Pre 1920s List Discussion/Suggestions (List Project Vol. 3)

[HypnoHelioStaticStasis]

In films from this era, some camera effects, while impressive, can be obvious to the audience how they were achieved. Well, there's a scene early on in this one (in a dream sequence) that's still got me stumped.

Are you referring to...

Spoiler

...when he darts into the house and walks along the side of the house onto the ceiling, with his pursuants behind him on the floor? Because that was utterly dazzling.

It's a beautifully silly film, and probably the best thing Fleming's ever had his name attached to (Oz not withstanding).

[swo17]

That's the one!

[Sloper]

The big revelation for me this time is Lois Weber's Hypocrites. I think it's as great as anything Evgeni Bauer did (very high praise, I know). Technically accomplished in every way, with amazing compositions and use of the camera. To me, it feels much more like what is now considered "art cinema," partly because it seems to stray from narrative conventions of the vast majority of the dramas of this era. The double exposures never feel like gimmicks or technical showing-off.
I've often seen this called a preachy film, and there are certain moments when that's its most apparent purpose. Looking deeper than the moralistic level, it's a bitter, penetrating work, yet a beautiful one. What it really shows, to my eyes, is not primarily license or decadence but myopia, obliviousness, and human weakness, broadly speaking. At the very least, though, no one should mistake it for a religious critique of a secular target.

This has been out on DVD for almost two years now, but I'm not sure it's gained much wider recognition in that time It took me this long to see it because I'd been waiting to see if Kino would do a box set of their First Ladies discs. I don't know why they haven't, but I hope others will plunge ahead anyway and see this film. It's only 47 minutes, after all, and viewers who bear with it beyond the first reel will find that the level of damage drops off dramatically. Another potential deterrent is the Kino packaging, which might suggest that the film is significant because it was directed by a woman. While I don't want to raise expectations sky-high I can safely say it stands with the best films of the teens. OK, that's probably the only strenuous campaigning I'll do this time around.
A note on the score: I shut it off and watched the film in silence after about twenty minutes because it didn't seem like it really added anything; if anything, it gave the viewing of this film a pedestrian feel that was belied by the images.

Saw this last night, and I agree on everything - except that it perhaps isn't quite on the level of Bauer, only because I found the allegory as such a little clunky. This may be because the actors (or Weber's direction of them) are not as 'in sync' with the director's vision as are those in the Bauer films I've seen.

But yes, this is a real 'art' film, rejecting narrative more than any feature film I've yet seen from this era. It seems at first like a filmed sermon, but becomes something more interesting and abstract. The hero becomes increasingly distanced from us -

Spoiler

appropriately since the film turns out to be a vision he has while dying in his sleep - he really does ascend into Heaven during this series of visions

- and no other character proves capable of following him all the way, or fully grasping this fleeting embodiment of 'Truth'. You're right that the camerawork and effects never feel 'gimmicky'. They always serve the point being made. It was just amazing to see such fluid tracking shots during the monk's unveiling of the statue (the camera here moves more freely than in Cabiria, After Death or Intolerance, and if I didn't know better I'd have said the film was made in or after 1924!), but what really blew me away was how seamlessly these tracking shots contributed to the overall effect of the film. The camera is surveying each 'estate' of the medieval society on view, visiting each group and then panning up to view their 'coat of arms', before panning down again and moving on. This is, for one thing, quite a sophisticated didactic technique, training us to identify the characteristics of each mini-tableau before we are told what they stand for. This 'overview' recalls the earlier panning shots of the modern-day Gabriel's congregation, suggesting that they too are more like an audience of spectators than a receptive flock, but also strengthening what is arguably the film's central thesis: that the camera, or the film-maker, has a unique capacity to see, here in the sense of surveying the whole of society.

After the sermon, we see the congregation, except for one or two, file out of the church, down the frame away from Gabriel, foreshadowing the later metaphor in which he ascends a mountain while they remain below. After the unveiling of the statue, the tracking shots are repeated, but now we see the various tableaux dispersing, leaving only the odd figure behind - some staying to laugh, others to gaze admiringly - and in both these sequences, the camerawork and the framing enable us to perceive that, within those more obvious groupings and classifications, it is possible to discern the true from the false, and of course this idea is brought to fruition in the wonderful 'mirror' sequences, where Truth - barely visible for much of the time - holds her mirror up to the hypocrites, blurring their world and becoming the only clearly defined thing in it.

A great film about the potential of cinema, not to stir up trouble and get people lynched, but to tell difficult truths about the world we live in. I've never seen a film that was so dedicated to a 'moral' purpose, but united that purpose so completely with its artistic qualities. In fact, I wouldn't have thought it was possible to unite those two things so well. The only other Weber I'd seen until now was The Blot (1921), a film about the plight of teachers, clearly designed to be as accessible and conventional (in terms of both narrative and technique) as possible, but still showing a great deal of skill - in particular, an attention to small, domestic details that Stroheim would have been proud of. Weber's range is amazing, and I look forward to seeing more of her films.

