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

[Michael Kerpan]

A bit graceless, lubitsch -- and unduly splenetic.

KT "babbles" on Expressionism?

Nosferatu is generally considered an Expressionist film, though there are only a few of the stylized sets that we tend to think of as vital to that artistic movement.

Nothing she says suggests that the screenshots of Nosferatu she includes are supposed to evoke expressionistic painting models.

I think KT does a nice summary of what people can look for if they want to explore the films of 1922. No reason to think that she considers her little piece the last word on the subject.

[lubitsch]

KT "babbles" on Expressionism?

Nosferatu is generally considered an Expressionist film, though there are only a few of the stylized sets that we tend to think of as vital to that artistic movement.

Nothing she says suggests that the screenshots of Nosferatu she includes are supposed to evoke expressionistic painting models.

I think KT does a nice summary of what people can look for if they want to explore the films of 1922. No reason to think that she considers her little piece the last word on the subject.

Well, by now their blog is probably one of the most popular film scholarship pages around. And therefore they have quite an influence with these blog entries probably exercising far more lasting power than quite a lot of books published on the subject. This again means that they have a certain responsibility and I'd appreciate it if some work would go into the by now traditional "90 years ago" posts which also means out pointing out forgotten films. In the earlier entries this was the case, but since Kristin Thompson has taken over this part of the blog the entries are really unremarkable and could very well have been written by any participant of our list project. It's simply not good enough.

As for Nosferatu her first sentence in the chapter is But here are two full-fledged masterpieces, both from the German Expressionist movement. Even if she tracks back to some stylized sets (which ones?) this would be a good opportunity to point out that this is NOT under any circumstance an Expressionistic film. It is based on the Dracula legend and a novel which aren't expressionistic and is influenced by the whole gamut of 19th century German painting ranging from C.D. Friedrich to the Biedermaier painters and I'd even throw in some landscape painters like Carl Blechen into the mix.
This is simple the laziest and most careless kind of scholarship to slap a label on a certain period of film due to one famous example, Caligari, without noticing that there's a lot more going on at the same time. Barry Salt has written about this decades ago, but still I have to read this nonsense, I'm simply tired of it especially seeing it appear on the blog of the world's leading film scholar.

[TMDaines]

There is also this sentence:

Unlike with Murnau, we now have all of Lang’s early films and can judge his entire career.

#-o

We wish. What a lazy article.

[domino harvey]

The Edward Everett Horton set was one of the projects that Ben Model did a Kickstarter campaign to do the scores for, so it is nice to see it getting some official recognition as well.

Watched all eight shorts in this set and had a mixed to positive reaction. Horton is, unbelievably, able to project the same fussy persona we know him for now even without talking. The first three shorts in the collection are terrific, especially the Western one. I appreciated how they didn’t go for obvious approaches of Horton being weak or effete but instead made him rather quite resourceful. This line gradually diminishes as the later shorts become more nondescript (and could have starred anyone) and Horton is more frustrated-upon instead of inspiring it in others, and not as humorously solution-oriented as he is in the initial shorts. Knowing nothing more of the context of these being created, I assume the creative team came prepared with the initial slate, found them popular enough to make more, and quickly cobbled together more tired material to get additional shorts out (plus it’s only in the eighth and final short that we get a gay joke— let’s be glad these stopped when they did!)

Also, though the Amazon listing and packaging indicate otherwise, these are DVD-Rs…

[knives]

Does any Wallace Worsley film exist outside the big three with Chaney that are available?

[domino harvey]

The Edward Everett Horton set was one of the projects that Ben Model did a Kickstarter campaign to do the scores for, so it is nice to see it getting some official recognition as well.

Watched all eight shorts in this set and had a mixed to positive reaction. Horton is, unbelievably, able to project the same fussy persona we know him for now even without talking. The first three shorts in the collection are terrific, especially the Western one. I appreciated how they didn’t go for obvious approaches of Horton being weak or effete but instead made him rather quite resourceful. This line gradually diminishes as the later shorts become more nondescript (and could have starred anyone) and Horton is more frustrated-upon instead of inspiring it in others, and not as humorously solution-oriented as he is in the initial shorts. Knowing nothing more of the context of these being created, I assume the creative team came prepared with the initial slate, found them popular enough to make more, and quickly cobbled together more tired material to get additional shorts out (plus it’s only in the eighth and final short that we get a gay joke— let’s be glad these stopped when they did!)

