ILX Film Club, The (1924-2019)

No soundtrack, no. Nice looking copy tho.

Some good tunes on that YouTube one tho

For UK readers, this is on Netflix, as part of that weird deal between Netflix and the Swedish Cinematheque.

― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 17 April 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Good stuff lol, always wanted to check Sjostrom..

Well that was relentlessly grim.

I mean, it was still good. I think. but really not what I needed to see when I'm worrying about how to support my family over the next year, that's for sure.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Buster_keaton_one_week_poster.jpg

One Week, Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline, 1920

Morbsies #947

I went through the Keaton shorts a while ago and this was really a big jump in quality when you watch 'em chronologically, one of his best imo.

Here's the youtube link

Yeah, a very enjoyable 25 minutes, every joke felt extremely well-crafted. Not really as ambitious as his longer films, obviously, but for what it is, it couldn't be much better.

It's been

you know I don't think I've ever heard that song. and yet I got the reference somehow.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/The_High_Sign_%281921%29_-_Ad_1.jpg

The High Sign, Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline, 1921

Morbsies #630

I found this one to be a bit of a step back from One Week, which makes sense as it was actually filmed earlier and held back for some reason. A boilerplate silent comedy short plot - Buster is hired to protect a man from the mob and also hired by the mob to kill him, but of course there are plenty of brilliant stunts and set pieces to keep you entertained, and as it's less than 20 minutes there's no danger of boredom. Still nothing here as inspired as Sherlock Jr, The General or even One Week.

here's a youtube link

Tantalised by the 101 films on @SightSoundmag’s Hidden Gems list? @_edb’s pick, Claudia von Alemann’s ‘Blind Spot’ (1981), is now on @mubiuk. Here’s what Erika had to say about it: https://t.co/b59rDtKdqV pic.twitter.com/ql1eU1TTlc

— Arjun Sajip (@ArjSaj) May 2, 2023

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/92/Nosferatuposter.jpg

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, F. W. Murnau, 1922

Morbsies #833
Sight & Sound Critics #196

Youtube link

Would anyone be interested in some kind of watch-along stream for the public domain movies?

how would that work? like a twitch stream?

i don't know, to be honest.

Ok, so Nosferatu then. I had already seen this, a few times I think, but in memory it is much less absorbing than I found it this time. Think the restoration job and the soundtrack on the link above really make a lot of difference here. It succeeds where other Dracula adaptations fail because Murnau wisely cuts the interminable gentlemen's meetings, in fact the much weaker second half of the story is cut to less than 30 minutes, and that includes the famous bedroom scene. I don't think it's at all scary, think perhaps due to overfamiliarity.

What I have noticed this time around is the antisemitism, and am not sure how I missed it before. it's not just Orlok who's uncomfortably like a hideous Jewish caricature, the estate manager Knock (who doubles as Renfield) is also obviously coded as Jewish. so yeah, that's not great.

still there's a lot if great art here, most scenes are intricately set up and lit. shocked to find out that the restoration was needed because a court ordered every print destroyed, and it's a miracle it survived that when the majority of films from this era are gone forever. is this the first ever victim of a copyright troll (in the form of Stoker's estate)? probably someone can think of an earlier one.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Safety_last_poster.jpg

Safety Last, Fred C Newmeyer & Sam Taylor, 1923

Morbsies #1133

Youtube link

I have a blu-ray of this! But for some reason my allegedly region-free Chinese DVD/blu-ray player is insisting that it's the wrong region, so here I am watching it on youtube with the plebs, present company excluded of course.

Whole film is apparently embedded on the Wikipedia page as a webm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Safety_Last_(1923).webm

Heard something along the lines of Harold Lloyd's work was exhibited on TV less (I think due to rights issues?) and this accounts for his lower profile when compared to Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel & Hardy.

i do remember harold lloyd on tv in the uk, specifically watching it around my gran's. seemed to be always on. "hooray for harold lloyd"... possibly a clip show.

yeah, these, from 1977 - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2yaO_4_FwpkWNviqJsyrKIw16fVFT9YO

Yes, I believe that came up in the convo as well, the UK being an exception.

can't believe it took me so long to watch this in full.

the building climbing scene, of course this is just fantastic, just the sheer planning and imagination needed, nothing is wasted. enjoyed it as a thriller more than as a comedy.

the rest of the film is fine, if a bit weak. I know I've been spoiled a bit with all this Keaton & Chaplin, but Lloyd just doesn't quite have the same charisma, or the same quality of writing.

I dispute the notion of Lloyd lacking charisma

oh he has it, just not quite as much

ok, back to the main plot

https://i.postimg.cc/HL8sYCqW/18574.jpg

Man With A Movie Camera, Dziga Vertov, 1929

Morbsies #193
Sight & Sound Critics #9
Sight & Sound Directors #30

Should really post a youtube link. Very nice post-rock/jazz soundtrack from The Cinematic Orchestra.
Should also post some thoughts as I've now watched it three times, but that can wait for tomorrow.

I was looking forward to this as I've already used Dziga Vertov's sound collages in my mixes (in fact I structured my 1925 mix entirely around one) but was not ready for how deeply and immediately I would fall for it. I could say it's the way he frames the film with the audience / the orchestra / filming himself filming / his eye / stopping the action and showing the editing of the film we're watching / the intercuts of birth & death - but all of these I'm sure have been talked about a lot already, and are enough to make me admire the work. What I absolutely love about it though is the feel he has for editing at pace, the way the cuts build up and crash down like a symphony. So many shots feel so wildly ahead of their time too, every few minutes there's something I could swear I've seen referenced in 50s/60s/70s cinema.