I did also see Suspense, and was duly impressed; again, hard to believe it was made in 1913. But I'm not sure it will place that highly on my list. As the title suggests, it's really an exercise in technique, and ultimately a rather hollow bag of (admittedly brilliant) tricks. The shot of the tramp lurching towards the camera is indeed very impressive, although I think Griffith did this better in The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912); otherwise Weber does all sorts of things Griffith wouldn't have dreamt of, or at least dared to do, but since our sympathy and interest are never really engaged in the characters, the actual 'suspense' created is pretty negligible.

Anyway, seeing these Weber films reminded me to plug (once again) one of my favourites: Oscar C. Apfel's The Passer-by (1912), which can be found on the Edison box. The film's 'importance' in history is secured by its four seamless dolly shots, and you certainly get a sense of what an impact these must have had when you've plowed through the several hours of well-and-truly-chained-camera on the previous discs. But as in Hypocrites, the camerawork serves the emotional narrative of the story, bringing us closer to the protagonist (beautifully played by Marc MacDermott) while we learn of his tragic story, then pulling us away again when he has to take his leave, and resume his role as a passing stranger. A textbook case of how cinema can at once make us identify with a character, and hold us at a safe distance from them. All fifteen minutes of the thing are masterful though, like Hypocrites a series of deftly arranged tableaux, showing an incredibly mature understanding of how a shot can be framed so as to suggest a character's situation; here, the protagonist is often hemmed in by symmetrical arrangements of objects which hang, vulture-like, over him, and of course the dolly shots help to accentuate these effects. It's a miracle of a film, and I urge everyone to see it or re-visit it.

[lubitsch]

The leap between Ingeborg Holm and Terje Vigen (which I think will come near the top of my list) is dizzying.

There are however many lost films and a few years between them and this is the decade where cinema evolved at a rapid speed. DeMille's jump from his 1914 films to the ones he made next year is more startling.

Regarding The Golden Chance: if one is going to call out The Cheat for its racism, as lubitsch has, I think fairness requiress one to call out The Golden Chance for its classism. Both are built on a similar foundation of stereotypes and otherwise simplistic characterizations. These are not grounds per se to dismiss these films, but I'm looking for redeeming qualities and coming up with little in the way of underlying substance. Many of the films in Treasures III set also portray poor people as vicious, but many nevertheless managed to be more thought-provoking than the DeMille films of this era that deal with similar class distinctions, with the exception of Male and Female. Returning to The Golden Chance, I did like Cleo Ridgely's performance (and I remember looking up her biography afterwards) but as I said with The Cheat, something like that seldom "makes" a narrative film for me. Perhaps surprisingly, I thought DeMille's domestic comedies offered greater richness and interest.

I'm not trying to declare DeMille as great master of cinema, but he certainly tried something in the 10s within the limits of his talents. He tackled sophisticated comedy, experimented with lighting in The Cheat and narrative structure, tried more intimate films like Golden Chance and Kindling and burned his hands with his first epic, Joan the Woman, but nevertheless tried again and again. Considering that his public picture is that of the 50s director of lumbering, primitive behemoths which are DOA, his variety is worth remembering. and I don't quite see why DeMille's weaknesses are so much more important than Griffith's who had similar intellectual deficits and lagged even more behind with his staging as time progressed.

I have been lucky enough to see some De Mille teens picture on a big screen recently. I saw a whole lot of superb GEH tinted prints. Believe me, it makes a huge difference with the DVD release of those films. Rather than The Cheat, the films that really caught my eye were The Golden Chance and Kindling. The clever narrative combined with some stunning lighting effects makes the two films a must see of the teens. I felt the stories had aged very well as well as the acting. But if you watched some grainy dupe on DVD, you loose half of the excitement. Kindling is unfortunately unavailable on DVD. It's a shame. It's a very good social film about an immigrant couple who lives in Hell's Kitchen.

Yeah, that's another film that Birchard praises in his book besides Golden Chance so you're on something, but will share the same fate as I will with Ingmarssönerna. Hadn't I traveled across half of Germany to watch some rare Sjöströms for an article I wrote about him, where could I else have seen them. It shouldn't be legal that such important films aren't available at all and buried in archives.

I also watched Terje Vigen, much like The Outlaw and His Wife I was a bit disappointed given all the advanced hype, but it still ended up being an excellent film. I suppose I just expect every Victor Sjöström film to match The Wind or Korkarlen or Ingeborg Holm. Some wonderful framing and the tinting is glorious, really adding to the already stunning beauty of the natural environment. Victor Sjöström gives another remarkable performance, he might be the greatest actor of the age, he's impossibly versatile doing a fine job with broad comedy in the Mauritz Stiller films, and then giving one of the heaviest performances ever in Korkarlen. It should be a crime to be so gifted at multiple things.

