the silent film thread

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Where did you see L'Inhumaine? I had an opportunity to see this in Madison last year, as part of a conference on modernism and urbanity, but didn't make it. I know Noël Burch (American expat film theorist) is very fond of L'Herbier. There's a DVD of Eldorado which I've been tempted to try out--although I've heard it isn't his best work.

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

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 16 April 2003 03:23 (twenty-three years ago)

I saw it in the library at my school. They have a pretty good collection of videos that I can watch there. If you get the chance again, you should see it. I'm going to try and see Eldorado, or L'argent next. Jaque Catelain is pretty much in all his movies, and he's a good actor. His facial expressions are very vivid. He can go from excited to confused in an instance.

― A Nairn (moretap), Wednesday, 16 April 2003 03:54 (twenty-three years ago)

I'd like to see this Evgenii Bauer business--it's region 2 you say? Do you have a multi-region player? I'd sure like one but so far I can't afford (ech I'm tired my sentence structure is shit).

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

This is all I will say for now.

― slutsky (slutsky), Wednesday, 16 April 2003 04:18 (twenty-three years ago)

I do have a multi-region player. It only cost me $70 though.

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

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 16 April 2003 15:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Multi-region = source of life and light. Thanks for the tip, Amateurist!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 16 April 2003 15:48 (twenty-three years ago)

I'd reccomend checking out Bed & Sofa if you can.

― von slutsky, Wednesday, 16 April 2003 16:05 (twenty-three years ago)

Whoah. I just saw Sjostrom's HE WHO GETS SLAPPED with Lon Chaney. Incredible, incredible, incredible. It exceeded all of my expectations. It was the most macabre movie I've seen I think, but all the over the top visuals were grounded in wrenching emotions. Haunting, perverse imagery of 100s of clowns perched around a globe, tossing one of their own off the edge of the world. You need to see this. Holy God.

― amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 27 April 2003 00:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Also John Gilbert (pre-alcholism-induced decline) and Norma Shearer are lovely, lovely, lovely. One scene--of their forest idyll and a spoilt picnic--is just magnificent. It's like Sjostrom takes the familiar silent-film syntax and wrenches every bit of subtlety and emotion from it, more than you would've thought possible.

― amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 27 April 2003 01:01 (twenty-three years ago)

This sounds like something I want to see--is it available on DVD or video or other home format? Of Sjostrom's I've only seen The Wind.

― slutsky (slutsky), Sunday, 27 April 2003 16:50 (twenty-three years ago)

I think Sunrise has the raw power of, oh, plays by Sophocles, that sort of thing.

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.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 27 April 2003 19:17 (twenty-three years ago)

And is nobody gonna give it up for the Lumière Brothers?

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 27 April 2003 19:22 (twenty-three years ago)

I like Sunrise an awful lot--my DVD should arrive any day now--but its misogyny has always kept me from holding it close to my heart. I prefer the other Janet Gaynor film of 1927, Seventh Heaven.

― amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 27 April 2003 20:58 (twenty-three years ago)

The misogyny is what it makes it so wrenching, though to say why would wreck the ending.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 27 April 2003 21:34 (twenty-three years ago)

six months pass...

we can talk about with spoiler warnings!

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!

― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 1 November 2003 18:10 (twenty-two years ago)

also s1utsky i think he who gets slapped is on video somewhere. of sjostrom's other stuff it's hard to find...the outlaw and his wife is on video and laserdisc but i don't know what else is available (aside from the wind).

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

― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 1 November 2003 18:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Criterion is releasing two Tati films in January.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Saturday, 1 November 2003 18:49 (twenty-two years ago)

it's the same two tati films they had released before, only they got permission to reprint them from the tati estate. "playtime" is still out of print, pending (presumably) a dvd release of the "restored" version with english subtitles.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 1 November 2003 21:14 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, so anyway, sunrise, whoa.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 1 November 2003 21:15 (twenty-two years ago)

also michael i saw grass the other week...was a bit underwhelmed. well, not by the images themselves surely, but overall effect of the film.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 1 November 2003 21:21 (twenty-two years ago)

so anyway

http://cinetecadelfriuli.org/gcm/comunicati_stampa/COMUNICATI_LIVE_03/COMUNICATI_STAMPA_imgs/Mosjoukine.jpg

rowr

― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 1 November 2003 21:32 (twenty-two years ago)

who is that?

― eriik, Saturday, 1 November 2003 22:07 (twenty-two years ago)

ivan mosjoukine

― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 1 November 2003 22:11 (twenty-two years ago)

The other week , I saw Guy Madden's 2002 silent film "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary". I highly recommend this. A lot of it is ballet by Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet with Mahler as a soundtrack. And it is filmed in a impressionist style.

