The Pre-1920s List: Discussion and Suggestions (Decade Project Vol. 4)

[knives]

I don't watch with music

Not even when you get a score originally and specifically written for the film in 1913? And it's a good one, too.

Usually. I find scores even when intended on films to be annoying most of the time.

[domino harvey]

Langlois-Style 4 Lyfe

[TMDaines]

I'm not sure whether the arte version has more intertitles (I simply didn't compare the two versions in detail), but it seems that some disagreements arose over the formulation of the intertitles and more so over the projection speed and some tintings. As the 76 min. version is the newer one, it probably can be regarded as a little bit closer to the original, but honestly: both versions work marvellously, and probably the choice is much more down to taste (for instance, whether you prefer a piano accompaniment or a 'huge' orchestral soundtrack) than to any truly significant differences. The time difference is basically only due to the projection speed, which is different but works fine in both versions. So, as long as you watch the new resto and not an older print, everything will be fine.

I was going by the information on the Edition Filmmuseum website, but it isn't the clearest. Maybe the German is, I didn't think to check.

[knives]

The Student of Prague
greatly appreciate it that this film foregoes the typical Faust mechanics and instead takes its cues from The Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Now the film is nowhere near that level, but in 1913 only Leonce Perret strikes me as capable of doing this story justice. Instead the film leans a little too hard on the element of fear and comes across merely as a more mature variant of what Dawley accomplished in his Frankenstein. Which is to say the film is entertaining if not particularly standout in a standout year.

A Trip to Mars
This isn't anywhere as good as The End of the World (now there's a sentence that looks hyperbolic without context). In short it is pretty generic for the time period being indistinguishable from any other Jules Verne knock-off of the period beyond some typical Danish christianity and some proto-Star Trek Utopian ideas.

[lubitsch]

The Student of Prague
greatly appreciate it that this film foregoes the typical Faust mechanics and instead takes its cues from The Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

The film takes its cues from the novella which it rips off, Chamisso's Peter Schlemihl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schlemihl" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; .

[knives]

I meant that in a more general way (I believe officially the film is supposed to be a Poe adaptation). Interesting sounding book though.

[Mr Sausage]

I meant that in a more general way (I believe officially the film is supposed to be a Poe adaptation). Interesting sounding book though.

Peter Schlemiel is great fun, really worth reading. There's an excellent translation of it in the recent penguin volume, Tales of the German Imagination, which is packed with great stuff that's underread in anglophone countries.

[Tommaso]

I meant that in a more general way (I believe officially the film is supposed to be a Poe adaptation).

Well, officially the film is supposed to be a unique and original creation by that, erm, literary genius, Hanns Heinz Ewers, who was responsible for the script and possibly also for much of the direction. Ewers' literary works - and also the "Student" script - were often extremely derivative and re-hashed so many older ideas that it's impossible to say that Student is an adaptation of a specific source, even though I would also say that apart from "Peter Schlehmihl" there's a clear influence of Poe's "William Wilson". But you could equally well name Hoffmann's "Abenteuer der Sylvesternacht", for instance, and Alfred de Musset's "La nuit de Décembre", which is prominently quoted in the film itself.

This 'literary showiness' is not by chance, of course, and already points at why the film is so extremely important, at least for the German silent cinema of the time. It was Ewers' clear intention to show to the public that film could be more than just cheap entertainment for the masses. Which is why the filmmakers used all the means they had available at the times in a new, 'serious' context. Of course, someone appearing twice in the same frame had been seen before, but the new thing about Student is how this effect from the cinema of attractions is now transposed into another context, as a 'serious' means of storytelling (and the way the doppelganger scenes were executed by cameraman Guido Seeber was pretty outstanding).

Also new was how much of the film was filmed at the original locations in Prague, which creates much of the 'mystical' and at the same time totally 'realistic' atmosphere of the film. It could be said that Prague is actually the main protagonist of the film. But surely the effect of the film is also very much due to Wegener's impressive acting and the absence - for the most part at least - of any typical 'histrionics'. In spite of what I just said about Ewers' writings not being exactly original, I find this particular script very convincing and complex: for instance, the many doublings/mirrorings that appear in the film apart from the student and his doppelganger proper probably point at Ewers' ambition of making an 'art film', but it's all done in an inobtrusive manner. The camerawork is exceptional for the time, brought even more to life now thanks to the beautiful tintings of the new resto.

So, I can't help it: this is not only way above the 1910 Frankenstein, but also set the standard for the (phantastical) film (probably not just) in Germany, at least before "Caligari" appeared. Essential viewing, if you ask me.

[swo17]

Friendly reminder: Lists are due two months from today. That of course still leaves plenty of time to watch hundreds of shorts, or a couple serials.