I'm not too fond of Terje Vigen either, it's from the "we'll see each other again"-school of melodrama writing which drives me up the wall. However I find your appreciation of Sjöström's acting, erm interesting. the man was one of the biggest hams in silent cinema and was duly critizised in the contemporary press for that. Wild Strawberries was probably the first time that he got only positive reviews for his acting.

I was pleasantly surprised by several of the films in Flicker Alley's set devoted to Douglas Fairbanks (A Modern Musketeer). I'd expected adventure, but not all of the physical comedy, general zaniness, or cocaine binging(!). The highlight for me was When the Clouds Roll By, in which a scientist tries to drive a man (Fairbanks) to suicide by drugging him, giving him bizarre dreams (and when I say bizarre, I mean it!), and meddling in his burgeoning love life. In films from this era, some camera effects, while impressive, can be obvious to the audience how they were achieved. Well, there's a scene early on in this one (in a dream sequence) that's still got me stumped. I'm also quite enamored with the way that Fairbanks exits through a doorway midway through the film when he has a particular skip in his step after getting some good news from a girl.

The films of Fairbanks, Pickford and Chaplin illustrate quite well how fast US cinema developed towards a classical narrative style in the 10s and why it crushed the European film industry after WWI. These briskly paced films (faster told than the 20s works of these actor auteurs) are much more inematic than their stagy European counterparts which is no stab against the European staging style which is very well fascinating in its own right, but less suited to commercial cinema like the comedies and action films.

The big revelation for me this time is Lois Weber's Hypocrites.
This has been out on DVD for almost two years now, but I'm not sure it's gained much wider recognition in that time It took me this long to see it because I'd been waiting to see if Kino would do a box set of their First Ladies discs. I don't know why they haven't, but I hope others will plunge ahead anyway and see this film. It's only 47 minutes, after all, and viewers who bear with it beyond the first reel will find that the level of damage drops off dramatically. Another potential deterrent is the Kino packaging, which might suggest that the film is significant because it was directed by a woman.

But yes, this is a real 'art' film, rejecting narrative more than any feature film I've yet seen from this era. It seems at first like a filmed sermon, but becomes something more interesting and abstract.
A great film about the potential of cinema, not to stir up trouble and get people lynched, but to tell difficult truths about the world we live in. I've never seen a film that was so dedicated to a 'moral' purpose, but united that purpose so completely with its artistic qualities. In fact, I wouldn't have thought it was possible to unite those two things so well. The only other Weber I'd seen until now was The Blot (1921), a film about the plight of teachers, clearly designed to be as accessible and conventional (in terms of both narrative and technique) as possible, but still showing a great deal of skill - in particular, an attention to small, domestic details that Stroheim would have been proud of. Weber's range is amazing, and I look forward to seeing more of her films.

I think Gregory nails it down pretty well when he points out that we expect a woman's film here and this creates two possible expectations, a) a solid, not per se interesting effort, but made by a woman and therfore worthwhile showing as a historical document or b) a feminist statement of some kind in any more or less veiled way.
However Weber is none of both things, instead she's one of the crucial auteurs of the era and exeplifying the unusual width of approaches to film in this time before the great Hollywood melting pot began to suppress and push to the boundaries other ways of telling stories and controversial subjects. The worst thing we can do today is to remember and honor Weber in the role of a female pioneer, it would be far more important to classify her as an important director of the era.

I did also see Suspense, and was duly impressed; again, hard to believe it was made in 1913. But I'm not sure it will place that highly on my list. As the title suggests, it's really an exercise in technique, and ultimately a rather hollow bag of (admittedly brilliant) tricks. The shot of the tramp lurching towards the camera is indeed very impressive, although I think Griffith did this better in The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912); otherwise Weber does all sorts of things Griffith wouldn't have dreamt of, or at least dared to do, but since our sympathy and interest are never really engaged in the characters, the actual 'suspense' created is pretty negligible.

Sure, it's even a bit more mechanical and coldly constructed than the Griffith versions? But is this really a difference in a genre which is an extremely dry and schematic story concept always aiming at the exactly same kind of a thrill. The short running time prevents any room for the characters to live in and breathe. So if I have to watch this, I want to be dazzled and Weber certainly delivers as does e.g. Raiders of the Lost Ark.

[Gregory]

Responding to the last two posts in turn:
Sloper: I'm so glad you liked Hypocrites as much as I did, and your comments make me want to see it again even more, which I need to do to decide whether it really does hold up on a second viewing as equal to the best films of its time, such as Bauer's. I think I will certainly place it above Cabiria, which of course was also astonishingly ambitious and accomplished technically, but has never been all that engaging or moving to me as a story. With most historical epics, I can enjoy taking them in with my eyes and cerebrally acknowledging how daring or innovative they were, but for whatever reason I still feel pretty shut out from them. I won't try to discuss Cabiria in full here in this post, but it will make my list, even though I have some reservations about it as a narrative.
Back to Weber, I did like Suspense quite a bit, but I need to revisit that one soon, as well. Other that that one, before Hypocrites, the Weber films I'd seen -- Where are my Children? and The Blot -- I found interesting mainly from a social/historical perspective. As cinematic art, they didn't quite grab me, even though they show a good feel for composition, and so on. However, I do plan to revisit The Blot for the next list. Where Are My Children? in some crucial respects fails even at the most basic, didactic level.

