/bristolsilents/doug1.jpg

do silents get regular viewings in the US?

you know the way in Murnau films he makes a big deal about Doors and Doorways? is there loads of door-action in Sunrise?

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005YUO9.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

william haggar made one of hte first chase movies

And 'Silent Movie' by Mel Brooks, obv.

UK version apparently poo, rubly substituting shite talkie Abraham Lincoln for fantastic Orphans Of The Storm, which contains the best car* chase ever.

(* OK, so its really a carriage chase. Still nearly gave me a heart attack.)

silent hitchcoct it had ivor novello

Not mentioned yet: von Stroheim's Greed (saw the 4hr reconstructed version in one of its very few theatrical screenings, es war InSaNe) and Lillian Gish's performance in The Wind.

http://www.monteuve.com/miradas/libreria/avarf1.jpg

In any event, a precis: Search: VICTOR SJÖSTRÖM, the greatest director of silents there was. He made films in Sweden from 1912 to 1922 and in the U.S. from 1922 to 1928. If you can find them: Ingeborg Holm, Terje Vigen, The Girl from the Marsh Croft, The Outlaw and His Wife (available on NTSC VHS), Sons of Ingmar, The Monastery of Sendomir (available on PAL VHS), The Phantom Chariot aka The Phantom Carriage aka The Stroke of Midnight aka Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness (available on PAL VHS), Mortal Clay, He Who Gets Slapped, The Wind (easily available).

Search also: Fritz Lang (Destiny/The Three Lights, Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, The Nibelungen, Spies), Louis Feuillade (Les Vampires, Fantômas), Carl Dreyer (The Pardon's Widow, Michael, Thou Shalt Honor Thy Wife, The Passion of Joan of Arc), and anything you can find by Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujiro Ozu. Those of you in London, keep your eyes peeled, it is a good town for silents.

Many American cities have silent film festivals. New York is of course one of the world's great film towns (Paris being an uncontested no. 1). Chicago is OK, there is a summer silent festival but the Film Center of the Art Institute passed up a recent Mauritz Stiller retrospective (he's another good Swedish filmmaker and the guy who discovered Garbo).

http://www.filmkultura.iif.hu:8080/articles/prints/images/boyer/1.jpg

so, right then, who do you fancy then?

I still have a backlog of world-conquering ambition (from my childhood you understand) to work past (to once and finally convince myself I have neither the tenacity nor the self-confidence to actually see through a film on my own), but once that's done I think I might be suited to the fields of film preservation and programming.

To veer back on-topic:

My favorite moments in Buster Keaton films, and perhaps in all silent films put together, are when Buster submits dutifully and without complaint to what he perceives to be the natural order of things. For instance in Steamboat Bill Jr. when after a succession of folllies involving people being hurled from a steamboat when someone steps in front of them, Buster simply leaps into the water when he sees that someone is approaching. Or in College, when after having knocked over a long succession of hurdles, Buster finally makes the last, he turns around, does a double take, and then with a faint sigh tips over the final hurdle and walks off.

The greatest silent comic though was Jacques Tati who never made a silent film. He was the center of his films, always silent or nearly so, with the madness of the modern world buzzing and creaking and crashing and whirring and dripping around him.

Bauer was a major director of the pre-Soviet era in Russian film, an era which was basically completely ignored until glasnost allowed some such films to seep out of the archives where they had been surprsingly well-preserved (those that survived, anyway--I think about 10-20%). He only made films for a few years (1913-17) before an early death but on the evidence of this DVD they were extraordinary. Bauer excelled at complex lighting effects, carefully coordinated tracking shots (very unusual for the time), deep staging, and really astonishingly vivid and terrifying dream sequences. He began as a stage designer and his sets are perhaps the most remarkable aspect of his cinema--they are often quite elaborate and frequently macabre in keeping with the morbid plots of the movies. (He really was Russian.)

