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Silent Movies
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Sal
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Old Jul 28, 2006, 07:25 PM Local time: Jul 29, 2006, 01:25 AM #1 of 12
Silent Movies

I know what most of you are thinking, "Boring." End of. And some time ago I would have agreed with you. I quite liked Laurel & Hardy for their cartoonesque type comedy but other that that, if it's in black & white with no talking, I can't be arsed to watch it.

UNTIL....
There was a program on the BBC a while ago about silent comedy and there was only a few programs featuring Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy, Harold Lloyd & Buster Keaton. What i'd discovered is that i'd never really given the films of these people much though - never given them a chance.

Charlie Chaplin in particular was the one where a lot of more recent comedians/ writers/ journalists had basically just said, "I didn't get him," or that he just wasn't funny thus people didn't bother watching the films. Bollocks to them. His work was way ahead of it's time, it' not just stereotypical slapstick around some weak plot (which Laurel & Hardy seemed often guilty of), watch 'The Kid'. Made at the dawn of cinema but one of the best films i've seen for a long time. I know it's not a silent film but 'The Great Dictator' is worth watching too. It's quite preachy but considering it was made in 1940 it's pretty damned interesting if anything, apparently Hitler saw it twice....

Laurel & Hardy were slapstick. The majority of it is actually quite funny, but silly-funny so it may not appeal to modern tastes. Despite this you can still see some ways in which it influenced comedy afterwards especially if you've ever seen Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) - what he did was pretty much silent comedy and very slapstick. At the time, between 1915-ish and 1930, a lot of the film comedians copied from eachother particularly from Chaplin but a lot of his work was in the little details, these were just emphasised by others. The best known Laurel & Hardy film is 'The Music Box' - the well known one where they're trying to get the piano up the stairs. Poignant for me because Stan Laurel used to live in the same town i'm from & the idea of the staircase is very familiar - I'm pretty certain where the idea of big stairway came from.

As for the other two mentioned, Buster Keaton did a hell of a lot as far as film-making was concerned. The way his films were edited & cut were totally new, as were most of his stunts. Along with Lloyd, there was obviously no CGI, all the stunts were perfomed by themselves. One Keaton scene is where he's running full tilt down a mountain folled by large (but fake) boulders but does the whole run in one take, dodges everything like his life really depended on it - something you rarely see today. There'd just be several scenes edited together just to look like one whereas Keaton only had the one camera on him for the whole time. As with Harold Lloyd, that scene when he's hanging from the clock, he is that high up.

So you may think the idea of sitting through some old shitty black & white silent movie is the last thing you want to do but if you're a film-buff and you've never 'properly' watched these sort of films, I suggest you do so.

Jam it back in, in the dark.
guyinrubbersuit
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Old Jul 28, 2006, 07:36 PM Local time: Jul 28, 2006, 05:36 PM #2 of 12
I've watched Metropolis and that was pretty good. As was Nosferatu, the one with the Type O Negative soundtrack. It's on DVD and they replaced the original soundtrack with Type O Negative. It's alright.

I haven't seen too many comedies in the silent nature however, I should look into them. I still like my talkies though.

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knkwzrd
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Old Jul 28, 2006, 07:50 PM Local time: Jul 28, 2006, 06:50 PM #3 of 12
I haven't seen many of Harold Lloyd's 200+ films, but Safety Last! is without a doubt one of the greatest physical comedies of all time.

I'm amazed every time someone tells me they don't know who Buster Keaton is. I grew up watching The General, The Navigator, and Three Ages. I suppose most people have never even heard of those movies, which is really a pity.

When talking about silent films, you have to mention Germany. So many great films came out of the country in that era. Even if you don't know it, you'd most likely recognize the works of F.W. Murnau, Fritz Lang, and Robert Wiene just from the obvious impact they've had on the film industry. None of these emo kids would have The Nightmare Before Christmas without Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari.

You can get a lot of silent movies for free, as they're public domain, at http://www.archive.org/details/feature_films. It's an excellent resource.

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Last edited by knkwzrd; Jul 28, 2006 at 07:53 PM.
Sal
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Old Jul 28, 2006, 08:08 PM Local time: Jul 29, 2006, 02:08 AM #4 of 12
Great link.
And I'm suprised that anyone replied to this post at all. The stuff I mentioned is a bit general but it's really only because it's stuff I'm just discovering myself.

