I’ve enjoyed a few silent films over the years, but … sometimes they’re a little painful to get through. I seem to have this problem with the dramas, especially - I’ve come to rely on vocal inflection to sell an actor’s performance. Most of the time.
I saw Way Down East (1920), and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920/I) this weekend.
I enjoyed them - but in places, it almost hurt to keep paying attention.
Oh well.
Nita Naldi was hot.
I prefer Nosferatu to every other vampire movie I’ve ever seen…and I’ve seen quite a few. When I was in college I forced a few people to watch the library’s copy with me, and most were surprised by how much they enjoyed it.
I enjoy silent horror films, generally speaking… Jekyll and Hyde is something of a hybrid, though. Nosferatu was good, and Phantom of the Opera was excellent. I enjoy some silent comedies - but I can’t think of many silent dramas that have appealed to me. Not that I’ve seen loads and loads…
I’ve got DeMille’s Male and Female on track to be watched tonight or tomorrow…
Die Nibelungen
Birth of a Nation
Just in case you’ve missed it in your comedy tastings, City Lights.
Dramas only:
The Wind
Greed
The Phantom of the Opera
Sadie Thompson (there’s a restored version which finishes the lost ending using stills)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Metropolis
Of course, you’ll enjoy them more if you see them in a theater.
Not only was she hot, she was a funny, smart, bitter lady; sort of a vampy Dorothy Parker.
Silent films are a different animal: you have to pay attention. You can’t read or chat or wander into the kitchen for a beer. You have to make the commitment to turn off the lights, sit back and watch. People just aren’t used to that anymore.
For comedy, I highly recommend It, Show People and nearly anything with Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd. Not-too-exhausting drama? Broken Blossoms, Sunrise, The Crowd.
By the way, how did you like the waterfall sequence in Way Down East? Zowie!!
I’ve seen City Lights, and Birth of a Nation, and Metropolis. Metropolis is the prime offender in the ‘Silent Dramas that really hurt me to watch’ category, next to the Passion of Jeanne D’Arc.
Uh oh - I think I heard lissener and Ilsa Lund coming to kill me.
Harold Lloyd is like a god. Glad to see some of his stuff coming to DVD finally. I like Keaton, but neither he nor Chaplin are fit to kiss Lloyd’s shoes.
I was wondering about the Waterfall sequence - seems like it would’ve been pretty rough. Did they have a local stuntman type, skilled at hopping between ice chunks, or was that the actual actor? I heard Miss Gish had permanent lingering damage in her hand from the frostbite from leaving it in the water too long…
Very few of the scenes actually had Lillian Gish on an ice-covered river on an actual ice floe. The scenes of her and Richard Barthelmess running over the river, jumping from ice to ice, were real, and very dangerous. Many of the scenes of her on the floe, going down an icy river, were done with a double (a local townsgirl) or a dummy. Some of the close-up scenes of Miss Lillian on the floe were in a nice, warm river and on a piece of wood.
Still, with Griffith’s editing, it is a spine-chilling scene, yes?
Absolutely.
I think, though, that there’s another aspect of the films of the time that causes my attention to wander. It seems that films were still so novel to everyone, that they’d let things meander while fixing the camera on some mildly amusing, but irrelevant image.
Frex, the white kitten in front of (what appears to be) a General Store in Way Down East.
It has no plot relevance. And yet, the camera just stares at it.
That was just Griffith. He loved that kind of vignette, and would show kittens or puppies or blossoms blowing in the breeze. Critics used to kid him about it.
Films were not “new” by the time he made Way Down East, either—they’d been pretty well established with the public by 1900, and by the early '20s, sound, color and all kinds of amazing camera effects were already being experimented with.
And well they should have. It broke the pace of the film. Which, in a monster-length movie like Way Down East, is a major crime.
Heck, I didn’t even know they made silents over two hours till this one.
You should check out Thief of Baghdad (1924) when you get the chance. It’s spectacular. And even if you don’t like it (and I don’t see why you wouldn’t), you can ogle the glorious Anna May Wong.
As a gamer dork, you might be surprised how much of an influence the movie had on Gygax and fantasy in general.
Plus, has there ever been any action star with even a fraction of the screen presence of Douglas Fairbanks? I’m not sure even Erol Flynn came too close.
Or, ogle the glorious Doug Fairbanks, depending on your orientation (lucky, lucky Mary Pickford!).
I plan to see it eventually. I actually own a copy of the Mark of Zorro with Fairbanks.
And don’t forget Cervaise. I watched it with him a few months ago (his first time) and he said here that it changed the way he watches movies. I think you have to be prepared for that when you watch it. As much as Eve points out that silents’ are not compatible with multitasking, Joan is unique even among silents for the attention it requires. You have to allow its emotional momentum to take over your consciousness. The Passion of Joan of Arc is a very interactive film: you can’t watch it passively. If you sit down with it, in the dark, with the phone unplugged, and *accompany *Dreyer on his journey, you’ll find, I think, that the whole is far far greater than the sum of its parts. Its power is entirely emotional, not cinematic, so you have to engage with it emotionally, not cinematically.
That said, I enthusiastically second Eve’s suggestions: The Crowd, and another by Vidor, The Big Parade, are wonderful, real, involving dramas that are far more emotionally realistic than much of the silent drama that I have seen. Ditto Chaplin’s A Woman of Paris, an astonishingly compelling drama.
Dreyer’s Michael is a lot more conventional that Joan; it’s more in line with films like A Woman of Paris and The Crowd: real, modern people in real, modern situations. It’s also interesting in that it deals pretty openly with homosexual themes.
*Foolish Wives *is another favorite of mine, but I imagine it could be tedious for some.
Another alltime great is All Quiet on the Western Front. It’s not a silent, but it’s a very early talkie and still employs many of the twchniques of the silent era. It’s an excellent transition piece. The Jazz Singer and Noah’s Ark may be, technically, more transitional–they’re silent films with isolated sound inserts–but they’re practically unwatchable. *Noah’s Ark *is somewhat improved by the sight of George O’Brien running around in a loin cloth, and the opportunity to hear his voice, but if that’s not important to you then I’d forgive your skipping it.
As far as Keaton goes, I can watch *THe General *and Steamboat Bill Jr. over and over again, but none of his other films call be back for repeated viewings.
Anyway, those were just some random jottings on the subject.
We love silent films, it’s such a different medium than glorious technoscope and stereophonnnnnnnic sound.
However, I need some help. For a book club discussion, we’re going to have people look at SUNSET BOULEVARD, and we’d like to show them a Gloria Swanson silent movie… just to be able to talk about “we had faces then.” Any recommendations?
Yay, lissener!
I was wondering which one of you would track me down first.
Too clever by half, though.
[diabolical laughter]
Er… more seriously.
I really didn’t buy the lead performance in Jeanne D’Arc. It was 90% lethargy. She looked brain-damaged.
Oh, well.
The suggestions for viewing, of course, are welcome. I’ve seen All Quiet on the Western Front - liked it quite a bit, as I recall.
Not that this makes it unequivocally so, but that performance is considered by many to be just about the best performance ever captured on film. Just to suggest there might be something to be gained by trying it again.
It was lethargic in that she didn’t burn a lot of calories in the role, but that she was able to convey the entire emotional journey of Joan using mostly her eyes is pretty damn astonishing. Her face tells us the whole story, beginning to end; gestures or blocking would’ve been superfluous.