I think Gregory nails it down pretty well when he points out that we expect a woman's film here and this creates two possible expectations, a) a solid, not per se interesting effort, but made by a woman and therefore worthwhile showing as a historical document or b) a feminist statement of some kind in any more or less veiled way.

I meant (a), not (b), but I can see how some might have that initial impression. However, I personally would not be leery of "a woman's film" in any way (within classical Hollywood, they're a major interest of mine) and what I was bracing myself for was not a "woman's picture" in the usual sense of a melodrama but rather a pious, didactic work with little cinematic inspiration on display (I think I was remembering some of her other films not including Suspense).

However Weber is none of both things, instead she's one of the crucial auteurs of the era and exeplifying the unusual width of approaches to film in this time before the great Hollywood melting pot began to suppress and push to the boundaries other ways of telling stories and controversial subjects. The worst thing we can do today is to remember and honor Weber in the role of a female pioneer, it would be far more important to classify her as an important director of the era.

Yes. Marketing something in this way can be tricky, because on the one hand it can have the worst connotations of "This is good example of art, writing, etc. for a woman." On the other hand though, it can be worthwhile paying specific attention to some of the early women filmmakers in terms of gender simply because they tended to be marginalized on that basis with the onset of the studio system. To understand why their work has been undervalued, one has to take gender into account, as well as the way that gender or perceived gender characteristics of a film fit with the broader political contexts in which films were made. But all that is for discussions of authorship and critical valuation, which I think ideally should enter as little as possible into one's own initial viewing of a film. So, yes, everyone should just watch Hypocrites, forgetting about the "First Ladies" bit and trying to avoid gazing upon the ugly, sanctimonious-looking DVD cover!

I'm not trying to declare DeMille as great master of cinema, but he certainly tried something in the 10s within the limits of his talents. He tackled sophisticated comedy, experimented with lighting in The Cheat and narrative structure, tried more intimate films like Golden Chance and Kindling and burned his hands with his first epic, Joan the Woman, but nevertheless tried again and again. Considering that his public picture is that of the 50s director of lumbering, primitive behemoths which are DOA, his variety is worth remembering. and I don't quite see why DeMille's weaknesses are so much more important than Griffith's who had similar intellectual deficits and lagged even more behind with his staging as time progressed.

Fair enough, I can agree to all of that. By the way, when I was praising Griffith in comparison to DeMille, I mainly had in mind the period before the former's craft began to stagnate, especially the Biograph shorts, so many of which are just brimming with beauty and modernism.
I have not seen Kindling, by the way.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Paul Merton's season on early cinema focussed on British and French cinema of the pre-1920s in the last episode. Question about Max Linder - what's the title of the film where he ominously murders his wife, only for the camera to pull away revealing a stage audience applauding? Can't quite seem to find out through optimistic Googling.

[Ann Harding]

Talking about teens pictures, I would like to mention a rare South-African silent I saw at Pordenone last year. It happens to be available to view online. The Rose of Rhodesia (1918, Harold Shaw) with Edna Flugrath is here. (the titles are in Dutch, but a full English translation is provided here).
While being a colonial picture, in the full sense of the term, its attitude towards native people is a light-years ahead of The Birth of a Nation. First, the lead parts are played by black South Africans. It's obviously heavily patronizing, but nevertheless offers the black characters a real persona. Anyway, it's certainly worth investigating and the print is very handsome looking.

I am a rabid Sjöström and Stiller fan. I am therefore rather surprised by Lubitsch's feelings towards Terje Vigen. It's certainly one of my favourite films of the period for many reasons and one of them is the fact that the characters avoid the usual Manicheism of Griffith pictures. His characters have a complexity well beyond the year of its release. And cinematically, I always find Sjöström's films endowed with real lyricism in its use of landscape and seascape. So is Berg-Ejvind och hans hustru, another favourite of mine. I haven't been as caught by Körkarlen which I find a trifle too intellectual.

I wished more French titles of the teens were available to investigate. I saw recently Le Coupable (1917) by André Antoine which has already the marks of poetic realism in its use of the Parisian landscape. And Feuillade's Barrabas (1919) is extremely good.

[nsps]

I didn't realize When the Clouds Roll By was available outside the excerpt on the Avant Garde set, or I would have recommended it too!

[swo17]

I also finished going through that massive Japanese Lumière set this weekend, and found several more favorites. At this point, I think that more than half of the films I've seen for this project have been Lumière films. Four or five of them should definitely make my list. As an added bonus, this time I actually know some of their names!

