1920s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists project Vol. 3)

[nsps]

Oh the festival was a success as such and the second edition for next year is already a certain thing, Horne had more luck with HAXAN.
ROTAIE was one of the last important 20s silents I saw and frankly I was slightly disappointed. there are a few strong contenders in this genre of a young couple lost in a big city, LONESOME among them and Camerini's film struck me as a bit more melodramatic than it should have been.

I'm not sure if "young couple in a big city" is the best description for the film as a whole (though I do think the strongest part of the film is set in the big city anyhow).

[Sloper]

The Man Who Laughs didn't disappoint, in the sense that my god it's a spectacularly well-made film, with such rich period recreations and powerful imagery that I still feel immersed in its world, and (as in The Cat and the Canary) such playful camerawork that half the fun is waiting for the next shot. And yet, there's something important missing; like Waxworks, it did seem to drag a little at times, and I felt that was probably because I never cared about the central character, despite the inherent pathos of his situation. Or maybe because that pathos was taken for granted, and played on only in the most obvious ways. The scene where the crowd finds Gwynplaine embracing Dea, and they cackle at him while he shields his face with his hands, should be really heartbreaking, but somehow the way it's played doesn't ring true. There are lots of scenes like that, built up so strenuously and mechanically to seem tragic that they end up feeling oddly lifeless.

Veidt is amazing, of course, and works wonders in a role that necessarily restricts his range of expression - especially considering that his mouth and his teeth are some of his greatest assets as an actor. But his eyes are always the real focal point of his performances, and they work overtime here, at times seeming as if they're going to explode out of his head with sheer anguish. But just as the menacing Lon Chaney is better than the tragic Lon Chaney (for my money, anyway), so I can't help feeling that Veidt isn't so well suited as the protagonist of such a sentimental story. I only really found myself rooting for him during the highly effective climax, when he was running for his life -

Spoiler

and I haven't been that glad to see a happy ending for a long time. Incidentally, Kino provide (as an extra) the laboriously tragic ending of Hugo's novel, and apologies to any Hugo fans but it looks bloody awful!

After the other two Lenis, I was sort of hoping this one would prove that he could engage the emotions as well as dazzling with technique, but in this sense it was a little bit of a disappointment. Still a masterpiece in lots of ways, though, and a painful indicator of how much talent and promise this director had, and might have developed further if he'd lived.

On a less solemn note, Olga Boclanova gives one of the most truly sexy performances I've seen in a silent film. Shocking behaviour.

[nsps]

Well if I had any complaints about THE MAN WHO LAUGHS, they certainly wouldn't have to do with emotional connection. I think Veidt's performance is one of the most heartbreaking in film history, and would probably have carried a film made with a tenth of the artistry that Leni brought to this one. Also, the climax is absolutely stirring.

It occurs to me that I've never seen the film with the synchronized soundtrack of its time. Is that's what's on the DVD? Maybe it doesn't play as well…I'll have to give it a look.

[Sloper]

It is the Movietone soundtrack (bits of which I recognised from Sunrise...). It didn't work terribly well, but I kept it on out of historical interest. I definitely thought I'd try it silent the next time; maybe it will have more impact then.

[nsps]

Ah, just curious. I've always watched it with accompaniment rather than no sound, but always live. Never seen it with the Movietone track. It could also just be a simple matter of opinion of course.

[swo17]

A friend helped me make this: Kinugasa's A Page of Madness w/ the In the Nursery score.

The video still sucks but ITN really bring a whole new element to the film. I'd highly recommend checking this version out, even if you've already seen the film recently for this project.

[Tommaso]

Thanks a lot, swo. No longer having to synchronize film and cd by hand whenever wanting to watch this film is quite a treat for me. And I NEVER want to watch the film again without that ITN music...

[Steven H]

Thanks swo! Man of the hour. A good score can completely change the experience, of course. Before I got the Criterion Painleve set I watched The Stickleback's Egg on youtube accompanied by an obscure Boards of Canada track. I found it a match made in heaven. I know the forum tends to frown on such things generally, but sometimes they work.

