Hello

Greetings to all the fans & curious visitors.

Silent movies are yet another field I've long been meaning to explore and never really got round to, with two or three exceptions. Here's hoping this group takes off and introduces me to some good stuff.

*waves*

Nice to see you!

I'm just a dilettante myself. God knows why I love early film so much. The first full-length (actually over-full-length and then some) silent movie I saw was Griffith's Intolerance. I was... fifteen, sixteen maybe? In high school and with a subscription to the (one and only) art-film club in town. Twas instant love. I don't remember if it even had a musical accompaniment (for the Caligari later on there was a live trio... students possibly).

Of related interest, if you haven't seen it already, is the documentary "Dawson City: Frozen Time" about a treasure trove of silent films found buried in a former boom town in the Yukon.

Here's a good article about it though you need to be a subscriber to get full access:

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/08/16/dawson-city-after-gold-rush/

Also you might want to check out Wisconsin Bioscope, a somewhat crazy but inspired project by Dan Fuller. He's an art history professor and silent film expert and he makes silent film shorts using period technology.

More here: https://wisconsin-bioscope.neocities.org/index.html

a treasure trove of silent films found buried in a former boom town in the Yukon.

This is one of my favourite daydreams--finding "lost" movies in far-fetched places around the world.

>5 krolik:

Oh that's a gem. This made me LOL:

When false attractions grow tiresome, as they always do, the public will again demand the product pioneered by Mr. Edison and the frères Lumiére.

New horizons in optimism! :)

Are you familiar with Alice Guy-Blaché?

You can find some of her work on YouTube, as well as a link to rent or buy a good documentary about her: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=guy-blach%C3%A9

>7 lilithcat:

I bought a documentary about her recently but have yet to watch it, or her movies. I've marked them on Kanopy (free access is possible through the public library system in the US and Canada; 8 movies per month for us) along with several other series about early film women pioneers.

There's a collection called "Reel Herstory" (and a larger category Reel Women Media) and the first documentary is dedicated to the silent era--it's just that I have to make a plan in which order to tackle it all... I'd like to own the set but the two I'm interested in are either available only on Blu-Ray (Flicker Alley) or the DVD version is incomplete compared to the Blu-Ray (Kino).

Of related interest also are books by Jesse Lee Kercheval, reimagining the silent era. These include her poetry Cinema Muto and her novel My Life as a Silent Movie, which addresses Ivan Mosjoukine, who was a fascinating character.

Actually, there's a lot of going on in the silent scene, if you can call it that. The film festival in Pordenone, Italy, is quite successful though with Covid etc. this year is a different.

Thanks for the Kercheval mention, I'll look her up.

I've seen a few of Mosjoukine's films (with him directing and/or acting) in the set Flicker Alley released some years back, called French Masterworks: Russian Émigrés in Paris 1923-1928. He truly was a magnificent talent.

Le Brasier ardent (The burning crucible) is now one of my all-time faves... impossible to classify! A fantasy, a detective mystery, a pre-surrealist experiment... and so innovative technically to boot.

Everlasting pity about the obstacles that choked his and others' career...

I've just come across this article online. Just now I haven't got time to follow up its recommendations, but ...

https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/where-stream-best-silent-f...

I stick to the free sites. I like to support restoration work by buying the DVDs but otherwise there is no excuse for making people pay to see 100-year old movies online.

Might be a good idea to check archive.org occasionally, sometimes there are multiple uploads in varying quality.

*waves to robertajl*

Welcome!

And then there were four: welcome, housefulofpaper!

>14 LolaWalser:
Thank you!

>14 LolaWalser:

Thank you. I think my first real appreciation of silent films came when I saw Lilian Gish in Broken Blossoms. Her movements were so beautiful, more like dance than anything else. Also, I was struck by how little Donald Crisp seemed to have changed from his appearance in that movie to, say, How Green Was My Valley, more than 20 years later. The guy was uncanny.

I had the same thought regarding Tully Marshall recently--in 1916 he looked pretty much as he would in the 1940s!

Broken Blossoms is a great movie. Another one I'll be rewatching soon.

Hello everyone. I think the first silent film I saw was 'The Big Parade'. The 1980 Thames TV series 'Hollywood' was an eye opening introduction to American Silent film, as were the silent films on Channel 4 (if I remember correctly) and at the London Film Festival, including Kevin Brownlow's restoration of 'Napoleon'.

>18 Rembetis:

Hiii, welcome!

Gance's Napoleon?! The one for which Veidt was invited to play Marquis de Sade. :)

>18 Rembetis:
>19 LolaWalser:

Re. Kevin Brownlow, I hope this link works and that the programme can be accessed outside the UK.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07z7bn4

>19 LolaWalser: Yes, that 'Napoleon'!!

>20 housefulofpaper: Thanks so much! Looks fascinating. Bookmarked for tomorrow.

>20 housefulofpaper:

That was wonderful. I teared up when he told about the ovation Gance listened to over the phone. I'm so glad anyone of that generation lived long enough to be admired again, and that it should happen to a legend like that... just wonderful.

American cultural imperialism and Hollywood's monopoly destroyed so much. Not just the tiny industries in Eastern Europe, but also the far larger ones in France, Germany, Britain. (To say nothing of how it treated European stars that moved there.)

That same guy, Matthew Sweet, did the documentary "Silent Britain" that accompanies A Cottage on Dartmoor on Kanopy. Worth seeing how much talent and potential was lost.

>22 LolaWalser:

(I'm in my secondary film & TV account) I'm so glad you were able to access it. That means you can delve into all the other stuff in the Free Thinking/Night Waves archives. Probably relatively slim pickings for silent film (it's radio, after all) but lots of good stuff.

I've got Silent Britain as a stand-alone BFI disc. You might want to look out for Matthew Sweet's book, Shepperton Babylon.

>23 housefulsfilmtv:

I'll keep it in mind. Speaking of books, let's have a thread...

>23 housefulsfilmtv:

Forgot to say--the picture on the cover of your edition of Silent Britain--if it's from the movie I think it is, an early sci-fi, I've been dying to see it for years, ever since a few excerpts were shown during a sf retrospective here. The costumes, as I recall, were eye-popping (but, do look at the design of Aelita, by the Constructivist star Alexandra Exter...)

If I'm right about the cover can you please tell me what's the title? Because that's the little detail I can't remember!

>25 LolaWalser:

There are no picture credits on the DVD sleeve, but it's this one - there are a couple of clips in the documentary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Treason_(1929_British_film)

sorry wrong link

So the hyperlink won't work if I copy the web address. Annoying! As you can see though, the film was called "High Treason".

>26 housefulofpaper:

Oh yes, that's it!--I remember Benita Hume's name now. Thanks so much, at least I can start looking for it.

Hey, Mark! Welcome! :)

Please don't hesitate to start threads or chat.

>28 LolaWalser: Thanks, will do! Not that I know much about early cinema, but always happy to dig into something new.

Hi, trisweather, welcome!

>30 LolaWalser: thank you

Hello, ReflectedPerplexity, welcome!

Hello and welcome, Hamburgerclan.

Greetings, Ruffcat!

Welcome, Maura49 and hypathio7!