Passage d'un tunnel en chemin de fer (Passage Through a Railway Tunnel)
A train passes first through a grated tunnel, which has sort of a futuristic feel, before approaching an ominous black hole in the side of a mountain. Once inside, everything goes pitch black until you can faintly begin to see the light at the end. When the train finally exits it takes a moment for the camera to fully adjust to the light and so, for a moment, the whole landscape is bathed in this ethereal white haze. Movie magic, folks.

Panorama pris d'un ballon captif (View from a Captive Balloon)
Basically, a bird's eye view where the people start out taking up most of the frame, scurrying about on all sides, and gradually end up all looking like ants. This is one of those cases where the camera captures something I could never see in real life, as you couldn't pay me to set foot in a hot air balloon.

Plate-forme mobile et train électrique (The Moving Pavement and the Electric Train)
I think I actually prefer this to the other film featuring the "Moving Sidewalk" that I pointed out earlier. This one showcases two marvels from the 1900 World's Fair in Paris at the same time. Pedestrians and the walkway railing shoot by in the foreground from left to right, while the train approaches from behind in the other direction. This shot really captures the novelty of the event, and there's just something very pleasing about the way it was framed.


Also, a while ago I said a few kind words about a film I thought was called Laveuses. It turns out the Lumières have another film called Laveuses, which is a somewhat unremarkable scene of a few women washing clothes. The one that's worth a few looks is actually called Laveuses sur la rivière (Washerwomen on the River).

[Sloper]

Also, a while ago I said a few kind words about a film I thought was called Laveuses. It turns out the Lumières have another film called Laveuses, which is a somewhat unremarkable scene of a few women washing clothes. The one that's worth a few looks is actually called Laveuses sur la rivière (Washerwomen on the River).

I'll definitely include this one on my list, so it's good to know the actual name! Any idea what the one filmed from a rickshaw is called?

So I finally saw The Cheat for the first time.

As for the "claustrophobic framing," I hesitate to credit DeMille with this, partly because the telecine on so many silents seems inclined to obvious heavy cropping on all sides. I'd have to take another look, but having seen so little inspiration on display in most of the other DeMilles from the 1910s I honestly don't know how claustrophobic The Cheat was supposed to be.

I'd be interested to hear more about this, and why this happens... Perhaps it did look a little 'zoomed in' at times, especially when the wife goes to see Harakau to plead with him to drop the case. But the numerous scenes where characters are drowning in shadows were undeniably claustrophobic, and Harakau's frequent invasions of Edith's personal space (to put it mildly) create the same effect. I have to say (though am sorry to do so) I don't think any of our sympathies are meant to be with Harakau in the final scene: he goes along with the husband's lie because he knows he'll be the one in trouble if everyone finds out the truth, and I think we're supposed to share the mob's anger by the end. But Hayakawa's is one of those performances (and this happens so often with the 'villain' roles) that ruins the whole film by being so good. He's so compelling here, so much more interesting than everyone else - always thinking, always feeling - that the husband and wife just seem like a couple of tedious rich bores. It's beautifully made, but I found it unengaging apart from Hayakawa. The scene where he shows Edith the brand ('That means it belongs to me') is a classic moment of 3-dimensional villainy, eliciting both fear and respect from Edith, and from us.

Also saw Hell's Hinges - all good, but my god the apocalyptic climax pulled the carpet out from under me, and rocketed this to quite a high position on my list.

[lubitsch]

Also saw Hell's Hinges - all good, but my god the apocalyptic climax pulled the carpet out from under me, and rocketed this to quite a high position on my list.

Yeah, being accustomed to the Western as a genre where the west is conquered and a civilization build which is pretty much always the underlying theme of classical westerns in one way or another, it's shocking to see that this is not necessarily the only way Westerns were told in early times. Another good example of the 10s being more adventurous than the following decades up to the 60s.

[colinr0380]

I was also amazed at the merciless portrayal of the preacher as well, poking fun at the way that he is pushed into service he is not fit for, and of the self-deluded people that he preaches to. I suppose it all gets balanced out by the reforming gunfighter and old Testament inferno climax though, but there already seems to be an assumption there that the audience will be far more attracted to the nominal 'bad guy' of the piece who turns out to be good rather than in propping up representatives of powerful institutions no matter how deeply flawed they may be.

I wonder if that attitude could be more generally applied to filmmakers of the period who, being pioneers themselves, were more comfortable with anarchy and poking fun at established institutions and that this was something that the studio system, with almost factory-style production methods, stifled?

[swo17]

Any idea what the one filmed from a rickshaw is called?

That is another very good one. IMDb lists it as Le village de Namo - Panorama pris d'une chaise à porteurs (Namo Village: View from a Rickshaw).

