the silent film thread

Got them!
"Within the Law" w/Norma a little bit draggy to be honest, the piano accompaniment I don't think suits it, probably could have doen w some mopey-sounding blues music or suchlike. Interesting class-war-ish theme running through parts of it, with Norma's character falsely accused of thieving from the shop she works at and sent down for 3yrs, the shop owner knowing she is innocent, but sending her down as an example to the other shop workers. This film was remade pre-code, with Joan Crawford in the lead, I suspect probably a bit better than this, I did enjoy it though.

"Her Sister from Paris", w/Constance is an absolute treat, a frothy, sub-Lubitsch romantic comedy w/Ronald Colman, v funny & fast-paced with a great ending.

I haven't watched "Kiki" or "Her Night of Romance" yet, I'll stick them on over the weekend.

long-absent Arbuckle comedy screens:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/archives/After_90_years_Fatty_Arbuckles_rarely-screened_LEAP_YEAR_returns_to_pub/

Lonesome, starring Barbara Kent, who died this week at 103:

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

if ya'll haven't watched your blu-rays of phantom carriage yet, DO SO NOW. and if you ever have any friends skeptical about watching silent films, show that one to them.

I have to admit that I rarely find silent movie streams on youtube.com or downloads from archive.org very unsatisfying from a variety of perspectives: dubious sources, compressed files, teeny-weeny images.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Monday, 13 March 2006 Bookmark

Wonder if that has changed in four years -- anyway I've started to sceen a few silents off youtube and so far I'm surprised/pleased by the quality of the little I've seen so far. There are a few silent film screenings coming up in London I'm interested in, but they are also on youtube and I probably won't be able to wait. The hunger is great..

Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc is so tender, brutal and intimate. Takes your breath off when they go outside of the room for the near torture and then the execution. Not sure that Bresson's version (which I saw years ago now) adds (or subtracts) anything from this.

I guess it needs to be said but its apparent where Sinead O'Connor got her look from -- I mean, tried to fish a quote earlier but couldn't find it.

One thing w/the whole silent film bag is the soundtrack. Just a quick look and I see a lot of ppl adding a soundtrack: like Nick cave or what have you. Its a minefield. For Joan of Arc its an ochestral score by Richard Einhorn. Didn't work - the images told me: a lot less music, less intrusion. Maybe one of the few silent films that could actually be left silent and alone. Maybe a hangover from seeing this on Vivre sa Vie

A Page Of Madness is the only Japanese silent I've seen. I'm guessing it's pretty atypical though, being some kind of surrealist fever dream set in a madhouse.

― Matt #2, Saturday, 22 December 2007 Bookmark

Cracking interview with the academic who wrote a book on the film. Led me to watch Kirsanoff's Ménilmontan. Can see Rivette and Marker going all over the clocks-and-cats imagery. Really tight.

Watched it w/some iffy 'modern' orchestral score -- again didn't work, and if you read how A Page of Madness has been improvised with in that interview, etc. its a perhaps sad confirmation of my worst fears, esp unsuitable when you have images of the girl utterly desolate in the streets of Paris. Apparently this ws Pauline Kael's favourite film if you believe the comment on the thread of this excellent piece on Sunrise.

David Denby on acting in the silents:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/02/27/120227crat_atlarge_denby?currentPage=all

i like that article

Dreyer season on at the NFT in March..

so there's a new 330-minute restoration of Gance's Napoleon that will be shown 4x in OAKLAND... and that's it! Oakland!

http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/762802/abel-gances-legendary-napoleon-restored-again-by-kevin-brownlow-heads-to-oakland-for-unique-screenings

even nosebleed seats are like $50

they can't show it once at Radio City Music Hall on a Monday in August?

(where I saw the '81 version)

Film Forum showed the trailer for this event. It's so frustrating.

Aargh

Now you New Yorkers know what it's LIKE

srsly though napoleon isn't really all it's chalked (sp?) up to be. i mean if you can see it in a huge auditorium and they're doing the widescreen stuff it's grand spectacle, but about 75% of the movie is really dull. worth waiting for the good parts i suppose.

i mean of all movies to have this weird "best silent film ever" reputation.