I watched a very enjoyable silent short recently; Marcel Carne's Nogent, El Dorado du dimanche, which is a kid sister film to Siodmak's People On Sunday (though a bit more happy than pensive). I'm also making my way through the Digital Meme selection. When they first came out I watched them all, but I was more in the mood for modern filmmaking and nothing really stuck. This time around I'm considering (at least) The Dawning Sky and Orochi to be some of the finest films of the decade and I'm excited to reevaluate the rest. Despite their bearing the load of cliches that sentimental shimpa and simplistic chambara bring with them, they're both still visually striking and entertaining. Orochi deals with some universal class themes that still resonate and it's end / fight scene has more than stood the test of time.

[Michael Kerpan]

My favorite 20s Japanese film (at the moment) is Daisuke Ito's Jirokichi the Rat (released on DVD with subs by Digital Meme) -- which strikes me as a very worthy forerunner of Yamanaka's work a bit later.

Oops -- forgot that this was actually an early 30s film (but I still recommend it to anyone interested in early Japanese cinema, nonetheless).

[zedz]

A friend helped me make this: Kinugasa's A Page of Madness w/ the In the Nursery score.

The video still sucks but ITN really bring a whole new element to the film. I'd highly recommend checking this version out, even if you've already seen the film recently for this project.

Thanks a bunch. The only time I saw A Page of Madness In the Nursery were providing the live accompaniment.

(ducks brick)

[Tommaso]

On to the two Michael Kertesz (aka Michael Curtiz) films Lubitsch mentioned in his introduction.

Sodom und Gomorrha (1922): available in a good edition from the Austrian newspaper 'Der Standard' (at a rather cheap price), though a longer version off arte TV seems to exist, but perhaps it's just a framerate difference. I haven't watched this film again, so I quote what I wrote last year over in the Silent Film on DVD thread (some screencaps there, too):

"First, we have "Sodom und Gomorrha" (1921/22), directed by Michael Kertesz (much better known in later years as Michael Curtiz), or rather, the reconstruted 95 mins. of what was once a three-hour film and surely the first Austrian 'super-production'. As the title indicates, this is a somewhat pulpy but nicely fin de siècle 'moral tale' revolving around a femme fatale-figure who wreaks havoc on quite a few men's lives, and who is only 'reformed' when she has a nightmare about the biblical story which gives the film its title, and which is then of course acted out in full splendour in "Intolerance" fashion. Well, not a film that will change your world, but if you like silents which have great set designs and are clearly over-the-top in their depiction of 'decadence' vs 'holiness', all filmed in competent, though somewhat derivative fashion (everything from 'realism' to expressionism in here you could imagine), this will surely entertain you. I sensed a visible delight in Kertesz when bringing down his Sodom sets in "Last days of Pompeji" fashion...
That so much of the film is missing is sad, of course, but it's only really noticeable in the beginning which is paced much too fast in this version. The film is accompanied by a fittingly dramatic orchestral score by Helmut Imig."

Secondly, and only watched last night, Die Sklavenkönigin (1924) aka Moon of Israel: Well, it seems to me that Kertesz or his producers wanted to cash in again on the biblical scenes from the earlier film, but this time I find the result far less successful. It still looks like something out of "Intolerance", but for a 1924 film its simply too conventional for my taste. The rather weak story based on a late novel by Henry Rider Haggard (whose last works were only potboilers in no way comparable to the inventiveness of "She" or even only "King Solomon's Mines") doesn't help it either. It's basically the biblical tale of Israel in Egyptland with a love story and some religious ho-hum added to it. The film is rather stately and certainly visually impressive, and the 'Parting of the Red Sea' sequence is done really well for the time, as the fact that DeMille took the film out of circulation in the US at the time because he feared for the success of his own "Ten Commandments" might indicate. There's also a fine 'burning witch at the stake'-sequence at the end, though it looks like either Kertesz or Haggard (more likely) did confuse the plot with "Jeanne d'Arc" here. But otherwise Die Sklavenkönigin looks very much like a film from the 10s, in no way comparable to the intensity that for example Niblo's "Ben Hur" occasionally reaches. Certainly not a bad film, but it nevertheless left me distinctly underwhelmed.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Kinugasa's 'Jujiro' has a one-off screening at BFI Southbank in September by the way.