[Gregory]

I’ve been re-watching the Edison set to decide which films to vote for. This is the third or fourth time around on most of these. It’s remarkable how many I really don’t want to watch again all that much, and yet there are the choice few that don’t diminish at all on repeated viewings. I'd like to discuss some favorites other than The Passer-by but don't want to put too much into one post. I have been meaning to reply to this:

The film's 'importance' in history is secured by its four seamless dolly shots, and you certainly get a sense of what an impact these must have had when you've plowed through the several hours of well-and-truly-chained-camera on the previous discs. But as in Hypocrites, the camerawork serves the emotional narrative of the story, bringing us closer to the protagonist (beautifully played by Marc MacDermott) while we learn of his tragic story, then pulling us away again when he has to take his leave, and resume his role as a passing stranger. A textbook case of how cinema can at once make us identify with a character, and hold us at a safe distance from them. All fifteen minutes of the thing are masterful though, like Hypocrites a series of deftly arranged tableaux, showing an incredibly mature understanding of how a shot can be framed so as to suggest a character's situation; here, the protagonist is often hemmed in by symmetrical arrangements of objects which hang, vulture-like, over him, and of course the dolly shots help to accentuate these effects. It's a miracle of a film, and I urge everyone to see it or re-visit it.

I agree with what you've praised about this remarkable film. The main character has so much more depth and complexity than those in most other one-reelers, and in a way it's remarkable because he's essentially passive. I've gotten a lot out of this on repeat viewings when

Spoiler

the twist ending

is not at all the point
I don’t want this to come across as slighting the film, but I wonder if some of those effects of the décor and composition were a happy accident. I don’t doubt that there was intentional symmetry in the placement of actors around the main character, for example the spectators in the balconies of the stock exchange, or the brokers behind him in the dolly shot toward him near the end of the film. I recall noticing a similar chandelier over him in more than one of the office sets, which may add to the meanings you observe. On the other hand, I've noted rather similar use of office décor in a number of the more standard works from the teens. As highly as I think of The Passer-by, I’m still unsure about the director, Apfel, partly because he went on to co-direct the awful and highly unimaginitive The Squaw Man not long after. (And my intention is not to hammer away at early DeMille again, really.) I'm curious as to how much control he really had over the filming. He did get a co-writing credit, as well.
I’m trying to remember if I’ve seen any of Apfel’s other works as a director on DVD.

[Sloper]

Thanks for the response, Gregory. I don't have the film to hand, so apologies if any of this is inaccurate...

Spoiler

Consider the first dolly shot: MacDermott stands at the head of the table; behind him, looming over him, is the portrait of his lost love, which he will not see until the end of the film; flanking the portrait are two footmen. The camera movement, as I remember it, stops at the point where MacDermott is framed perfectly between the footmen, and on a second viewing this accentuates their unseen harbinger-like status. When the shot then dissolves to MacDermott's own bachelor party, I think the footmen are replaced by candles or something like that; there are a few other shots where you get this sort of arrangement, though not throughout the film (this would have become visually monotonous).

Re-watching the film, I find that the composition at the beginning sort of reverberates through subsequent scenes - we know that this woman is still hanging over the protagonist, waiting to deal yet another blow to his happiness, and this really strengthens the tragic quality of the story.

At the end, when we come to the final dolly shot, the footmen have gone (I think we see the vases that were standing behind them, or something) in preparation for the moment when the hero turns around and sees the portrait. This would have made for a less effective climax if the footmen had still been present, as they would have been required to react to the passer-by's reaction, so to speak, and I can't imagine how that could have been done well. As it is, those footmen retain an impersonal quality which, even on a first viewing, conjures the necessary sense of foreboding.

So I do think a lot of thought has been put into the mise-en-scène here, though I agree that a lot of the time these things are probably more 'happy accidents' than carefully planned effects. But then again, the best bits of films are often happy accidents - what I like about The Passer-by is that you don't have to watch it with great care and attention to pick out the aspects that make it valuable and important: it just works naturally, it feels right and looks right. I haven't seen any of Apfel's other films, though, so he may or may not deserve the credit for this one.

In other news, I watched The Outlaw and His Wife for a second time. I found it a bit of a drag on a first viewing, mainly, as it seemed to me, because of the frame rate issue. (I'm a slow reader at the best of times, and like swo17 I had to rewind a few of those intertitles...) So this time I watched the film on my computer and decreased the playback speed to about 0.65x (you can do this on InterVideo), to the point where the characters' actions looked natural. Overall I'd say this improved the film a lot: it's just impossible to take it seriously when everybody's racing around like the Keystone Cops, but slowed down the evocation of 'harsh but idyllic' pastoral life comes across far more strongly, and the typically wonderful use of locations counts for a lot more. It becomes quite an immersive experience, in fact, especially with the music turned off. I came away feeling like I'd spent time in the mountains, bathing in waterfalls and washing clothes in boiling springs. It was disorienting to return to the reality of my dingy hotel room in Glasgow.