Now you New Yorkers know what it's LIKE

― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Thursday, March 15, 2012 11:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

haha was thinking the same thing

would pay to see "highlights from abel gance's napoleon" more than i would to see "abel gance's napoleon"

if you need to watch a really long late french silent movie, there's an american DVD of a film called "the chess player" (dir. raymond bernard) which is seriously entertaining.

damn it's out of print: http://www.amazon.com/Chess-Player-Pierre-Blanchar/dp/B00009Q4W8

find a copy in a library or something. it's good. just a good epic movie. also:

This French silent movie was apparently discovered and refurbished by a group of British computer scientists fascinated by the automaton chess player from which the film gets its title.

so there's a new 330-minute restoration of Gance's Napoleon

Saw a DVD of this and, well, it is 'final frontier' type stuff.

i mean of all movies to have this weird "best silent film ever" reputation.

who, exactly, has said this? (btw I reviewed it in a 1981 college weekly and partic remember panning Artaud's performance as Marat)

Well these were a treat today, esp Singe de Pétronille. I've never seen an actress throw a monkey in someone's face:

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1253

who, exactly, has said this?

it definitely has a cult -- coppola, kevin brownlow, david robinson, some other folks. the hyperbole really became feverish in the late 70s.

makes a lot of sense that coppola would take a shine to abel gance -- they are similar dudes, interested in impossibly grand spectacle, technologies, and making movies whose lead characters reflect their directors' megalomania. basically every film gance made after la roue was "abel gance's..." or "...as seen by abel gance," etc.

so waits dr. morbius is like 50-55 y.o.? hmm.

no

Coppola partly funded the restoration of the damn thing 30 years ago, didn't he? (I saw it with his father conducting his score for it.) Does he have to consider it "the greatest silent film" to have done that? Not necessarily.

I mean the film was essentially considered lost til the restoration, hence the "hyperbole."

Last great silent film list I've seen -- there have been a few since The Artist -- doesn't mention Gance.

More of a Dreyer/Murnau/Eisenstein mixed list (the latter w/'please ignore the propaganda caveat its really great cuz it invented action films' - type bollocks)

more info + torture

http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2012/02/napoleon-faq.html

they're straight-up billing this as "the cinema event of a lifetime"

yeah well, ya gotta have a slogan.

*sigh*

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-gladysz/abel-gance-napoleon_b_1273020.html

4) GREATEST FILM EVER MADE: Over the years, many films have been said to be the greatest film ever made. For reasons of film history, for reasons having to do with its own history, and for reasons of artistic achievement, this may be the one film most deserving of the claim. Here is what Vincent Canby had to say in 1981 in the pages of the New York Times. "As one watches Napoleon, one suddenly realizes that there once was a film that justified all of the adjectives that have subsequently been debased by critics as well as advertising copywriters. Napoleon sweeps; it takes the breath away; it moves (itself as well as the spectator); it dazzles."

whatevs.

this event is pretty fucking cool, i have no doubt. just wish it were a worthier film.

Man was Napoleon good! I'm still a bit confused why Gance, after J'accuse, as worthy an anti-war film as any, would make such a paean to such a proto-fascist warmongerer but the cinematography was amazing and Gance's little acting turn as Saint-Just is excellent.

remember panning Artaud's performance as Marat

It's awfully broad but then he was playing Marat...

was Marat a whoopee-cushion kinda guy?

we all hate u for seeing this btw

He was a fire-breathing, some would have said slightly unhinged radical which is what Artaud was trying to protray though I think his acting might have been better suited to the stage than to film.

we all hate u for seeing this btw

But the gf made me go! I was kind of dreading it tbh but even that long a movie was more compelling than I anticipated.

V.jealous, Michael!

Been working my way through Asta Nielsen's early (~1910 onwards) films via my partner - gorgeous and way ahead of comparable US/UK stuff. Her director/husband was named URBAN GAD!

Carl Davis' score was very good and I was once again very impressed with any orchestra that can play along with a motion picture, esp for 5 and a half hours. My gf is a member of the SF Silent Film Festival so I knew I was going to this back in September or October last.

Some Napoleon-fanatic lady who'd flown out from Pittsburg to see it told me that Dieudonné (Napoleon in the film) hated horses and water which made me laugh.

My friend went to see the Napoleon restoration and all I got was this lousy message board

urban gad is a really good director, he actually wrote one of the first "here's to make films, folks" books.

if you're in NYC they have a bunch of rare asta nielsen films you can view if you have research cred.

by "they" i mean MoMA's research center

oops

arrrgh "here's HOW to make films, folks"

i can't type anymore

Are you typing from Zing on your iPhone?

no, i'm typing from a keyboard on my macbook. embarrassing.

ok, who knows non-canonical Soviet silents?

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/14868

Saw Victor Fleming's 'Mantrap' w/the alluring Clara Bow, 'The Mark of Zorro' and von Sternberg's 'The Docks of New York' at the SF Silent Films festival this weekend. I was quite surprised by 'The Docks of New York' - it's gritty but quite poetic.

TDoNY is part of a triple von Sternberg package Criterion put out 2 years ago:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/review/3-silent-classics-by-josef-von-sternberg/1797

Had no idea there were any Soviet slapsticks as funny/manic as Pudovkin's Chess Fever; up there w/prime Chase/Keaton, and w/fantastic cameos/cinematography to boot.

My partner has just spent the past week at Pordenone; k-jealous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN6m711ddZk

didn't know John Ford's bro Francis was such a Lincoln student/portrayer:

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/16479