― A Nairn (moretap), Saturday, 1 November 2003 22:15 (twenty-two years ago)

i wish it liked it more, but i liked it.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 1 November 2003 22:18 (twenty-two years ago)

i wish i could find a better picture of mosjoukine.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 1 November 2003 22:24 (twenty-two years ago)

online, i mean.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 1 November 2003 22:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Playtime is set to be reissued by Criterion - pending a 65mm telecine (which wasn't originally done for the first edition, as they are very rarely done). That delay is probably why it hasn't been announced yet, but they did say it's en route. Oh, and they're getting Jour de fete, too.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 2 November 2003 04:57 (twenty-two years ago)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/6305470286.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Sunday, 2 November 2003 05:01 (twenty-two years ago)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000056N7T.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Sunday, 2 November 2003 05:03 (twenty-two years ago)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/6305131104.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

― nickn (nickn), Sunday, 2 November 2003 06:03 (twenty-two years ago)

shhhhhhhh

― Lara (Lara), Sunday, 2 November 2003 20:16 (twenty-two years ago)

??? what do you mean lara ???

― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 2 November 2003 20:56 (twenty-two years ago)

i finally saw Sunrise last summer, and it was literally breathtaking. very few silent films really surprise me like that

― ryan (ryan), Sunday, 2 November 2003 21:00 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah of many splendid moments my favorite is when the husband and the wife are sitting at the table in the restaurant after scrambling through the traffic and sit staring at a plate of bread. he pushes the bread in the direction and gestures symapthetically for her to eat. after exchanging several discrete glances worth 10,000 words she takes a piece but before she can take a bite she collapses in tears. in one shot.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 2 November 2003 21:02 (twenty-two years ago)

tag gallagher calls "sunrise" "*the* aesthetic event of its time" and indeed john ford in particular was astonished by it and completely rethought his approach to filmmaking afterward.

sad about the remainder of murnau's career: one film now lost, another cut to ribbons by the producers, the final film a flawed bit of brilliance which only premiered after his death in a car accident.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 2 November 2003 21:03 (twenty-two years ago)

last time I watched I was almost in tears

(admittedly I had just smoked a joint but STILL)

― s1utsky (slutsky), Sunday, 2 November 2003 21:06 (twenty-two years ago)

i was in tears but i cry at every movie, well, a good percentage of them."

― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 2 November 2003 21:12 (twenty-two years ago)

whoa where did that quote mark come from?

― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 2 November 2003 21:13 (twenty-two years ago)

the couple next to me were crying too. but they started talking over the ending, that was uncool.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 2 November 2003 21:13 (twenty-two years ago)

I never cry at movies for some reason!

(they were crying and talking? what were they saying?!)

― s1utsky (slutsky), Sunday, 2 November 2003 21:38 (twenty-two years ago)

i think they had stopped crying. they were just saying how touching it was.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 2 November 2003 21:40 (twenty-two years ago)

that makes me laugh, the image of people shouting "how touching!" at the screen, and sniffling

― s1utsky (slutsky), Sunday, 2 November 2003 21:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, the shouting especially.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 2 November 2003 22:30 (twenty-two years ago)

OK, it's been a long time since I saw Sunrise, but I remember being bored by it. I dunno, maybe I should watch it again.

On the one hand, I hate the tinny ragtime music they have on a lot of silent movie videos; on the other hand, I feel very uncomfortable in the silence of a silent movie. Seeing Keaton film at Film Forum many years ago with a live (and very talented) pianist was king-kameha-meha classique.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 3 November 2003 10:02 (twenty-two years ago)

but sunrise has a soundtrack and it's lovely! you probably saw a bum version.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 3 November 2003 10:19 (twenty-two years ago)

my friend says he has this (sunrise) on video and will let me watch it after I watch yi yi.

amateurist keep posting! yours' are the only posts i check in fr nowadays!

― David. (Cozen), Monday, 3 November 2003 11:50 (twenty-two years ago)

david, artificial eye is putting out sunrise on dvd soon in the uk

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:02 (twenty-two years ago)

oh i don't mind. (i'm not going to pay the £20 artificial eye are going to ask of me for it on dvd.)

i ws quite surprised that he had this though; doesn't normally go in for silent films. me either.

they once showed nosferatu (murnau, right?) at the GFT with live piano accompinament. pretty cool.

― David. (Cozen), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:04 (twenty-two years ago)

so the sjostrom retro (or part of it) is coming to moma in december. everyone in new york should see "ingeborg holm" and "the sons of ingmar" and "the phantom chariot" (which apparently has been picked up for distribution by cowboy, or maybe it was inherited with other parts of the janus collection) without question. they are among the greatest silent films, not to mention the greatest films period.

http://www.moma.org/visit_moma/momafilm/sjostrom_2003.html

oh and s1utsky i think it's coming to montreal too in 2004.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 8 November 2003 18:19 (twenty-two years ago)

are you serious!? that's great! thanks am!

― s1utsky (slutsky), Saturday, 8 November 2003 20:53 (twenty-two years ago)

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