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

[swo17]

Weekend Viewing Write-Up: "You're Going to Hell" Edition

Where Are My Children?
I can see some modern audiences being offended/repulsed by this, but then, I imagine it threw audiences at the time as well. Unlike, say, Birth of a Nation, whose ideas I understand were fairly commonplace at the time, Children seems like it was probably fairly out there even then, but it's made with such bold conviction and such mastery from Weber that it simply bowls me over. My own position on abortion is that it's a really big gray area, so this film gives me a lot to think about, and it's not entirely one-sided either. (See the series of scenes early on that show the negative effects of having unwanted children.) And regardless of your position on the matter, I would think that the main story of a man desperately wanting children and fighting for an ideal in his work, only to find that he is being betrayed on both fronts by his wife is just great, devastating melodrama. And then of course, there is that whopper of an ending, which has already been discussed here, but I might just point out that this is a great example of the role that musical accompaniment can play in adding to one's appreciation of a silent film. The way the music swells up in that final scene is just perfect, really driving the point home.

L'inferno
This is quite impressive for an early '10s feature, with great visual moments packed into just about every scene. I think the reason the film works so well is that it really dives in and dares to render all the colorful hell tortures described in Dante's Inferno with all the cinematic invention available at the time. For instance, when we are introduced to the victims of lust, thrown about by every wind, this could have perhaps been conceived as a large group of people running around aimlessly on the ground, but instead we are treated to people actually floating around in the wind in a nice visual effect. There is also just a really creepy atmosphere to the whole film, aided by scenes of masses of naked people writhing around in agony, or a particularly chilling scene where hundreds of people are buried in the ground with only their heads exposed. (One of the guys in this level of hell is sentenced to an eternity of having his skull devoured by a man he had starved to death when they had both been alive. Seems to me that the guy eating the skull for eternity has a slightly better deal, but not by much.) Final viewing note: The DVD of this features a score by Tangerine Dream. What I heard of it seemed more or less hell-appropriate, so I took the opportunity to play Tchaikovsky's "Francesca da Ramini" over the film instead. Which didn't quite work either, but I suppose it's always good to catch up on the classics.

[zedz]

Continuing the mop-up of films I needed to rewatch:

Blind Husbands (Von Stroheim)

There hasn’t been much mention of this to date, but I assume it’s another automatic inclusion for many voters. I had forgotten just how great it was until I saw it again, and it’s shot up my list as a consequence. It’s one of those late teens films whose storytelling is so fluid that it could just as easily come from the mid-twenties.

Von Stroheim is already brilliant at expressing his characters’ psychology through the mise en scene, but the big surprise is how nuanced that psychology is. As with so many of his later films, there’s a brutal lack of sentimentality about human behaviour in the film, and nobody in the film gets off easy (except for maybe strong, silent Sepp, but he’s sort of creepy, and what’s up with that dog?).

A great yarn, with great use of locations and a great, detailed performance by Von Stroheim, and it’s such a pleasure to see sophisticated effects, such as a rack focus into a mirror that then reveals what a character is thinking, integrated effortlessly into a flowing narrative.

Broken Blossoms (Griffith)

This has been my favourite Griffith ever since I first saw it, and it was always going to figure on my list. This time around I thought more about what makes this film work for me where a lot of his others don’t.

One of the big barriers for me with Griffith is his conception of character – thin, to say the least – and his handling of performance. The old bugbear about Victorian stage performances isn’t quite fair, since Griffith had a lot to do with updating, at the very least, that stage tradition for the screen, but for me he had very mixed success getting his performers to transform that mode of performance into something that worked on screen.

When it works, however, it works brilliantly, and Lillian Gish is the great exemplar of it. And, of course, she’s unforgettable in Broken Blossoms, even though her performance is as stylised and artificial as they come. She even manages to make that ‘forcing a smile’ routine powerful, largely because she does it in such a steadfastly mechanical way that the resulting combination of lunatic grin around the mouth and abject terror in the eyes is so unnerving. It’s a completely synthetic acting moment, but it works brilliantly for the story.