Brief round-up of recent viewing - getting back into the project after a few distractions - it's the same canonical films that have impressed me most really; The Gold Rush, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Sunrise. Queen Kelly might be up there too, if we're talking films that don't quite get the recognition they might deserve.

[nsps]

Kinugasa's 'Jujiro' has a one-off screening at BFI Southbank in September by the way.

I know I've talked him up earlier in this thread, but if Stephen Horne is accompanying (I know he often accompanies at BFI Southbank), I would advise anyone with in a 150-mile radius not to miss this screening. I know he's doing some stuff in Germany for Filmmuseum and Filmpodium at the start of the month, so he might not be available. Anyhow, it's worth seeing the film regardless but Horne really conduits its powers.

[knives]

Queen Kelly's good? That's the only '20s von Stroheim I'm missing (an other chance to pimp The Merry Widow though which I consider better than Greed) mostly because I've been avoiding it on the reputation of being his most butchered film. Isn't the main purpose to the film entirely cut out?

Speaking of the cannon though I finally sat down a couple of weeks back and watched Napoleon which may be the quickest four hours I've ever experienced. I don't know what Gance is doing for this to happen, but I thought I was only thirty minutes in, for example, when I had to change cases. It really doesn't manage much beyond hagiography and fluff, but he does it so entertainingly and with such amazing prowess in editing that it manages to earn its reputation a hundred times over. Now I'm curious as to what the five and a half hour cut looks like.

[tojoed]

It's hard to find a Stroheim that isn't butchered, so make haste for "Queen Kelly", there's some great stuff in it. I'll wager it ends up high on your final list.

[Tommaso]

Well, "Queen Kelly" isn't so much butchered rather than it is unfinished. Only about one third of the planned film was actually made, and what we now see as the main story was originally intended mainly as a prologue to the main part set in Africa. So what we have is some sort of very extended fragment, which was somewhat helplessly brought into the shape of a somehow 'marketable' film after Stroheim had been fired. Despite all these problems, it works quite well, at least in the re-constructed version issued by Kino, and it's visually as striking and sumptuous as you expect a Stroheim film to be. I'm only sorry that Von didn't take an acting part in this one, which is why my favourite Stroheim so far remains "Foolish Wives". But all this reminds me that I have to hurry and finally watch "The Wedding March" soon...

[knives]

The Wedding March is fantastic. There's a VHS floating around, more than I can say about The Merry Widow. It's almost like a reversal of what he was doing in Foolish Wives and Blind Husbands. The key relationship is sweet with von Stroheim's character basically being a caring if hopeless young man. The drama is built up in a R&J sort of way, but that's mostly unimportant. The real beauty is these little interactions between the two which simply couldn't be more adorable. Before I make it look like he's made a typical film there are elements that relate it to those previous two, but like I said as a reversal. Sort of as if he wanted to show a third side to an argument with only two. It still works marvelously.
This is reminding me, my list is basically only von Stroheim and Keaton with special appearances by Lang, Murnau, Vertov, and (hopefully) von Sternberg.

