the silent film thread

I think that version misses a few hours of footage. I'm really hoping we get the version Brownlow has been sourcing and putting together for years. Apparently there's some dispute over rights, soundtrack etc

The full premiere, assumed-lost version of METROPOLIS has been unearthed!

http://daily.greencine.com/archives/006330.html

woah. i am very interested in this (though have not quiiiite got round to cracking the spine on the current most-complete version). though talk of 'original versions' is questionable, to say the least, even on the film's release in london in 1927 real heads were saying it was missing loads of stuff that they'd seen in previews lang had given in germany.

I don't really know what to say except this is really exciting.

Yeah my impression of pre-war German movies was that wildly different versions would be in circulation in different countries.

That's fantastic news.

Wow, holy shit! It's always a blast when something like this shows up, isn't it. Gives you hope that some other lost classic movies will show up somewhere yet as well.

The Fox Christmas '08 Murnau/Borzage box set appears to be for real.

next, the lost reels of Greed! (jk)

anyone know a Lon Chaney vehicle, Mockery?

http://bam.org/view.aspx?pid=681

I mentioned on the NYC Snob thread that a friend is co-curating a silent-short series at MoMA, "Cruel and Unusual Comedy." Tonight's program at 7, "Gratuitous Violence," is the only evening show, and a likely sellout. Here is their blog of notes for the series:

http://www.cruelandunusualcomedy.info/2009/05/may-27-at-7pm-gratuitous-violence.html

RIP Bob Mitchell, last remaining organist who accompanied films in the silent era, aged 96. i saw him play a little over a month ago at the silent movie theater in LA; he (deservedly) got a standing ovation. (the article seems to indicate that that might have been his last public performance, actually...)

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-bob-mitchell9-2009jul09,0,1836294.story

got myself a wknd pass! missed opening night feature (lupe velez's screen debut!), but will probably go to nearly everything else:

http://www.silentfilm.org/

Pasadena's showing Daddy Long Legs for free Saturday night outdoors, with a live band doing the score.

http://www.oldpasadena.org/gc_calendar_detail.asp?cal_id=1135

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/movies/07silent.html?hp

A late silent feature directed by John Ford, a short comedy directed by Mabel Normand, a period drama starring Clara Bow and a group of early one-reel westerns are among a trove of long-lost American films recently found in the New Zealand Film Archive.

Some 75 of these movies, chosen for their historical and cultural importance, are in the process of being returned to the United States under the auspices of the National Film Preservation Foundation, the nonprofit, charitable affiliate of the Library of Congress’s National Film Preservation Board. (This writer is a member of the board, and has served on grant panels for the foundation, though none related to the current project.) Chris Finlayson, New Zealand’s minister for arts, culture and heritage, is expected to announce the discovery and the repatriation officially this week.

The films came to light early in 2009, when Brian Meacham, a preservationist for the Los Angeles archive of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, dropped in on colleagues at the New Zealand Film Archive in Wellington during a vacation....

Because of the importance of the John Ford film, “Upstream” — a backstage drama from 1927, a year that was a turning point in the development of one of America’s greatest filmmakers — it is being copied to modern safety film stock in a New Zealand laboratory, rather than risk loss or further damage in transit.

The whole aesthetic of melodrama in early silent movies was a straight holdover from the theater of the previous half-century, and it was enormously popular at the time, but I can't say it has any hold over my imagination.

The best silent comedies, notably Keaton, Chaplin and Lloyd, are still pretty entertaining stuff imo, although the earliest ones still suffered from the technique of undercranking the camera to speed up the action and make it "funnier".

What has been wholly lost is the experience of live musical accompaniment, which I'm sure had a lot more emotional impact and appeal than the soundtrack music that's put with silents on DVD. Too bad, so sad. Nothing to be done.

I wonder if there's a list of the 75 titles somewhere. One of them seems to be a Clara Bow film, which seems like it shd be a big deal I guess.

Someone on another board linked to this little clip from 1922. It's a test strip of a Kodachrome 2-strip process w/beautiful phantasmagoric colour. Mae Murray, pouting away at the end has some kind of amazing prescence about her, eh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_RTnd3Smy8

Terrific Criterion package of 3 von Sterberg silents out tom'w.

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1556-mit-out-sound-mit-out-solution

Ten best of 1920:

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=11070

I love his (and Kristin Thompson's) best ofs! Such a fantastic blog!

"Way Down East" is so good, one of my favourites.

I have the Kino Norma & Constance Talmadge double bills on the way over from the States. I'm pretty hyped to see them.

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"