Broken Blossoms is such a triumph for me because in this film she’s matched with two other exemplary, though wildly different, performances. The film is a stunning showcase for Griffith’s different approaches to screen acting, and a lot of the film’s power derives from the collision of styles. All of the characters are archetypes, and they’re built from the ground up to very efficiently represent the ideas they embody, and this also applies to the style of acting adopted for each one of them.

Thus Barthelmess’s disillusioned pacifist is rendered in subdued pantomime, giving the impression – in a silent film in which the character is given intertitled dialogue – of a mute performance. Gish is a tentative, shrinking embodiment of terrified innocence, her body effacing itself and her face doing the heavy emotional lifting. Donald Crisp, on the other hand, embodies brutality with a jabbing, strutting physical performance. None of these performances is complex, but they’re all superbly effective, doubly so in contrast and combination with one another.

The scenes between Crisp and Gish remain today some of the most harrowing depictions of child abuse on film, and a lot of their residual power derives from the deliberate clash of the acting styles. Crisp feinting and Gish flinching – as part of their ordinary everyday interaction – is just one horrifying detail, and when he really lets loose, it’s still hard to watch.

Little Nemo (McCay)

McCay’s Sinking of the Lusitania and Gertie the Dinosaur are assured of places on my list. But I might also find space for this pioneering animation. I had initially discounted it because Gertie did much of the same stuff – the prefatory palaver is practically identical – as well or better, but once the animation itself starts, it’s incredible. Much as he did with the comic strip form, he leaps into a brand new medium with more vision and ambition than all but a rare few of his artistic descendants would manage. In fact, for 1911 he’s even well ahead of most live-action directors in his vision of cinema, with movement in depth, colour and blissful play with form. McCay immediately understands that the strength of animation is that it can do things that could never be done with straight photography, so his characters stretch and distort, or materialize in slices, or recede into the distance on a dragon. These are a few of the most joyous and imaginative minutes of film from the entire silent era.

(Plus there’s the small bonus of getting to see rotund George McManus in the framing film, a startling ringer for Jiggs.)

Unseen Cinema

I also took the opportunity to work my way through the shorts from this period on the wonderful Unseen Cinema set. Here are some picks that don’t seem to have been mentioned to date.

Scene from an Elevator Ascending the Eiffel Tower (White, 1900) – One of those accidentally compelling films, more fascinating now for what it couldn’t avoid showing – the dark beams moving across the frame and obscuring the view – than what it was trying to show – the view itself. The degeneration of the image on these Exposition film is also very attractive: they almost look like charcoal sketches.

Down the Hudson (Armitage / Weed, 1903) – A pixillated river journey which I half expect to turn into an early version of Rybczynski’s hilarious Oh, I Can’t Stop!. The simple idea of the film is strong enough, but what I love about it is how its movement and rhythms attain complexity according to the proximity of the camera to various floating objects and landmasses, or the movement of its vessel in relation to these things. Rather than following a single accelerated pace, it presents modulations and reflections on ideas of speed.

Beginning of a Skyscraper (Bonine, 1902) – Like the Lumiere’s wonderful washerwomen film, this is a single-shot actuality that is memorable simply for its unusual composition. Looking down into a pit, perspective is crushed, and the entire field of the frame is alive with layered actions. A modernist, industrialised scroll painting.

Coney Island at Night (Porter, 1905) – This one will definitely be on my list. It’s one of the most visually beautiful films of cinema’s first decade and it’s a hell of a technical accomplishment, but its power derives, yet again, from the accidental. Porter managed to get the exposure just right to register the amusement park’s nighttime neon, and he combines this with slow, stately panoramas and tilts. However, what we’re really looking at is almost invisible pixilation, as the longer exposure required to register the night shots reduces the frame rate drastically.

Because the lights are generally static and the surrounding darkness swallows all other details, the pixilation doesn’t register, and the foregrounded movement is that of the quite slow (extremely slow, when filmed) pans and tilts of the camera.