[swo17]

I'm new to Dovzhenko (and haven't seen Earth yet) but was very impressed by both Arsenal and Zvenigora. These are apparently propaganda films, but I didn't exactly end up feeling an overwhelming urge to fight for Mother Russia afterward (though I must find her hidden treasure). If anything, these very moving, very avant-garde films seemed bent on exposing the horrors and injustices of war, through such haunting and abstract images as depictions of villagers as frozen in time or lining up for the slaughter, a soldier ordering his own execution, or a man with a gun to his temple standing at the head of an auditorium. I suppose if the victims in these scenarios are interpreted to be Ukrainians and the perpetrators foreigners, this could certainly incite a people to defend themselves. But still, were films like this actually screened to recruit soldiers for the army? That's like if "Be All You Can Be" had been recorded by Frank Zappa. In other words, we should be so lucky.

EDIT: I just noticed that in the last Sight & Sound poll, Tony Rayns actually voted for Zvenigora as the #1 film of all time. So, um, you should watch it.

[zedz]

Call me crazy, but Queen Kelly is my favourite von Stroheim. I find it completely mesmerising, whether or not the story isn't finished. I love its druggy pace and fetishistic eye for detail, and I think the crucial difference might be that most of those other films were finished works that were cut down to size, with each section, or even sequence, truncated, whereas with Queen Kelly the sequences seem to be more or less intact, it's just that they're not all there. So it's a bit of a bust as far as an overarching narrative is concerned, but moment to moment, stylistically, it's like a pure shot of intoxicating Von insanity.

[thirtyframesasecond]

I've got the Golden Age Films VHS copy of Queen Kelly but I'm assuming all editions are the same/similar. Judging from what I can gather, only about a third of what von Stroheim shot or conceived for the film survives in this cut. We just see the initial storyline between Kelly and Wolfram. I'm sure what was cut would have made a more complete film. The chequered history of the production puts what we have in context and what survives hints at what could have been a more obvious masterpiece. From what you'd believe, real prostitutes were used as extras, the shoot resembled Sodom and Gomorrah and von Stroheim wilfully antagonised his star as her lover, the producer Joe Kennedy. Still, there's enough here to show just how gifted a director von Stroheim was.

[knives]

Seventh Heaven is such a new experience to me. It's overwhelming, but not through comedy, pain, or any of the other experiences I'd relate to that. It's overwhelming through being. Just the act of it existing and me watching it is this suffocating oppressive thing. It manages to be euphoric to the point of pain. That moment when she first crosses the bridge forced me to pause the film I couldn't take it anymore. The whole film builds like that to the point I'm some what glad the last twenty minutes don't entirely work if just so that I could breath. It was like watching a film for the first time. I honestly can't believe I'm saying this, I should be shot for saying this, but I think Fox won for the wrong movie.
The funny thing is that this is probably a generic Hollywood weepy that pushes all the sentimental junk I shouldn't like, but I don't care where the emotions come from in this case I'm just glad to have them. I really need to think about this one more before I can do anything beyond the surface, but I do believe we have a real winner here. I'm so sorry for blubbering, it's not everyday I see a film like this one.
I nearly forgot to compliment Gaynor whose performance is impossible. She's absolutely fragile, like a porcelain doll hollowed out until it's like paper. Whether kindness or harassment each second she looks like she'll break. Underneath that though, and maybe this is the mask of acting slipping, you can see this titanium build as if she were the strongest character. I really can't believe any of it.

[nsps]

Speaking of the cannon though I finally sat down a couple of weeks back and watched Napoleon which may be the quickest four hours I've ever experienced. I don't know what Gance is doing for this to happen, but I thought I was only thirty minutes in, for example, when I had to change cases. It really doesn't manage much beyond hagiography and fluff, but he does it so entertainingly and with such amazing prowess in editing that it manages to earn its reputation a hundred times over. Now I'm curious as to what the five and a half hour cut looks like.

While I certainly admire it, I have a few big problems with Napoleon.

1. All the damn encounters with historical figures that serve no purpose other than to say, "Hey, look, it's this guy!" The result is grandiose introductions for characters who are inconsequential and, in some cases, never show up again.