[knives]

Or DW Griffith's It's Always Sunny a.k.a. True Heart Susie. I'm not sure how intentional it is, but man Gish and the main guy just ruin everyone's lives around them through their petty dedication to a sort of American wholesomeness.

[TMDaines]

How not to get enthused for this project:

1) Commence by watching all of the Chaplin films chronologically

[swo17]

Cleanse your palate with some Lumières!

[knives]

I'm finally going through the Essanay films and the best I can say is that at least they aren't the Keystone films.

[matrixschmatrix]

Hypocrites

This is an extremely cool looking movie- the double exposure of the nude woman throughout, the cuts and dissolves and mirrorings and everything, all feel really effective in getting across the sort of unreal allegorical quality of the movie- but in terms of what it's actually saying, it just felt alternately hokey and rather cruel. The whole thing is about the impossible purity of Truth, this abstract ideal, and how people are too hypocritical to deal with it, but the conception of truth here seems to lack any real sense of community compassion- in searching for it, the protagonist leaves everyone behind, refusing to help them to share his destination with him (and while some fail because they can't be bothered to seek, others fail because they have children to protect, or they're physically unable to keep up- surely such people are worthy of empathy and aid!) When he finds Truth, people of course can't handle it- first in a sort of doubly metaphorical past, where Truth is a nude statue, and everyone is SHOCKED by it (though I feel as though nude statuary wasn't... all that rare?) and then in a series of encounters in which Truth reveals hypocrites such as politicians who claim not to be corrupt, but actually ARE corrupt, high society people who... secretly want to wear decolletage-bearing clothing? Parents grieving over a sick child who had earlier given the child candy? Obviously some of this part is obscured by changing social mores- the 'modesty' section, in which everyone is revealed immodestly to be wearing extremely modest bathing costumes, most clearly, but in quite a few of the ending sections as well- but ultimately, the whole thing makes me question exactly what good Truth as some divine ideal actually does for anybody. It gets the protagonist killed, and nobody seems the better for any of it.

[knives]

Male and Female
I think I really need to reconsider my feelings on DeMille as his great films are beginning to significantly outnumber his bad ones. I'm sure the qualities I like most about this film come from the play especially in light of how the way it deals with class seems contrary to everything else I've seen from DeMille (especially Four Frightened People). If anything it's closer to a Line Wertmuller film in its plot and politics. My gut instinct is that sexism beats out politics, but while a pervert DeMille has never struck me as particularly sexist and he's pretty equal opportunity in tearing down all of the rich characters so I'm not sure where all of this goes ultimately. All the same this builds up the class screwball comedy that Lubitsch was also playing with at the same time and would be perfect by Hollywood in the '30s in a way that in the opening act is just delightful. The the later portions are also quite good if much more blatant.

Stella Maris
Well here's the awful Pickford film that was suggested but never revealed with Milestone's set. Here Pickford plays again her poor little rich girl character who if you didn't know was everything great and innocent in this world is named after a star equated to the Jesus mum lady. It's kind of an insane pageant of love that would be weird if just for the pedophilia this storyline endorses while moralizing disability as an element of being sheltered that's just weird. You'd almost think it was playing some long con if it weren't for the other Pickford character, yes she plays two characters here for no reason other than showboating, here.

To be fair this second character, Unity is literally her name, is quite a stretch for Pickford performance wise despite being an orphan as seemingly was part of her contract. She doesn't play Unity cutely or for laughs. It's more the sort of performance you'd expect out of Lillian Gish and she manages to hold her own against that standard. I suppose here is as good a place as any with that in mind to caveat all my complaints with that this is technically a well made film that is just in service to an awful story with antiquated in its day politics. This character is really put through the ringer and if they had cut the title one entirely to focus on her maybe this could have been a great movie, but in the context of this film she just brings things down a further step. She seems to exist to contrast with Stella Maris and as a danger to breaking her perfect bubble and is punished just for the possibility of intruding in on the fantasy. It's gross and doesn't work.

A character mostly dedicated to her storyline is held as example by the main one as being an alcoholic is described as being a commoner problem and the male lead is blamed for marrying her because she is a commoner. On all levels this is a loathsome film. I'll admit the character saying these things is looked down upon in the film, but even this is done just to highlight how good hearted Stella Maris is compared to everyone else. I'm not against moralistic and simplistic melodrama, but I am against stupid melodrama and this falls pretty hard in that later category. This is the sort of film where to show a character's goodness after his wife nearly murders someone he adopts her and puts her to work as a servant (but with an education). I should stop here because I could easily just turn this into a list of grievances.

