the silent film thread

Steven Spielberg came into my curator/librarian friend's workplace the other day to watch something, and they had a chat about silent comedy. :o

Only got to catch one session of that festival mentioned above. As a silent cinema neophyte I was particularly impressed by the previously unknown to me Lupino Lane!

The Holy Mountain (Arnold Fanck) - I loved this. The Skiing, dancing, views of the moutains, the dream images and even Leni Riefenstahl. She's an unusual leading actress, her posture is often bent over and I've never seen anyone quite like her.
Eureka disc came with documentary The Wonderful Horrible life Of Leni Riefenstahl (3 hours long) which is great too. Kind of incredible to see her filming underwater at 90 and stroking the backs of stingrays. Really want to see Blue Light, Tiefland and maybe Olympia. What could have been if she hadn't got involved with Nazis.

anyone been to the SF Silent Fest?

https://prod3.agileticketing.net/websales/pages/list.aspx?epguid=7ecd8d33-d7d0-46b0-a62a-af16bcbe6fc6&

Going to see Pandora's Box tomorrow, which I've never seen. Any good?

amazing acting by louise brooks, imo the best screen performance of the era

yes

btw:

https://www.kinolorber.com/film/pioneers-first-women-filmmakers

Morbs is my favourite critic tbh

Brooks looks all kinds of chic in the pics I've seen.

thank you Ross, but i really am not one

That was really good! And surprisingly busy. The ‘dad’ villain was really good, though the heavy villain reminded me of bill ponderosa from always sunny...

The whole film relies on Louise Brooks though - if she wasn't as charismtic/photogenic etc. I'm not sure it would have worked. A lot of gay women at the showing too - I guess the countess is a notable gay figure?

The interview with Brooks in The Parades Gobe By is very good.

The movie that made Mary Pickford a star, The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917) is one of the more visually inventive silents I've seen. The character design in the fantasy sequences is quite remarkable, and the entire film (despite some expected sap) is very playful and fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd6yRluZW7I

my friend wrote Slapstick Divas

https://silentlondon.co.uk/2018/10/15/sisters-in-slapstick-two-books-on-silent-comediennes/

Your friend will be presenting an Alice Howell program as part of AFI's 2018 Silent Cinema Showcase. I ordered my series pass last night; is anyone else going?

Right after Thanksgiving, NY MoMA will be doing ten days of Silent Comedy International:

https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/5021

Yay Max Linder!

Outstanding article on a director I've never heard of until now:

The Lost Apocalypse of Romaine Fielding - https://www.acidwest.com/lostapocalypse

Big international comedy retro at NYC MoMA beginning Friday

https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/5021?locale=en

http://www.silentfilmmusic.com/category/silent-comedy-international/

Looking forward to my first Charles Puffy film.

Will you be seeing Le petit café? I was urging the AFI Silver programmer to keep these films in mind when planning the 2019 Silent Cinema Showcase, but he sidetracked into that recently rediscovered Oswald the Rabbit cartoon.

I haven't had time to look up individual titles... I'd likely be seeing the whole series if it wasn't for, y'know, effing Thanksgiving.

Me, watching: oh hell fuckin yea here we go. pic.twitter.com/XoM1cwH1dk

— 𝕿𝖗𝖔𝖚𝖇𝖑𝖊 𝕰𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖞 𝕯𝖆𝖞 (@NickPinkerton) November 29, 2018

Finally got the Griffith Biograph shorts disc (Kino) out of the library... may not have seen any of em before. Musketeers of Pig Alley still works as a crime film, and Those Awful Hats still delivers as a fantasy about bad filmgoers.

seeing tomorrow

On Benjamin Chapin/ John M. Stahl's The Lincoln Cycle (1918), playing @FilmLinc as part of @FilmComment Selects, for @reverse_shot: https://t.co/I1M3wVJX50

— 𝕿𝖗𝖔𝖚𝖇𝖑𝖊 𝕰𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖞 𝕯𝖆𝖞 (@NickPinkerton) February 8, 2019

Enoch Arden (1911) is one of the more formally intriguing Griffith shorts... first two-reeler? (It was shown in two parts due to exhibitors refusal to run it all for one admission.)

More closeups, particularly when the departing seafarer's lips can be read telling his wife "I'll come back."

https://backtothepastweb.wordpress.com/2017/03/05/enoch-arden-1911/

Coeur fidèle (Epstein, 1923) is playing this weekend at the National Gallery of Art, with accompaniment by Alloy Orchestra. Is anyone else going?

no, but same show tnite at Lincoln Center

good performance -- not sure it's a *great* film but an absorbing and stylish one

A standard melodrama, told through breakneck cutting and editing. And I still haven't heard an Alloy Orchestra accompaniment I didn't like.

You know you're watching Laurel & Hardy's Bacon Grabbers with a specialized audience when Edgar Kennedy gets a hand on his entrance. (In other shorts, so did James Finlayson and Jean Harlow.)

nerds

watched Griffith's True Heart Susie yesterday -- only Lillian Gish can convincingly pour her secrets out to her cow.

I'm midway through watching Intolerance right now and wow is it confusing, even more than was expected, was DW Griffith on a coke bender or something?

This is wonderful news for the silent film community. @tcm affirms its commitment to our arcane art form by appointing a leading scholar in the field, Jacqueline Stewart (@ProfJStewart), as the host of its weekly Silent Sunday Night program.https://t.co/h5lcSYgAJX

— Dave Kehr (@dave_kehr) September 10, 2019

Cool

Very pleased by this development. Let's hope it's matched by programming of films outside of the rather short list of silent titles TCM keeps rotating.

Motion Picture Classic September 1928 recently came
across this article entitled, "Is Time Rotting Our Film Records?"
by LynnFairfield, which was basically a true prophecy of the future loss of the films being made at that time. Fascinating read pic.twitter.com/QtEUwXuW0j

— cyprian du faur (@Cyprian_DF) September 10, 2019

there is a Harry Langdon fest this weekend in Fremont CA

http://nilesfilmmuseum.org/?tv=4997833899900928

https://silver.afi.com/Browsing/EventsAndExperiences/EventDetails/0000000011

The 2019 AFI Silver Silent Cinema Showcase. (I've a bone to pick with the programmer over certain reruns, but I am going to order a series pass as soon as I can log in to their web page.)

New podcast episode!

What did film SOUND like in the "silent era"? Film scholars Rick Altman and @SignalsToNoises take us on a sonic journey back in time.https://t.co/H9F67NNc6q

— Phantom Power (@PhantomPod) November 1, 2019

https://silver.afi.com/Browsing/Movies/Details/f-0100002740

AFI Silver has just announced that Friday's screening of The Oyster Princess is going to be free. Anyone else interested in going?

my friend has written an Arbuckle book

https://travsd.wordpress.com/2019/12/16/rediscovering-roscoe-a-terrific-new-book-on-the-films-of-fatty-arbuckle/

Thompson checks in with '29

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2019/12/26/the-ten-best-films-of-1929/

Ben Model streaming a silent-comedy watch party Sunday at 3pm Eastern time

https://www.silentfilmmusic.com/streaming-a-silent-film-show/

great idea, definitely watching. ta for the tip.

bump

in 5 mins

enjoyed that, the lofi-ness of the presentation fit with the films somehow. could do without the mouse pointer on screen though lol.

Aaaaand Maryland theaters (and restaurants) have been ordered completely closed as of 5pm today. Just as AFI was about to open its Fox Film Corporation 1915-1935 series.

also sunk: the MoMA Edison/Biograph series