Having said all that, I still didn't warm to the film, and was heartily glad when it was over. The problem, for me, lies with the story and the characters. Kari and Halla are fundamentally difficult to like or identify with. If we are seeing the seeds of Bergman here, I'm afraid that doesn't help: I can't stand The Seventh Seal, primarily because I have to sit through it grinding my teeth and wishing the whole cast of characters would hurry up and die; I wish I could put my finger on why I hate them so much, but the best I can come up with is that they're cute and quaint, earthy and boisterous, and I'm supposed to love that about them.

I would disagree with lubitsch about Sjostrom's acting with regard to Terje Vigen or The Phantom Carriage, but in Outlaw the accusations of hamminess are entirely justified. There are at least two cringeworthy shots of Kari bringing a dead bird home with a maniacally happy grin on his face, and a similar one when he's bathing in the waterfall; worse still are the moments when he's driven to extremes of anger or fear (especially the sheep-stealing scene) and his whole face inflates visibly, his eyes goggling out of their sockets. The actress playing Halla isn't much better, always reacting to everything as much as physically possible, and never missing an opportunity to burst out into strained, thigh-slapping laughter.

But the fatal flaw here is that, despite their misfortunes, the central couple are so bloody happy for most of the film. Even when they're driven into the wilderness, this only seems to improve their lot - I realise that's the point, but it makes for a dramatically inert film. The sub-plot involving Arnes' jealousy makes for one very effective moment of suspense, but otherwise it's dealt with perfunctorily, and then suddenly the bailiff and his cronies arrive out of the blue. It all feels so slack and arbitrary. And I simply find it hard to get engaged in this story of a couple whose 'only law was their love', when the film provides so few reasons to like or care about this couple. Only in the final act did the film really draw me in, and gather some tragic force. Maybe I'm just a miserable git, eh?

On a more positive note, I loved The Thieving Hand (1908). One of the few comedies from this era, so far, that really makes me laugh out loud. Great combination of special effects and physical comedy - a worthy precursor to Dr. Strangelove. For those who don't have the first Treasures disc, here it is, and fans of trick films will also want to check out the even-more-pioneering (though not as fun) Princess Nicotine.

Finally... The Land Beyond the Sunset (also on Treasures I) caught me off guard with its ending, which is poignant and ambiguous to a completely unexpected degree. Beautiful final shot. I'd love to know what audiences of the time made of this one!

[thirtyframesasecond]

Watched two more early Lubitsch films; I Don't Want To Be A Man and The Doll. Ossi Oswalda superb in both as always. The former has an incredibly daring, risqué plot development.

[Tommaso]

While still waiting for the delivery of all the Kino discs from the recent sale at deepdiscount (so that I can finally say something about "Hypocrites" or "The Avenging Conscience", for instance), I at least immersed myself into a little more Bauer recently, namely the three films on Vol.7 of Milestone's edition of Early Russian Cinema.

To my own surprise, I found the oldest of the three films, "A Child of the Big City" (1914), to be perhaps the most impressive. The film details the life story of a poor working girl climbing the social ladder and becoming ever more ruthless in the process, most obviously in the way she treats her would-be lover, and the ending of the film is a knock-out (but not unbelievable!) in this respect. We get an equally subtle portrait of the 'rich world' here as in the films on the BFI disc, but the film shows more distance to this world and its subjects (rather unlike the films by Pastrone I mentioned earlier, despite obvious similarities), but not in the sense of judging them, but almost fatalistically accepting that stories like this inevitably happen. A great cast and impeccable direction, too.

The second film, "The 1002 ruse", seemed comparatively minor to me, showing that Bauer was perhaps not quite as good in comedy as he was in drama. A nice little ribald marriage comedy, nonetheless; something that Lubitsch would have pulled off perhaps a little more elaborately a few years later.

Finally, "Daydreams", considered by some - or so I hear - as the 'quintessential' Bauer film. And indeed the story of a man finding a new lover who looks exactly like his dead wife and is asked by him to behave like her ("Vertigo", anyone?) has those same eerie resonances you find in "After Death" or "The Dying Swan". While I ultimately prefer those two films for their even greater intensity and beauty, "Daydreams" works very well and has an absolutely astonishing sequence detailing a rather morbid theatre performance. Great stuff.

As the discussion period comes closer to its end (unless we all require an extension): Sloper's post here reminds me that I have to re-watch "The Outlaw and his Wife" soon, too. But also let's not forget the many great films from Denmark that were not yet discussed here to a great extent, especially the two Christensen films from the DFI and the two early Science-fiction films released by the same company on one truly excellent disc, Holger-Madsen's "Himmelskibet/A Trip to Mars" and "Verdens Undergang/The End of the World" by August Blom. I hope I manage to re-watch them all before the end of the discussion period. Rather vague memories apart from that I finding them rather astonishing when I first watched them some years ago, so this is only a reminder that these films should be seen to get a more complete idea of the era. And of course don't forget to watch Stiller's "Sir Arne" if you haven't done so yet.