The notes to the DVD assert that Bauer was the superior of contemporaries like Sjöström and Griffith. I don't buy that, esp. not in the case of Sjöström, but he's a great find nonetheless. The DVD also includes a 30-minute lesson in Bauer's style from Yuri Tsivian, a Russian film scholar who teaches at the University of Chicago. It's put out by the BFI and is Region 2. All of you in Europe might take a look at this.

don't be, your information is very valuable

I really don't know French Impressionist cinema well at all, and it's hard to track stuff down.

Have you ever seen "Bed and Sofa" by Avram Room?

This is all I will say for now.

I know precious fuck-all about prewar Soviet cinema outside of the usual suspects--Eisenstein, Kushelov, Vertov, Pudovkin. I've long wanted to see stuff by Kozintsev and Trauberg, Room, Boris Barnet. A lot of good people insist that Barnet's By the Bluest of Seas (actually from 1936) is one of the greatest films ever made. I've always wanted to see Chapayev too. I mean we all know the line about Tarkovsky and Parazhanov rebelling against Socialist Realism or Momumentalism but where are the examples of those genres?

This October the major silent film festival at Pordenone in Italy is featuring a tribute to as Ivan Mosjoukine, the Russian actor and director who left for France during the Revolution and there made Le Brasier ardent (1923) which supposedly anticipates both Soviet montage and French impressionist cinema! He also starred in L'Herbier's Feu Matthia Pascal and Volkoff's Casanova.

Pordenone

Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life, made by the same folks who, eight years later, would make King Kong is also pretty damned incredible -- it involves nomadic tribes in Iran carrying their livestock up mountains. It's absolutely exhausting to watch them, in a good way.

The Life and Death of 9413: A Hollywood Extra. It's like something Joel Hodgson might put together if he was a young turk in the 20's: delirious experimentation, short, art deco, lights and shadow, puppets. Shares the look and feel with more than a few eighties videos.

anyway i'm off to see this film for the umpteenth time at the action ecoles. sadly i couldn't round up anyway to go with me because this is like the greatest date movie ever, except that it's so beautiful you'll probably completely forget about your date which depending on your date might be a good thing!

though...

(swedish and bay area ILXors take notes)

a COMPLETE RETROSPECTIVE OF THE SILENT FILMS OF VICTOR SJOSTROM is coming first to sweden, some time in january i think, and then eventually to the pacific film archive in berkeley, in february. GO GO GO GO GO

How are YOU celebrating National Silent Film Day (September 29)?

I'll be at a screening of The Loves of Carmen (Walsh, 1927, accompaniment by Andrew Simpson) at the AFI Silver Theatre.

Other events on that day will include the dedication of Los Angeles' Chaplin-Keaton-Lloyd Alley, a common filming site for these and other filmmakers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSHIt_ysNDA

https://www.wbur.org/artery/2021/07/08/alloy-orchestra-has-disbanded

Creative differences.

"After three decades, Alloy Orchestra is no more. Winokur has exited; Donahue and keyboardist Roger Miller, who joined in 1998 after Sampson’s death, continue on under a new moniker, Anvil Orchestra. Larry Dersch, who’d played with Miller in a previous band, Trinary System, will take Winokur’s spot in the new group."

"Winokur, who started thinking about leaving the Alloys in late 2018, continues on with another film scoring outfit, the Psychedelic Cinema Orchestra, specializing in music that accompanies short films made by Ken Brown during the late 1960s for rock club The Boston Tea Party. He’s joined by Jonathan LaMaster and, at present, Vapors of Morphine saxophonist Dana Colley."

I've loved every Alloy Orchestra accompaniment I've heard (haters who refer to the "Annoy Orchestra" can suck my left one).

― Infanta Terrible (j.lu), Friday, July 9, 2021 1:14 PM (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Just heard The Anvil Orchestra accompanying Metropolis at AFI Silver. They play tomorrow for The General and Underworld; DO NOT MISS THESE.

Also, on 11/13/21 the Psychedelic Cinema Orchestra will accompany a program of Ken Brown shorts. Very curious to hear what this will sound like.