However, some details escape the artificial stateliness, and a spinning ride vibrates frantically like an uncanny automaton in a Quay Brothers film (okay, like the monkey under glass in Street of Crocodiles), or dark figures flit at high speed between the lights or in front of the camera, ghostly human presences that have otherwise been eerily wiped out of the pristine world of the film. I find the tension between the slow, stately movement of the camera and the furious activity hidden within the frame really compelling and formally sophisticated, even if it is entirely accidental.

[Tommaso]

Blind Husbands (Von Stroheim)

There hasn’t been much mention of this to date, but I assume it’s another automatic inclusion for many voters. I had forgotten just how great it was until I saw it again, and it’s shot up my list as a consequence. It’s one of those late teens films whose storytelling is so fluid that it could just as easily come from the mid-twenties.

So much so that I actually didn't realise that it belongs on this list I've always mentally automatically transferred it to the 20s, it seems, so a lot of thanks for reminding me. Of course it will inevitably figure rather high on my final list.

Another film that could be from the 20s and should not be forgotten is Dreyer's "The President" (1919). Not as great as most of his later works, of course, but already a very accomplished film that shows a lot of Dreyer's usual edginess and uncompromising attitude to filmmaking.

[nsps]

Quick eligibility question: IMDb lists part one of Lang's SPIDERS as 1919, and part two 1920. Do we count these as two separate films, or one? If one, is it 1919 or 1920?

Thanks!

[swo17]

Spiders counts as one film and is eligible for this pre-1920s list.

[knives]

We've already decided, can't remember the page, that Spiders is one film and is eligible for the list.

Another film that could be from the 20s and should not be forgotten is Dreyer's "The President" (1919). Not as great as most of his later works, of course, but already a very accomplished film that shows a lot of Dreyer's usual edginess and uncompromising attitude to filmmaking.

I can't seem to find this on either DVD or Internet.

[lubitsch]

Another film that could be from the 20s and should not be forgotten is Dreyer's "The President" (1919). Not as great as most of his later works, of course, but already a very accomplished film that shows a lot of Dreyer's usual edginess and uncompromising attitude to filmmaking.

I can't seem to find this on either DVD or Internet.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews8/president.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; available via the DFI or the Edition Filmmuseum page. Simple googling with Dreyer, President and DVD. Works for almost every film.

As for the question about The Spiders and forgetting Blind Husbands would you folks please
read my initial post?

[HerrSchreck]

Easy there, bro-- be nice... there's no running post blinking on every page reminding all readers what questions about which films are answered in your first post.

[domino harvey]

...but he's German

[knives]

Another film that could be from the 20s and should not be forgotten is Dreyer's "The President" (1919). Not as great as most of his later works, of course, but already a very accomplished film that shows a lot of Dreyer's usual edginess and uncompromising attitude to filmmaking.

I can't seem to find this on either DVD or Internet.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews8/president.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; available via the DFI or the Edition Filmmuseum page. Simple googling with Dreyer, President and DVD. Works for almost every film.

As for the question about The Spiders and forgetting Blind Husbands would you folks please
read my initial post?

Should have specified that all of my players are PAL allergic.

[lubitsch]

Easy there, bro-- be nice... there's no running post blinking on every page reminding all readers what questions about which films are answered in your first post.

But I want to be evil and nasty . No, seriously it's just that I've read in all these earlier editions of these lists that people noticed after the vote tally that they forgot to include this or that film and I know from some books on certain topics that the authors also completely overlooked this or that film and I've a rather fascistoid and pedantic attitude towards that, so that's why I prepared the first post and am preparing one for the 20s list which will be even more work (and probably nobody will try to read to the end). If one invests a part of its life into watching these crummy old silents, one should take 10 minutes off for the viewing guide in order not to forget anything important.