Safety Last is probably the best know Lloyd movie (couldn't remember the title before) but all of these movies have influenced and somewhat dictated the way films are made today but very few people recognise them. They're never played in the UK - the last 'old' movie I saw here was a 'A Night at the Opera' with the Marx Brothers. There's been some L&H but apart from that, nufink.

knkwzrd; if you can recommend some more movies it'd be appreciated.

On a side note, Metropolis was used in the Queen video for Radio Ga Ga. True story.

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Paco
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Old Jul 28, 2006, 08:10 PM Local time: Jul 28, 2006, 06:10 PM #5 of 12
I haven't really seen many silent films myself either and thus don't really consider myself anywhere near a connoisseur of the genre. However, I did really enjoy Nosferatu. Very few films have ever actually sent chills down my spine and Nosferatu is one of the few not because it's shock-and-awe horrific, but because its atmosphere is just so surreal due to the aging of the film.

I've also seen The Great Dictator and it was pretty much as good as a film can get without sound. I've been wanting to watch Metropolis for the longest time, but just like everything else in my life, I never get around to it. :/


Originally Posted by knkwzrd
I'm amazed every time someone tells me they don't know who Buster Keaton is. I grew up watching The General, The Navigator, and Three Ages.
I used to date this girl who often tried to take me to a little theater that screened silent films in a town 30 miles away. I never really gave it much thought and thus I never went with her, but those titles I remember clearly as being in constant rotation. Perhaps the dumb bitch was onto something.

I was speaking idiomatically.
Sal
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Old Jul 28, 2006, 08:16 PM Local time: Jul 29, 2006, 02:16 AM #6 of 12
Umm.... The Great Dictator was a Chaplin's first talkie film.

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knkwzrd
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Old Jul 28, 2006, 08:46 PM Local time: Jul 28, 2006, 07:46 PM #7 of 12
Originally Posted by Sal
knkwzrd; if you can recommend some more movies it'd be appreciated.
Sure thing. These are all available on DVD.

I made a journal entry a while ago about the film Battleship Potemkin, which is one of the more influential films in cinema history. You can get it from the link I posted earlier. Anyway, this is the first movie with that scene of a perambulator rolling down the steps. You know, the scene in The Untouchables and Brazil.

D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, though it blatantly supports the KKK and segregation, was a very important film because much of the groundbreaking camera work it contained is now commonplace. At the time of it's release, it was also the longest film ever made at just over three hours.

Les Vampires, which was only recently released on DVD, was originally released as a ten part serial. This is basically the first serious horror film, with the possible exception of Thomas Edison's Frankenstein. Les Vampires is very notable for the dreamy, gothic setwork.

1922's Häxan was a documentary about the history of witchcraft. While the original film is not that exciting with the exception of a few interesting shots, what is of notice is the 1968 edit. This version, titled Witchcraft Through The Ages is narrated by William S. Burroughs and features a free jazz soundtrack featuring avant-garde violinist Jean-Luc Ponty. Burroughs dry commentary and the new music turn the film into a riveting black comedy.

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Paco
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Old Jul 28, 2006, 09:50 PM Local time: Jul 28, 2006, 07:50 PM #8 of 12
Originally Posted by Sal
Umm.... The Great Dictator was a Chaplin's first talkie film.
You know, I could have sworn it didn't have any sound. Or maybe I'm thinking a different film, but I'm almost positive I'm talking about The Great Dictator.

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kinkymagic
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Old Jul 30, 2006, 04:17 PM Local time: Jul 30, 2006, 09:17 PM #9 of 12
The Great Dictator definatly had sound, but Chaplin has aged very badly. It may be funny to see someone kicked up the arse once, but by the 10 millionth time it starts to get old. I love the old Expressionist films though. Stuff like Caligari, The Lodger, The Loves of Zero and The Golem. Lon Chaney films are also good, if only for the incredible make up effects.

Birth of A Nation is also pretty good, once you get over the immense and sometimes hilarious racism.

The main problem with silent movies (for me), is that in the majority of them the actors tend to emote like hell, probably due to their lack of lines. That's why I'm such a fan of Buster Keaton.

Jam it back in, in the dark.


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Last edited by kinkymagic; Jul 30, 2006 at 04:20 PM.
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