How are YOU celebrating National Silent Film Day (September 29)?

― Infanta Terrible (j.lu), Saturday, September 11, 2021 1:14 PM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

I am disappointed that I will be observing Silent Film Day 2022 at home for a condo association meeting, rather than the screening of The Spanish Dancer at AFI Silver. Anyone here observing the day in a more agreeable fashion?

Here's a question: what's an example of a bad silent film?

It feels like since so much of the silent era still had the rules of film being written there's less examples of the "rules" being broken in an inept manner.

I've heard ppl point to Oscar Micheaux but frankly taking into account the conditions he was working under it's impressive that he managed to do what he did.

According to silent comedy aficionados, Al Joy is the worst comedian, narrowly beating out the team Ham and Bud. And watching Billy West or other Chaplin impersonators go through the motions is a waste of time and energy.

As for feature-length films (especially drama), I can't think of any that are actively bad, as opposed to just boring hackwork. But there's still a barrier to accessing most surviving silent films--there may be awful works decaying in an archive because the archivist doesn't want to inflict them on the community.

As for Oscar Micheaux, part of it is the nonexistent production values, part the acting style. While most of what I've seen makes me cringe, it probably is based in 19th century stage acting styles, as developed on the stage by Black performers for Black audiences--there's probably a continuity between Micheaux and Tyler Perry, but I couldn't trace it.

What I wonder about is the audience for Micheaux and other contemporary "Colored" films. Did they grind their teeth at the slipshod production and over-the-top acting, or did they appreciate works in which people who looked like themselves played the lead characters?

Mixture of both I'd guess? Certainly still see ppl joke about supporting stuff from their community even if they think it's pretty slipshod now.

_How are YOU celebrating National Silent Film Day (September 29)?

― Infanta Terrible (j.lu), Saturday, September 11, 2021 1:14 PM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink_


I am disappointed that I will be observing Silent Film Day 2022 at home for a condo association meeting, rather than the screening of _The Spanish Dancer_ at AFI Silver. Anyone here observing the day in a more agreeable fashion?

I don't know what people are talking about when they say Micheaux was bad

The performances in Micheaux' silent-era films aren't much worse than the run of silent film acting. But in his sound films that I've seen, the performances are disconcertingly stagey in ways that the major studios ironed out in a hurry after sound definitively came in.

The question of Black-made films for Black audiences reminded me to look at the films of James and Eloyce Gist (Hell-Bound Train, 1930; Verdict: Not Guilty, 1934; and Heaven-Bound Travelers, 1935), collected in the Pioneers of African-American Cinema compilation and currently available via the Criterion Channel. The Gists were missionaries and self-taught filmmakers who toured churches and community centers in African-American neighborhoods for years, screening their films. The films are about as amateur as it gets, shot on handheld 16mm cameras without synchronized sound, and costumes, sets, and performances out of a poorly rehearsed pageant. But as images of African-American communities, fragile and vulnerable right then and there to the vices condemned in these productions, these films are priceless social documents.

I do recommend viewing these films. But even more than the most polished and high-production-value titles from the silent era, they have to be approached as artifacts of a different place, time, and sensibility.

This reminded me of Babylon, which I just watched the other night, and how the central sadness of that film is that all those 1920s silent stars thought they would live forever in celluloid and their exploits would be legendary, and -- spoiler alert! -- nobody remembers them now.

― trishyb, Thursday, 27 July 2023 09:25 (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

and how the central sadness of that film is that all those 1920s silent stars thought they would live forever in celluloid and their exploits would be legendary, and -- spoiler alert! -- nobody remembers them now.

Interesting, this feels almost the opposite of what happened IRL - 1920's movie stars lived in a world without rep screenings, film preservation or home video, it was taken as granted that they'd be forgotten...and yet as recently as my childhood ppl like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton were still amongst the most recognizable figures worldwide (and I'm going to assume this is still the case as obv the passage of time stops at my birth and all my subsequent experiences representative of the Present).

― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 27 July 2023 10:38 (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

1920's movie stars lived in a world without rep screenings, film preservation or home video,

I think a lot of them thought the films were the preservation, for a while at least. Anyway, there is maybe a better thread for chat about cultural memory, I don't want to derail SNW chat.

― trishyb, Thursday, 27 July 2023 15:21 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

anyone have thoughts? my impression of the period is everyone involved in movies viewed them as super ephemeral, but this is perhaps overstating it

I will admit that my main reason for assuming that at least the "serious" stars thought they would live on is the films of the 50s where everyone realizes that no they won't, and people are sad about it. Singin' in the Rain, Sunset Boulevard, that kind of thing (I say "that kind of thing" because those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head).

When sound came in, certain high-profile silent films (Birth of a Nation, Ben Hur, the 1929 goat-glanding of The Phantom of the Opera) were rereleased with musical tracks.

Iris Barry created MoMA's film studies department in 1932; this included film archiving and preservation.

Beginning in the 1930s, there were film libraries that rented films for home viewing (plus there was some very limited sale of films for at-home viewing). Ben Model coined "Accidentally Preserved" for titles that survived this way.

The U.S. studios made some efforts to preserve their archives, but they seem to have been thinking more of preserving their rights in case someone wanted to make a talkie remake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwPZuyF2Th0

cool! just looked Theda up (only know her from Hollywood Babylon) and it's heartbreaking how many of her films are lost

In my house growing up we had a poster of Theda Bara as Cleopatra attached to the cabinet where we kept our TV. Kind of a striking, sexy image. It was heartbreaking to learn much later that the film is basically gone.

"found in a toy projector"
Does this mean it was an 8mm film? Especially impressive restoration if so.

Was really impressed by Pandora's Box (the new Eureka bluray) and all the backstory about Brooks in the bonus features. Silent films and this one in particular give me a feeling of "what could have been" like little else and I really want to see more because it's been a long time since I seen many. Was wondering if a Bluray of Diary Of A Lost Girl would follow but there already is one from 2014.

Haven't watched this yet but I'll just leave it here
https://archive.org/details/Wind1928

Silent Film Day 2024: https://silentmovieday.org/participate-1

Did anyone besides me observe Silent Film Day (rewatches of Coeur Fidele & The Dragon Painter)?

If you have access to TCM, tonight they're premiering the recent restoration of The Enchanted Cottage (1924) (haven't seen it yet but I know the guy who did the restoration).

For your consideration

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qApoxM41NGQ

Who's up for L'Inhumaine at the Film Forum later today?

Heh, sold out anyway.

When I saw it I was reminded of extremely lol 80s music videos. But then they were being made by film students that had been trained on whatever versions of Caligari and Metropolis were in circulation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpy8L8B_3WQ
Been meaning to watch this forever, soundtrack seems very interesting, surely not the original

talking pictures has been showing Message from Mars with a new soundtrack. makes them look like they are dancing to Aphex Twin in the one scene. it's on the bfi website for free, if you can get that to work.

The Wind is kind of a must-see. Have no idea about that soundtrack.

The highest of recommendations for the Gold Ninja Video release of Canadian silent The Devil Bear. The film itself is an ok melodrama enlivened by the presence of a man in a gorilla suit, but the extras and presentation are an amazing look into a fascinating story: basically the movie was a con, this American producer showing up in Canada and asking ppl to finance an adaptation of a story by a locally beloved author; it's kind of a miracle it got made at all. The larger context of this was also US producers trying to skirt the UK national cinema quotas by filming in Canada, which being commonwealth did not count against those.

Another wrinkle is that the copy they dug up was modified to prepare for a sound version that never materialised, so if you've ever wondered "did we really need all those dialogue intertitles?", now you can find out.

did Guy Maddin make this up?

From Morn to Midnight (1920) is utterly insane. Imagine The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari reworked as a comedic satire on capitalism but making less sense. You can watch it direct from Wikipedia, sans soundtrack unfortunately so you'll have to find your own music.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Morn_to_Midnight