the silent film thread

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