ILX Film Club, The (1924-2019)

It's quite a bit to expect from a film made when the revolution hadn't yet reached its tenth anniversary.

Art of that sort is made often enough even as events are unfolding, let alone ten years later. But let's be real, if it was any of that it wouldn't have gotten made.

Plus it's a historical film.

I don't know what this means.

All the President's Men is, I think, a truly great film made two or three years after the events it depicts.

Battleship Potemkin was made 20 years after the events it portrays, think how many WWII films were made between 1940 and 1965.

I mean a lot of historical films just take a look back at a version of events, but ofc there is a reading to them so nevermind that.

"But let's be real, if it was any of that it wouldn't have gotten made."

It depends what you wanted to say that it didn't. Stuff can get through the censor, depending on how it's told, or it can be told in an underhand way.

xxp

Stuff can get through the censor, depending on how it's told, or it can be told in an underhand way.

Agreed, but I think that a) most regimes go through phases where such subterfuge is more viable or less viable and b) it is as a rule much easier to do if there aren't too many eyes around you, so easier in literature than film for example. A big budget spectacle made under Stalin I think would have odds set against itself in that department, though you never know - are there examples of this in 20's Soviet cinema?

At any rate, I don't think propaganda is necc a bad thing, as I said it can be cathartic. Just think it's apples and oranges when compared to a Godard film.

When I was comparing the two of them, I wasn't actually thinking of the political message, more the way that everything onscreen is "presented" through an explicit explanatory frame, where the audience is supposed to notice the way events are being portrayed, and the formal means, along with the events depicted.

more the way that everything onscreen is "presented" through an explicit explanatory frame, where the audience is supposed to notice the way events are being portrayed, and the formal means, along with the events depicted.

Interesting, do you take this from Eisenstein's writings? I haven't read him.

I can't say I noticed this in the film itself, which I felt to be reasonably immersive - I do think I noticed the formal aspects more than with yer average movie, but I think that always happens to me with silent cinema. In fact I've heard an argument be made that they should show more of it in film school because it forces students to focus on form.

It is one of Eisenstein's theories that cinema must be as didactic as possible.

Dialectical too.

The Watermelon Woman is on MUBI UK ATM. Watched it a couple of days ago.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Watermelon_Woman

And it's on the S&S list (100-250). What's remarkable is the person's background: woman, black, Lesbian. Making a film about those very things but the film isn't worn down by them, as the script is often funny and charming.

I wouldn't say it's top 250 but who cares it absolutely should be there. It's an excellent example of the gaming of the poll. Many voters used their votes smartly.

I love a ranking where The Watermelon Woman outranks, say, The Deer Hunter.

I watched it at the height of the pandemic when Criterion made it available.

Always wonder if Cimino's work is going to get revisited in view of the revelation that they were maybe trans? I can't get much clarity on that, but there's enough evidence for the New Yorker to mention it - https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/a-new-biography-of-michael-cimino-is-as-fascinating-and-melancholy-as-the-filmmaker-himself - it's not like a fan fiction thing.

Anyway yeah Watermelon Woman rules. The film it reminds me most of, though obviously it's miles ahead of it in quality and intelligence, is Clerks.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/The_general_movie_poster.jpg

The General, Buster Keaton, 1926
Morbsies #733, Sight & Sound Critics #95

Spirited Away (Miyazaki, 2001). A lot more action than Totoro. Lots of adventures were had.

Really love the drawings, like just the quality of them, the colour schemes...very beautiful to look at.

Saw The General semi-recently, so won't rewatch. It's good ofc, less blown away by it than Sherlock tho.

I really enjoyed The General, it feels much more advanced than Sherlock Jr, almost like a modern action film in many ways. There wasn't a single moment where I felt it dragging, those train sequences were flawless. Still I feel it is a bit tainted by its taking the side of The South, in particular the battle scenes at the end are very reminiscent of Birth of a Nation. The Civil War and in particular the "Lost Cause" narrative are such fixtures of pre-WWII Hollywood.

Yeah, it's so needless as well, not like the film is about the Lost Cause or a Rebel Stand or anything ideological like that, switch the sides and nothing would change. It's depressing how much this was just something in the air, that ppl would employ without even thinking about it.

it was a solid hour of train japes, was good.

the leading ladies on both this and the previous one, was that a fashionable look at the time, because they both looked like such frumps.

(xpost, yes, the south thing was a bit o_O)

real jeopardy in what he was doing as well, i mean a real train, moving along, him dancing along the top of it or sat on the cow catcher in a bid to stop it derailing.

were a couple of time when i wondered if it was a real locomotive actually. do they move off that fast? istr there being a lot of build up before they actually move. but maybe i'm thinking of trains with lots of carriages, which this wasn't

afaik it's all real trains, yes. including the one going over the bridge, allegedly the most expensive shot in history.