Another point as I skipped now through the whole thread and we are nearing the end regardless of a possible minor extension into June, the following films or filmmakers haven't been discussed at all or not very much:
Melies (there are many points made about Mitchell & Kenyon, Edison & Porter, the Lumieres and so on, but Melies is somwhow a rare guest).
Emile Cohl (McCay and Starewicz fared here far better though Cohl is available through a seperate DVD)
Griffith's Romance of Happy Valley and the lesser The Greatest Queation are not mentioned at all, I believe which is a pity for those who liked True Heart Susie though already there are not many vocal fans. I'm among those like Schickel or Gunning who think that the pastoral director Griffith is superior to Griffith, the man of epics.
The Blue Bird remains no less elusive than the blue flower even though a fine DVD is available. For god's sake, it's simply a beautiful film, a slideshow of tasteful and graceful decors.
Chaplin Okay, zedz did some viewing, but are you all taking him for granted and know him by heart?
Mary Pickford this is for me the biggest disappointment how few interest there is for an actress who essentially tried to create a female Chaplin (admittedly more conventional as a woman had to be) persona and pushed her directors towards more visual story telling.
The Wicked Darling as an early Browning/Chaney seems to spark no interest.
Nerven is a not completely successful experiment but shot in a very interesting style.
The Sentimental Bloke shouldn't be underestimated just because it comes from the small Australian cinematography and while Nell Shipman is no Lois Weber her Back to God's Country has lots of fine outdoor photography.
And does nobody really give a damn about the first feature docus like Battle of the Somme and South?

Should have specified that all of my players are PAL allergic.

Oh, I see. I don't know about these PAL problems for US viewers, but is it that difficult/expensive to solve? Obviously as a European I would go mad if I couldn't access all the NTSC films from the US, but the other way across the ocean one is also missing enough fine things here and there. And the DFI has really done an admirable job in preserving the Danish film heritage for the wide publiuc even though the transfer of President is a bit botched, the intertitles are sometimes hard to read, but they learned from their mistakes.

[Tommaso]

Easy there, bro-- be nice... there's no running post blinking on every page reminding all readers what questions about which films are answered in your first post.

For sure, but ignoring/forgetting about first posts can get you red triangles elsewhere on the net (happened to me recently, as you probably noticed), so this is still somewhat of the more good-natured variety

Seriously though, re-reading that first post gives me the opportunity to give a thumps-up to Antonio Giulio Bragaglia's "Thais", not discussed before I think. Another 'decadent' film in the mode of Pastrone's "Il fuoco" and "Tigre reale", but, as Lubitsch indicates, with somewhat of a futurist angle to it. Quite astonishing set designs and a great femme fatale, plus a lot of rather unusual formalist (for want of a better word) visual ideas.

EDIT: Lubitsch, just saw your last post. Hope you understand this is all good-natured. And yes, Mélies, and Tourneur's "Blue Bird". Will have to re-watch the latter to say something precise here, but it's quite definitely in my top ten for sure. "South" is also on the list, though I probably won't rewatch it, but thanks for the reminder. A very impressive film, and a must-see for anyone interested in the 'colder' areas of this planet. Almost 'bergfilm' of a different sort (or something like a Flaherty or Fanck-predecessor in more general terms), though decidely documentary in nature.

As to Mary Pickford: I think I at least mentioned "Cinderella", "The Pride of the Clan" and "The poor little rich girl", and I guess they will all be on my list. Mary is a marvel.

[knives]

Bringing up[ something that I don't think is has been mentioned since the first page, but everyone should at least rent the Mad Love disc from Milestone. The Dying Swan is one of the saddest ballads to ever be filmed. You can make a serious secant line from Bauer to either Bresson or, probably more appropriately, Dreyer. The movie starts off slow, but about 11 minutes into it you get this fast paced emotion set to these slow formed images which does this unique sort of dance on ones feelings. The title ballet itself is nearly as striking as The Red Shoes if for all the opposite reasons. It's done absolutely simply (we just see her tip toe around) but there's something in that which I can't describe. A true forty minute tour-de-force.

[Gregory]

Can anyone tell me how quickly the DFI ships to the U.S., generally? Are they ever as fast as Eureka, or would I probably be looking at two to three weeks?

[reno dakota]

Can anyone tell me how quickly the DFI ships to the U.S., generally? Are they ever as fast as Eureka, or would I probably be looking at two to three weeks?

The only disc I've ordered from the DFI took about a week and a half to arrive--ordered Mar. 25 and received Apr. 05--though I have no idea if that's typical.

[zedz]

Seriously though, re-reading that first post gives me the opportunity to give a thumps-up to Antonio Giulio Bragaglia's "Thais", not discussed before I think.