Also, though the Amazon listing and packaging indicate otherwise, these are DVD-Rs…

Getting a Blu-ray release (presumably BD-R) next month

[domino harvey]

Mr Wu (William Nigh 1927) Lon Chaney takes on dual roles as the titular Mandarin and his long fingernailed grandfather, forcing an (allegedly) eastern worldview against interlopers from the west. This is an odd film, one with more going on than the kneejerk reactions against yellowface seem to register. Indeed, it’s oddly progressive with regards to miscegenation (if one thinks about the actual function of this plot point), and at no point are Wu’s extreme interpretations of honor cast in a positive light. Obviously this whole exercise is primarily one of orientalist melodrama, but there’s an uneasy balance being enacted here even in those elements. The film has some degree of sympathy for Wu, as seen in his surprising happy ending, and yet it unambiguously considers him wrong for having an objection that most white audiences shared (though charitably let’s assume they wouldn’t want to see it rectified in quite the same way…)

[domino harvey]

Wine of Youth was one I was particularly looking forward to, after reading James Card's appraisal of the film as a risque exploration of marital conventions. The initial set-up is quite well done, with three generations repeating the same sequence of events. Firstly an old fashioned party is shown, with helpful intertitles noting that the same vitriol thrown at Jazz in the 1920's was being thrown at the Polka in 1870. A second party is shown, this time set in 1900, where the Waltz is taboo dance. Finally a contemporary party is shown with a range of 'sheiks and shebas' dancing the night away. What ensues is a generational commentary on relationships, with the lovely Eleanor Boardman as a young woman, being courted by William Haines and Ben Lyons. Boardman wants to know more about her potential husband and conceives the idea of going out camping for a couple of weeks with the two suitors and another couple in order to see each other as they really are. Unfortunately Vidor sort of botches this potentially interesting premise, but rushing through the camp sequence spending all of 10 minutes on it (and only a couple hours of movie time), before the film returns home where the strain of Boardman's rebelliousness causes turmoil amongst her parents (who heretofore have gotten little screen time or character development). The closing sequence features an extended and genuinely uncomfortable war of words between the beleaguered parents that leads to a rushed and unsatisfying conclusion.

The second half of the movie feels like it was very rushed and given that the film clocks in at 73 minutes, it certainly seems the case. It's a shame, because the film had a lot of potential to do some interesting things, the camp sequence in particular could have been extended and been considerably more challenging to social norms. Instead it ends with the wilful Boardman getting cold feet and going back home (the film gets cold feet it would seem too). These kinds of films end up being the most frustrating, because they are full of potential, but they don't live up to it.

Watched this and was blown away. I’m actually finding it very hard to understand nonplussed responses like the above and those populating LB. I thought this was wonderfully representative of true youthfulness without treacly goodness gumming everything up. The opening sequence was clever, but I thought Vidor flipping the script on a scene we’ve seen so many times in Rich Drunk People Partying Too Hard movies

Spoiler

with the drunk guy hitting a tree after careening wildly on a pitch black windy road… only to stop perfectly right in front of it. Fucking hilarious!

was when I knew I was in for something special. The first half of this movie is something Whit Stillman would write/like, and the second half is absolutely not: a cruel and realistically horrifying destruction of youthful ideas in an uncomfortable and unexpected way. I bought into this completely, and it’s def the best Vidor I’ve ever seen. Would it kill some Kickstarter guy to make this one of their next rescues?

[therewillbeblus]

I loved this too, especially the detailed depiction of its milieu. The tree bit is a great one - made even better because it's repeated as the guy's date 'move'! - as is the running gag of one of the boys always spotting Mary each time she takes a shot, as if the game is 'Drink 'til you fall down, but with chivalry!' I also really appreciated the way generational divides were represented, and how eerily they apply to what we've seen in movies and real life across all eras, with the youth impulsive but deep-feeling, the middle-aged apathetic, isolated, and powerless, and the elders judgmental and forceful with opinions. The attention paid to the adults is particularly jarring, foreshadowed by the mother's tired and alienated behavior in the first half.. The film almost comes off as anti-marriage (until the very end takes a different kind of epiphany to attempting a more sober form of connection), as if to try to repair the pattern in any way it possibly can, including by disrupting having a generational cycle occur altogether! There's a consistent rhythm throughout that just feels dangerous, making the drastic changes in tone between the two halves feel of apiece with one another