Started watching The Unholy Three (1930), and think I will substitute this for All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) which will surely be a bit less shit.

This short can represent 90% of Hollywood films in 1930.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH7XlG9j0xs

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/All_Quiet_on_the_Western_Front_%281930_film%29_poster.jpg

All Quiet on the Western Front, Lewis Milestone, 1930

Apologies to ILX user J.Lu, whose vote got The Unholy Three to #434 in the Morbsies, I couldn't sit through it.
No votes for All Quiet on the Western front in Morbsies or Sight & Sound polls, but it's the top rated film of 1930 in a number of places, and I haven't seen it before.

Gave this one a spin.

It's certainly visually impressive for a sound feature from 1930. Obviously showy are those tracking shots following the boys as they run through the field, explosions around them, but often it's also just a matter of making the blocking and general visual information onscreen aesthetic and interesting enough that you don't mind the static camera. Lots of smart editing as well.

I've read a couple of Remarque novels but not this one, still feel I can say the film mostly does a good job of capturing his mix of cynicism and romanticism. I'd like to think the corniest moments from this read different in the novel but tbh Remarque wasn't above a cheap tear jerker moment or two.

A big problem is none of the lads we follow have much charisma, they all seem basically interchangeable and none of the actors exude much star power. The semi-comedic grizzled veterans are much better, and much closer to how we think of grunts now.

A scene featuring extensive dialogues in French, spoken by native speakers! Classic Hollywood was so much more cosmopolitan than modern Hollywood. Helps to have a couple world wars provide a torrent of talent from all over I guess.

I'll also admit that on a shallow level, I don't find modern warfare scenes exciting. My hippie parents never encouraged me to play with toy soldiers or watch military-related stuff. I did read fantasy though, so give me some orcs and a dragon or two and suddenly it's a different story. I can't get enough of those LOTR battles.

There's certainly a lot of cheese here, though obv allowances have to be made, a lot of the stuff that registers as total cliché wasn't so much so when this came out.

How crap must the recent version be? I don't think the current scene has much of a way with hard boiled gallow's humour, which I think is the best part of the story.

Just finished watching and yes! agreed with you on almost all of that. These early sound films are all so hokey, they haven't figured out how to do dialogue on screen, so you get these looooong two-shots of actors unconvincingly going through this stagey dialogue which also sounds muffled and hard to make out - honestly feels like film has stepped back a decade in terms of artisty. It also doesn't help that Lew Ayres (and the rest of the young cast to be fair) are clearly not up to the job of portraying the horrors of war.

The best thing here is definitely the battle scenes, which are as beautiful as they are terrifying. Some of those tracking shots are absolute works of art. Just a shame the majority of the film is so deeply average.

Dunno if I would extend this to early talkies as a whole - checking my letterboxd for 1930, this came out the same year as Lubitsch's "Monte Carlo" and the Marx Bros movie "Animal Crackers", both of which do fine on dialogue. Slightly more comparable to "All Quiet..." from this year is Hawk's "The Criminal Code", which has its fair share of corny moments but manages much better due to the star power of Walter Huston and Boris Karloff. The technical limitations you mention def play a part but I think it's also to do with the specific brand of oscarbait-y drama that this film is.

Well yes, I might have been a little hyperbolic there, but I think it holds up as a general rule for most of the 1928-1931 talkies I've seen. Even Animal Crackers and Monkey Business suffer from these problems, though both still great, the jump in quality when you get to Horse Feathers is huge (let's not even talk of The Cocoanuts). Haven't seen Monte Carlo or The Criminal Code, may take a look. The "Tomatos Another Day" video I posted upthread is a brilliant parody of early talkies, and sums all of this up really well.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/City_Lights_%281931_theatrical_poster_-_retouched%29.jpg

City Lights, Charles Chaplin, 1931

Morbsies #160
Sight & Sound critics #36
Sight & Sound directors #46

youtube link

afraid I have a bit of a challops on this one

so this was, what, fine? OK? a bigger budget version of the longer silent comedies from the late 20s, and I enjoyed watching it well enough, but that's kind of it. the cinematography was nothing special, the comedy scenes were neither funny nor spectacular (apart from the first one where he was sleeping on the statue) - the story with the rich drunk could have been developed a little. most importantly I'm afraid i found the central love story just kind of mawkish and basic, and the famous last scene just left me cold. think I have to conclude that I am Just Not Into Chaplin.

Think Keaton works better for a modern audience than Chaplin does, the latter often gets mawkish.

I don't like how transactional the romance feels. she loves him because he paid for the operation which restored her sight, but there's very little to show she really knows who he is. what if, having found out he's a penniless tramp and the money was stolen, she finds she isn't really into him? Kindness towards people you pity isn't romance, surely. of course this is entirely my reading and she may actually be really into him, but it was a surprise that I didn't feel completely on-board at the end.

https://i.postimg.cc/hGCj1LB8/lf.jpg

M, Fritz Lang, 1931

Morbsies #70
Sight & Sound Critics #36

youtube link, English subs

I have yet to meet the person who doesn't love or at least really, really like this movie. Prove me wrong, ILX!

Melancholia (von Trier, 2011)
The Earrings of Madame de...(Ophuls, 1953)

Finally got to watch it on MUBI. Just perfect. Silly people make it hard for themselves.

I was reminded this evening that I watched the von Trier a couple of months ago. It's kinda unique how Von Trier got into making really good films by the end of his career.

fair but so uncool beliefs here (Eric H.) at 10:38 12 Jun 23

I have yet to meet the person who doesn't love or at least really, really like this movie. Prove me wrong, ILX!