Oops, that's one of the first things I viewed. Looks like I forgot to post my thoughts on it, which were:

Thais

This was a film I’d been searching for for decades, having seen an amazing still in Roud’s Cinema: a Critical Dictionary (quite the site for amazing stills – I’m still desperate to see Sjostrom’s The Girls from Stormycroft on the basis of the extraordinary sophistication of the mirror shot reproduced in that book). It looked like a futurist fantasia.

The truth is more complex, and it’s obscured as well, as the print I managed to see was extremely dupey and quite incomplete, its first two acts elided into less than ten minutes, while acts 3 and 4 play out over half an hour.

The story, a kind of pre-L’Inhumaine affair about une grande pricktease, is very text-heavy, and for much of its length it falls into the lurching syntactical pattern of explanatory titlecard / illustrative shot / explanatory titlecard / illustrative shot. The story and performances are unremarkable, but there are plenty of felicities of mise-en-scene to keep your interest. Many excellent location shots, including beautifully spacious land / riverscapes, and there’s also a drunken party in which a static shot fogs in and out woozily – unless this is a case of sympathetic print damage. The incredible art direction hinted at by that long-ago still is there (how can you not love a room decorated with eyes?), but the futurism doesn’t infect the entire film as I hoped. Rather, it defines the heroine’s arty digs: “son studio décoré selon les principles les plus absolus de l’art decadent.”

So, not exactly what I expected, but well worth seeking out. But then, in the last few minutes, something very exciting happens. The explanatory title cards ease up, the frontal framing loosens up, the camera starts adding wilder angles and close-ups, and the wild décor takes over, to deliver one of the great death scenes of early cinema in a very effective montage that makes the most of the abstraction of the design. It’s as if, in its death throes, the film finally starts to truly breathe.

--------------------

As for some of lubitsch's scolds, I'll plead guilty to not having got to much Cohl (though Phantasmagorie looks like it will make my list) or any of The Blue Bird, and to being picky with Pickford.

I have, however, watched the entirety of Flicker Alley's big Méliès set, and I'm completely cured. I think lubitsch observed somewhere in this thread that seeing so much Méliès in a row can be punishing, and he's right. The frontal interiors became quite suffocating, and all the amazing camera tricks in the world couldn't bring the films out of those particular doledrums for me. A guy's head could explode, a train could fly, any number of bathing beauties could parade by, but I became much more excited by a mildly oblique camera angle or a simple location shot, and boy, were they few and far between. So no Méliès on my list, I'm afraid.

It's the sad end of a very long love affair for me (hey, at age eleven I gave a talk to my class at school about Georges Méliès!), but it's one important aspect of this particular exercise that has recalibrated my appreciation of early cinema.

Nerven is in contention, though as lubitsch notes, it's not all up to the level of its very striking set pieces. And I like The Sentimental Bloke a lot, but not enough for it to squeak into my favourite fifty. When this film was revived in the 90s for our local film festival the promotional still used was one of the intertitles, which read, simply: "Dammit Girl, No!" Another great t-shirt that never was.

[HerrSchreck]

[The Blue Bird remains no less elusive than the blue flower even though a fine DVD is available. For god's sake, it's simply a beautiful film, a slideshow of tasteful and graceful decors..

AMEN. Zedz, you, for not getting around to this, get the beating with the stale trout that tommasso gets for waiting so long to get to the 1915 Walsh. This movie is quite simply unlike anything fore or aft-- a sheer delight from start to finish, feating unbelievably naturalistic performances from the child actors, an ease and a joy in the special effects which are so whimsically indulged, and a visual style that prefigures both Caligari and some of my high school mushroom trips. You simply must must see this film.

The Wicked Darling as an early Browning/Chaney seems to spark no interest...

With all the broohah about the alleged birth of the ganster picture via (the extremely excellent but late to the picnic, genre-wise) UNDERWORLD by Sternberg, all participants owe it to themselves to grab the wonderful double feature from Image Ent featuring this and the very tight and picturesque Tourneur VICTORY (with a lovely little booklet by the ever-Chaney-devoted Mike Blake). I love the Wicked D, but the legit hobo with all the buttons, and the love for gutter slime exhibited by Browning this early in the medium, puts it very close to my heart. Chaney is wonderfully vicious in this... warming up for THE PENALTY one year away.