[essrog]

Tommaso parenthetically brought up the possibility of an extension for the deadline of this project. Is it too soon to talk about it officially? I'm wondering if other people, like me, feel they'll need more time. Among other reasons, a lot of films I need to watch, like Hypocrites, Wild and Wooly, and one of the Griffith Biograph shorts discs, have been on "short wait" in my Netflix queue forever.

[swo17]

I still have quite a lot in my "to watch" pile (and I haven't exactly been slouching), several still listed as "short waits" from Netflix, and a handful of titles that I'm still waiting to get from my local library. It would be nice if the deadline could be moved until at least the end of May, possibly later.

As for numbers, which we also said we would discuss near the end, I will easily be able to fill out a top 50, and even then there should be some heartbreaking exclusions. Which is right about where I like to be.

[lubitsch]

It looks like we all agree that we should take at least the May fully, so I move the deadline to the 1st of June. That needn't to be our final date either, but keep in mind that this era offers the temptation of watching everything important and thinking one can make it while the next decades have so many more films that nobody will try.

[Dr Amicus]

Pushing the deadline back sounds good to me.

At the moment, I'm about half way there on contenders. If I can't make it at least 50 (and preferably more) without going into my second division, then I won't submit a list. But I still have a lot to get through.

Anyway, from making my through the 2nd Treasures set, there are a few absolute gems there - some of which have already been mentioned. From Leadville to Aspen is remarkable - at least the travelling shots. The interior cutaways (especially the first) really didn't work for me, but perhaps they would have had a greater impact on initial screenings, especially of they really did look like the interior of a Hale's Tour. Still, those exterior sequences are something else. Also remarkable for its exteriors is The Invaders which, although not currently ranking as high as Hell's Hinges in my list, is going to be a strong contender. The depth of staging, especially in the exterior shots, has a naturalism which acts as an interesting counter to the melodramatics of the plot. It's worth popping over to IMDb where at least one reviewer seems to dramatically misread the film.

Gretchen the Greenhorn was a big surprise. I watched it before reading the notes in the accompanying book, and was genuinely surprised by the naturalism (that word again!) of the acting and staging. Indeed, the way the narrative developed, I kept fearing it was about to become a Children's Film Foundation film where

Spoiler

the kids single-handedly save the day

and was pleasantly surprised when

Spoiler

it's largely left to the police.

Considering how this could have turned out (especially if Griffith had made it - not necessarily a criticism I should add), this feels like a more modern film than my (admittedly comparatively little) experience of the era would lead me to expect.

[Tommaso]

It looks like we all agree that we should take at least the May fully, so I move the deadline to the 1st of June. That needn't to be our final date either, but keep in mind that this era offers the temptation of watching everything important and thinking one can make it while the next decades have so many more films that nobody will try.

Thanks for moving the deadline! You're certainly right about the temptation of watching everything important, but if I look at this era specifically, it might be that many of us probably watch even the important films for the first time, or that former viewings are a long time ago and memory needs to be refreshed. I can't see me watching "Nosferatu" or "Metropolis" again only to find out where they belong on my 20s list, for instance. But I'm sure I should watch "Birth of the Nation" again before ranking it, not to speak of some less famous films.

[cysiam]

Watched two more early Lubitsch films; I Don't Want To Be A Man and The Doll. Ossi Oswalda superb in both as always. The former has an incredibly daring, risqué plot development.

I just watched both of these as well, along with The Oyster Princess. The Doll quickly became one of my favorites, it's quite funny and charming. He handles the fairy tale quality of it superbly. What really surprised me is how light and quick these films move. They seem much more modern than 1910s. I thought The Oyster Princess was the weakest of the three (that foxtrot sequence is incredible though) but they were all delightful.

[myrnaloyisdope]

I just watched Lubitsch's The Merry Jail last night, and it was certainly a lot of fun. The main plot was reused again in So This Is Paris? so it felt a bit derivative, but of course that's only because I'd seen the later usage first. I noticed the rhythm of the banquet sequence was very similar to that of the foxtrot sequence in The Oyster Princess. The regular cuts of the band playing faster and faster, along with the close of black bellhops, are both similar to what Lubitsch would do later in The Oyster Princess. But this film was definitely Lubitschian in tone and fits in pretty nicely with his silent work. It's not as polished, but the talent is there.

I also watched Shoe Salon Pinkus as well last week, and while it was not especially memorable it was pretty fun too. It was very similar although much better executed to Carl Wilhelm's Pride of the Firm. Both feature Lubitsch as the sneaky but good hearted shopboy trying to make his way up the corporate ladder. It's kind of odd that Lubitsch's character is such a cad, given his less than good looks, but somehow he makes it work.

I'll probably wait till next month (when my French improves a bit more) to tackle the French intertitled copy of Madame Dubarry I have.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Can I rather vainly plug my own blog, set up specifically for this project?

It's more a viewing log with brief comments than a reviews site, but it allows me to keep a proper track of what I've seen and what will ultimately make my final list.
http://intogreatsilents.wordpress.com/