This was also the movie wherein he broke his neck, no?

again? he's already broken his neck once in this thread! (sherlock jr, the water tower fall)

actually, i didn't know until someone mentioned it. and sherlock jr fall does look more jarring than anything in the general. but yeah, similar train setting

it was the water tower in Sherlock Jr, yes. though I did wonder why he felt like doing such similar scenes so soon after such a traumatic experience.

Ah I was wrong ... I remembered it being the water tower gag, but for some reason misremembered it as being in The General.

There was "movie poster on walls" talk which reminded me that on watching The General I realised that my parents had a framed print from it on the wall all through my childhood. Asked my mum about it and it turns out they only watched it for the first time a couple of years ago.

I remember a lot of Chaplin posters in relative's houses growing up.

i do remember being home for christmas and turning The General on as a random alternative to the endless sport and we all sat there quite happily as a family and watched it. (similar thing happened with Hulot's Vacance iirc a decade earlier)

Just finished Sherlock Jr. and moving onto Battleship.

I am the young one that never touched silent cinema. I offer myself as the dunce for you all to play off in this thread. I realise now I had a quiet and small fear I wouldn’t enjoy silent cinema due to only ever gouging on high definition colour and sound. Glad to have all fears and inhibitions ridiculed with how amazing Sherlock Jr. is! That motorcycle scene was just hit after hit. Then to be reminded it is all Cinema with the fade back to reality (with another hit!) was the perfect affirmation of the art form. Such a celebration of life and goodness. None of this 21st century cynicism, no irony, no meanness. It was so refreshing.

How many of these one-vote wonders from the #SightAndSoundPoll have you seen? https://t.co/wM9jWDP2ZD@letterboxd pic.twitter.com/oExu2YmQWu

— BFI (@BFI) March 6, 2023

4

Fear
Macario
Casting Blossoms to the Sky
The Organizer

Sadly zero.

And speaking of things I shamefully had not seen before...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/97/Metropolis_%28German_three-sheet_poster%29.jpg

Metropolis, Fritz Lang, 1927
Morbsies #597, Sight & Sound Critics #67

Still have to watch last 40 minutes, here's the version I'm watching- youtube link

Possibly my most famous haven't-seen film.

Undoubtedly the greatest film featuring Loverboy and Bonnie Tyler songs.

Thanks for doing this
Had a blast watching the two Keaton films - that suitcase stunt in insane

Finished Metropolis (finally) - some thoughts

I said that Battleship Potemkin was a few brilliant shots & scenes surrounded by a lot of other stuff that didn't grab me. Well Metropolis includes an absolute load of simply astonishing scenes and shots, ones I was familiar with, ones I was not, just so many superb ideas in design, direction, editing, the dancing scene with all the eyes watching has to be my favourite. However, as a whole film I was often left either confused or bored. The plot is nonsensical, the villain of the film is a grotesque personification of communist revolution, and the ending where the heroic son-of-the-billionaire makes his dad shake hands with the union leader is straight-up terrible. I'd love to put together a solid 60-minute edit, no intertitles, no explanations. So I'm basically looking forward to Man With A Movie Camera.

Oh and Brigitte Helm is an absolute genius.

Does the version you linked have an intermission, Camaraderie? Would like to tick this one off but I don't think I can do a single setting.

there's a note at the start of this that it includes a lot of once-lost material which has been recovered, tbh I would have preferred to see the cut-down version, but some of the deleted parts are worth including. I'll have a look for a shorter cut.

Just checked and no intermission, not even chapter breaks! Damn Fritz.

I did find a shorter cut, but the quality is terrible.

there's no intermission, but the version of the film Camaraderie linked to is divided into three parts - 'prelude', 'intermezzo' (beginning at 1:06:25) and 'furioso' (beginning at 1:34:49).

I think the full length version is by far the best, but maybe you need to see it on a big screen with the soundtrack blaring to really appreciate it? It's not a film that really suits being watched on youtube, with all the extravagant gestures and balletic elements.

the villain of the film is a grotesque personification of communist revolution, and the ending where the heroic son-of-the-billionaire makes his dad shake hands with the union leader is straight-up terrible.

The politics of the film are definitely crypto-fascist (society is on the verge of being torn apart by the division between workers and bosses, what is needed is a charismatic populist figure who can unite the whole city/nation in common purpose) and the screenwriter (and Lang's wife at the time) apparently became a supporter of the Nazi party. Goebbels apparently admired Metropolis enough he asked Lang to become head of UFA.

The plot is nonsensical

this is true, but I don't think it matters because it's not a realist film, it's more like a ballet or opera.

I love Metropolis and I love Moroder, but the 1984 Moroder soundtracked version is just dire. The soundtrack is ok to listen to as an album in itself, but as a soundtrack to the film it's dreadful. One thing that makes more a difference than I'd have expected (for the worse) is the replacement of intertitles with subtitles.

Intertitles are a silent film tradition that I've never liked, despite being a Godard fan. The only film I can think of where they really work to punctuate the images is Dreyer's Joan of Arc. Surely the technology existed to superimpose titles on images before 1930?

If you think Metropolis is nonsensical, try Sunrise.