Nerven is a not completely successful experiment but shot in a very interesting style....

Agreed, too bad the narrative and tempo don't match the utterly strange and morose style and execution of this one-of-a-kind film. Well captures what was generally (and rather simplistically) perceived to be the mental illness of an entire nation. Though I guess if you haven't shaken all the loose parts out of your head yet, it should follow that your films will be a bit frazzled.

And does nobody really give a damn about the first feature docus like Battle of the Somme and South?...

I just recently saw the new resto of SOMME, and was impressed. Haven't gotten to SOUTH yet as I've been surviving on the fumes of THE FORBIDDEN QUEST (paired with LYRICAL NITRATE) for my south polar failure footage. Speaking of which, though these are manipulated pieces of pre-1920's found footage, and therefore probably not qualifying owing to the modern montage to which they are subject, I can't recommend them any more highly. Moving stuff. Pete Delpuit is an artist.

[zedz]

Haven't gotten to SOUTH yet as I've been surviving on the fumes of THE FORBIDDEN QUEST (paired with LYRICAL NITRATE) for my south polar failure footage.

Well, according to my c. 1913 Nansen's Book of Scandinavian Survival Etiquette, this allows me to slap you back with the same stale trout. So what do you say? I flip the Bird and you go South?

[HerrSchreck]

Haven't gotten to SOUTH yet as I've been surviving on the fumes of THE FORBIDDEN QUEST (paired with LYRICAL NITRATE) for my south polar failure footage.

Well, according to my c. 1913 Nansen's Book of Scandinavian Survival Etiquette, this allows me to slap you back with the same stale trout. So what do you say? I flip the Bird and you go South?

Jesus, z, that last sentence sounds like a not so coy invitation to uh gay porn..

Speaking of ick, I say we do a full blown ichthyological-cinematic dual, complete with seconds.

But beware, my second is a clever fellow....

[zedz]

The only rational response.

[HerrSchreck]

I'll see your rational response and raise you one obligatory, roly poly rejoinder.

[zedz]

Oh my God, there was a video for that? Now I'm officially excited.

[swo17]

Can anyone tell me how quickly the DFI ships to the U.S., generally? Are they ever as fast as Eureka, or would I probably be looking at two to three weeks?

I don't know about the DFI, but I believe you can get most anything from their catalog at Edition Filmmuseum. I recently ordered some Dreyers from them and they were on my doorstep something like three days later. (As they should be, considering how much the shipping costs.)

[Dr Amicus]

A couple of quick recommendations from the Europa Film Treasures site.

Prinsengracht - a Barge journey down an Amsterdam Canal. Absolutely lovely (and a great score here as well) - the slower pace than the more usual rail journeys means there's more time to look around, helped by some camera pans which just add to the 'bobbing along' of a water journey. I was gutted when this finished - expect this to make my list.

Christophe Colomb - historical epic, Pathe style. Most of it is pretty standard stuff, but the hand tinting is impressive, and I find the Court sequence genuinely impressive in its staging. Much of it leaves a rather iffy taste in the mouth (it is most certainly of its time) but the one sequence might just push it onto my list.

[nsps]

Another film that could be from the 20s and should not be forgotten is Dreyer's "The President" (1919). Not as great as most of his later works, of course, but already a very accomplished film that shows a lot of Dreyer's usual edginess and uncompromising attitude to filmmaking.

I can't seem to find this on either DVD or Internet.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews8/president.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; available via the DFI or the Edition Filmmuseum page. Simple googling with Dreyer, President and DVD. Works for almost every film.

As for the question about The Spiders and forgetting Blind Husbands would you folks please
read my initial post?

Sorry—I thought it had been mentioned so I searched the thread for "Lang Spiders" and got nothing back. I didn't want to do a find on every page and didn't think it was in the first page… (I was saving re-reading the post, which I did four months ago, until I was closer to finalizing my list.)