2. This one will surely get me in trouble: Gance's style in the battle scenes. Now, I'm not generally opposed to the flashy, chaotic editing. In many ways, it's remarkable. But it works directly against what Gance is trying to communicate. Starting with the snowball fight, we're supposed to see a strategic genius at work. But we never see any of this ingenuity, as Gance instead goes for incomprehensible orgasmic ecstasy. All the battles scenes continue the same trend.

Now, I'm told the film is a wonder to behold in 35-mm. The most complete version I've seen is the Thames Silent version with the restored triptych. I know that in the past 20 or 30 years, some scenes have been replaced with more definitive versions and more pristine visuals, and people who have had a chance to see it say it's amazing. So it's possible that I could still go to a real screening and it would click and I'd fall head over heels. But based on what's been available to me, I haven't been moved to count the film as one of the decade's greatest films (one of the top 50? We'll see).

[Sloper]

2. This one will surely get me in trouble: Gance's style in the battle scenes. Now, I'm not generally opposed to the flashy, chaotic editing. In many ways, it's remarkable. But it works directly against what Gance is trying to communicate. Starting with the snowball fight, we're supposed to see a strategic genius at work. But we never see any of this ingenuity, as Gance instead goes for incomprehensible orgasmic ecstasy. All the battles scenes continue the same trend.

My memory of these scenes is that the incomprehensible frenzy is sort of 'held together' by shots of Napoleon himself surveying the battle, directing it, controlling it; he seems to stand behind it all like a god. This effect creates the impression of a master strategist capable of maintaining control over what would, for an ordinary mortal, be a confused morass of violence. In other words, it's the complete opposite of what Tolstoy says in War and Peace: that Napoleon could never have exercised any meaningful control over something so random, and so dependent on the random acts of individuals, as a battle.

I suppose Gance is probably inviting comparisons between Napoleon's genius and his own, since it seems to me that his great talent is for marshalling an enormous amount of footage and assaulting his audience with it! The film as a whole has always struck me as an overlong rollercoaster, almost unbelievably good from moment to moment, but exhausting in the long run. Coppola's score (and possibly some issues with the frame rate) don't help, though, and I'm dying to see Brownlow's cut with Carl Davis' accompaniment.

[Tommaso]

So last night I finally watched The Wedding March, and unsurprisingly, it lived up to all my high expectations though, as knives has pointed out, it rather diverges from the stance one would normally associate with Stroheim. While the initial title "Dedicated to the true lovers of the world" at first has a satiric function in the light of how the parents of Nicki are depicted in the very first sequence, it later gets a different meaning. As soon as Stroheim and Fay Wray meet (and that long extended exchange of glances during that Guard procession is a little masterpiece of filmmaking in itself), there is a real sympathy for the characters, a lyricism that you might expect from Borzage rather than from Stroheim. So I had the rather surprising impression that behind Von's usual persona (not in this film, anyhow) there might have been hiding a romantic soul in the man.

I also really liked - as usual with Stroheim - how much time he gives himself to develop certain scenes, and how the pacing can be slow at times without 'feeling slow'. That this works even in the truncated version that we have now and which was imposed on Stroheim by the studio is astonishing. And, again as usual, there are so many little surprises and witty moments in the film - from the short 2-strip colour sequence to the incredibly effective skeleton hands - that it's hard to exhaust this film with just one viewing.

Great stuff, and I wonder when (or whether) we will finally get that rumoured CC release. This is really badly needed on an official disc. Meanwhile, donate to the Argentinians so that they can search their archives again and find the second part of the film, "Honeymoon"...

[swo17]

I found this disclaimer that WB put at the beginning of Hallelujah interesting, if completely unnecessary:

The films you are about to see are a product of their time. They may reflect some of the prejudices that were commonplace in American society, especially when it came to the treatment of racial and ethnic minorities. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. These films are being presented as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. While the following certainly does not represent Warner Bros.' opinion in today's society, these images do accurately reflect a part of our history that cannot and should not be ignored.

...unlike every other film that Vidor directed. :-"