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Silent Films

Termite Man

Termite Man

zombie flesh eater
With all this fuss about The Actor (or whatever it's called) I think it's time for some recommendations of proper old silent films. This morning I re-watched The Fall of the House of Usher and really enjoyed enjoyed it now I want to see some more silent films.

I have downloaded Nathan The Wise to watch tomorrow morning so I will report back on that once I've seen it.
 
I posted this in another film thread recently which quickly disappeared, so I'll repost it. These are my three personal favourite silent films:

Pandora's Box

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Starring the glorious Louise Brooks as an amoral femme fatale around whom men can't help but self destruct. The film is a hugely stylish product of Weimar Berlin, but what is most fascinating apart from Brooks herself, is that the film blames the men for being weak, rather than the woman's destructive sexuality. Pandora's Box also features the first overtly lesbian character in cinema, a countess in love with Brooks' Lulu, on whom no judgement is passed.

The fascinating Brooks was a true Hollywood rebel, who tired with the roles offered to her in the US, ran off to Europe to star in this masterpiece, destroying her career for choosing art over commerce. She was one of the first actors in films who essentially always played versions of herself. This gave her a naturalistic performing style, that makes her the opposite of contemporary preconceptions about histrionic silent film acting. Resolutely modern, she was one of the most charismatic and timelessly beautiful women to ever appear on the screen. She is mesmerising to watch.

Sunrise

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F.W. Murnau brought his German expressionist style to Hollywood on a huge budget, with spectacular results. It's an intimate epic about a married rural couple on the brink of break up (or worse) after a terrible betrayal by the husband. They tentatively find their way back together due to the magic of city life. Murnau creates a mythical city built entirely in the studio, one that is every bit as impressive as the city in Lang's Metropolis. There are shots where entire cityscapes are built in forced perspective (with dwarf extras in the background), conveying the sense of dislocation our country mice couple would feel.

This shows how purely cinematic films were in the 20s, with a constantly roving camera and a wildly inventive use of special effects. With the arrival of sound films there was more emphasis on dialogue and narrative films wouldn't be as visually daring again till Orson Welles arrived (and even his films look restrained compared to this). On top of it, this is a wise and deeply moving love story and yet the star is an unnamed city, which initially seems like a dangerous and scary place, but ends up as an exciting and romantic playground for our heroes.

People on Sunday

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Early docu-drama about how a group of young, lower-middle class friends spend a weekend in Weimar Berlin. The film used non-actors and cast them in a partly improvised story. In a break from German expressionist cinema the era is known for, its cinema verite style looks forward to Italian neorealism and the French New Wave. It still is a strikingly modern film, with jump cuts and hand held camera, that feels like going back 80 years in time and being there. The young film makers who made the film, Billy Wilder, Fred Zinneman and Edgar J. Ulmer and the Siodmak brothers, all were forced into emigration by Hitler and they all had notable careers in Hollywood.

It's a film that finds beauty in the little things of life and there is an added poignancy to this seemingly lighthearted film, knowing that soon these young people, full of hope and potential, would soon be deeply affected or ruined by the rise of Third Reich and WWII. There is a wonderful montage sequence that shows people of all ages enjoying themselves on a Sunday, without a care in the world, which now is deeply affecting when you know what was around the corner.

Try and find a version with a modern score by Elena Kats-Chernin, which adds to the film immeasurably.





Others I really like: The Crowd, The Wind, Beggars of Life, The Joyless Street, The Last Laugh, The General, The Gold Rush, Woman in the Moon, Piccadilly, Nosferatu, Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages, Faust, The Golem, The Passion of Joan of Arc, City Girl, Diary of a Lost Girl, The Phantom Carriage
 
Termite Man said:
just out of interest has anyone seen The Artist and what did you think about.
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Charming if overrated trifle that doesn't really give you an idea how inventive silent films were at their best. I liked the lead actors and there are some good gags, though it perpetuates several myths about silent films and the plot has been cobbled together from (non-silents) A Star is Born and Singing in the Rain.
 
He probably could pull it off, though I can think of few directors who use sound to better effect than he does.
 
Reno said:
He probably could pull it off, though I can think of few directors who use sound to better effect than he does.
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Musically though I think he is one of the best, I might have to watch eraserhead again as thats practically a silent film.
 
DW Griffith's Intolerence - the scale of the sets and action sequences for the Seige Of Babylon part are astonishing, plus it has stuff you don't expect in old films like naked women & people getting graphically beheaded.
The Lost World - http://www.archive.org/details/lost_world - better than King Kong
Hitchcock's The Lodger A Story Of The London Fog
Harold Lloyd in Safety Last!

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DJ Squelch said:
DW Griffith's Intolerence - the scale of the sets andaction sequences for the Seige Of Babylon part are astonishing, plus it has stuff you don't expect in old films like naked women & people getting graphically beheaded.
The Lost World - http://www.archive.org/details/lost_world - better than King Kong
Hitchcock's The Lodger A Story Of The London Fog
Harold Lloyd in Safety First
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They loved nudity sex and drugs in the old days, it's us that are the repressed prudes.
 
The censorious Hays Code came into effect in Hollywood in 1934. Before that films were able to deal with much more adult subject matter than they would be again for the next two decades.

Intolerance is of historical interest, but I find it a real snooze of a film, nudity or not. Griffith's Broken Blossoms may not be an epic, but it's a much better film.
 
Termite Man said:
Musically though I think he is one of the best, I might have to watch eraserhead again as thats practically a silent film.
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Would you count his early shorts "The Grandmother" and "The Alphabet" as potentially silent films? (No dialogue, incidental music only etc) Or would you see them as fully-fledged "sound" films?
 
MellySingsDoom said:
Would you count his early shorts "The Grandmother" and "The Alphabet" as potentially silent films? (No dialogue, incidental music only etc) Or would you see them as fully-fledged "sound" films?
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Well since I'm counting eraserhead as potentially silent and that does have a few lines of speech in it then i guess I would.
 
Eraserhead has little dialogue, but it has a very elaborate sound design which is integral to the film, with constant factories and machinery noises in the background, a musical number and the constant crying of the "baby" which is driving the protagonist up the wall. It's not what I would call a silent film.
 
I haven't seen many but Nosferatu, The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari, Pandora's Box and Piccadilly are all fantastic. I liked watching Harold Lloyd shorts when I was a kid. (Has anyone seen Harry Hill's shorts btw? They're brilliant).
I saw the chariot racing sequence from Ben Hur on Youtube a couple of nights ago and, wow, it was exciting. I shall get a copy of the film asap.
 
Termite Man said:
just out of interest has anyone seen The Artist and what did you think about.
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My friend went to see it recently. He went to the loo and then went into a screen showing another film that was just starting. I'm not going to say where and when as it may give it away, but I imagine it's something that people do at cinemas although it's never occurred to me.
 
Minnie_the_Minx said:
My friend went to see it recently. He went to the loo and then went into a screen showing another film that was just starting. I'm not going to say where and when as it may give it away, but I imagine it's something that people do at cinemas although it's never occurred to me.
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eh?
 
Some good recommendations already.

I know these are the obvious choices, but there's a reason that: The Battleship Potemkin, Metropolis, Sunrise, and Nosferatu are classics. That's because they're classics.

Does Chaplin's Modern Times count?
 
Short (semi-)silent film here: "The Heart of the World" by Guy Maddin, one of my favourite filmmakers.

 
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