[matrixschmatrix]

I've just gotten Kino's DVD of A Man There Was, and it mentions a big two part work Sjöstrom made in 1919-20, The Sons of Ingmar and Ingmar's Daughter. It sounds as though they aren't actually lost, but I wasn't able to find any kind of release of them- does anyone know where I could watch them? Also, I'm assuming given our conventions that both would qualify as a single pre-20s work?

[swo17]

Backchannels. But from what I can tell, the second one was more like a sequel, and if it would have performed better there would have been more parts. (Gustaf Molander eventually made a couple of films out of the remainder of the source novel.)

[matrixschmatrix]

J'Accuse

I bought the French blu of this, which doesn't have subtitles on the intertitles, figuring I could work it out with my mediocre-at-best French and a computer, which I think was a mistake- it's quite a wordy movie, and the intertitles are built into the flow of the thing in such a way that pausing it to complete a translation probably injured it a fair amount. Nonetheless, it's a spectacular work, one that I think ranks with the most memorable of the decade on sheer power- Gance is the opposite of a subtle filmmaker, and the entire last third of the movie dissolves into this overwhelming scream of pain and fear and anger, such that all the melodrama of the first two thirds seems more or less irrelevant. And it spends a lot of time on the melodrama- it's an interesting take on a love triangle, going from a movie in which the husband is an animal and an outright abusive brute to one reminiscent almost of Design for Living, as the abusive spouse is made selfless through the pain and mutuality of combat. Which, really, is an odd direction to take for such an anti war movie- and it never really does resolve this internal conflict, whether combat is something that elevates and purges through trial or something that is ugly and muddy and has no heroism in it.

It depicts both, with great power- going rapidly from a scene in which the soldiers are drowning in mud and dying en masse to a glorious charge lead by an ancestral Gaul- and never seems entirely certain about whether the war was a plot by old men to seek after their lost glory, useless and profiteering and murderous, or whether it was a great existential struggle against an enemy which had to be defeated. The title is repeated dozens times, always with different targets for the accusations- the old men, the profiteers, the civilians, even the sun- and the movie briefly flirts with the idea that the moral sacrifice of the dead means the living must always act patriotically in their honor before instead concluding that the dead needed only to visit their loved ones once more to find surcease of pain and a measure of peace.

Ultimately, and perhaps ironically, I'm not sure puzzling out the intended message is actually all that necessary for me (for all the sledgehammer delivery of each installment of message.) The movie itself feels groundbreaking, something that I'd believe had been made in the early 30s, with these gorgeous evocative intertitles and cutouts and moving shots and parallel lines of action and just a dizzying array of tools that I've hardly seen anywhere in the decade- Griffith's stuff is impressive, and in the case of Intolerance monumental, but at least to me this feels like a greater leap forward into the glories of the silent era than anything Griffith did. Really, if I have an objection, it's that this doesn't feel like a movie from the teens- Les Vampires is remarkable for being something that only the teens could have produced, while this would probably rank higher for me if I were writing a list of the entire silent era than it will in my list of just the teens.

[Satori]

Poor Little Rich Girl (1917)

There is some definite overlap with Tourneur’s other great work in the '10s, especially The Blue Bird’s Wizard of Oz-like fantasy-dreamscape. Here, though, the fantasy world is not a journey undertaken with the help of a friendly fairy, but a drug-induced hallucination caused by Mary Pickford being poisoned, which gives it a decidedly different feel! What I like about the film is how it maintains a tension between the fantasy elements and a rather bleak realism: for example, there is an earlier sequence in which Pickford imagines a bear attack after she is told her stock trader father has to fight bears at work, presumably because her father is going bankrupt as a result of financial speculation during a bear market. The fantasy elements are often an escape from Pickford’s lonely life as a neglected little girl, giving the film quite a tragic emotional core. While the 20-something Pickford playing a preteen is a bit weird, I think she pulls it off admirably. It also works thematically: her character is being forced to look and act like an adult when all she really wants to do is go out and play. The comedic elements early in the film are also very funny, especially her dour, serious playmate and a mudfight with the lower-class street toughs while she's dressed up like a boy.

[knives]

On its face Alice Guy's American period isn't as interesting as her French with her filmmaking style beginning to fall into the generic hole of the era with little of the startling experimentation of at first (though this is not a unique situation to be in). Canned Harmony, for a start, is a very pleasant short that has a pretty mature interest in sound and the image (the central plot is a more benign variation of Unfaithfully Yours). The acting though comes as a distraction either being a riff on overegged filmed performances or the authentic deal I'm not sure. Either way it comes as a minor distraction which causes a need to excuse the film for the tastes of its era. A House Divided on the other hand doesn't have anything to it beyond the basic components of a comedy story which would be fine if that story was any good. Instead we get an already tired wacky misunderstanding plot which only serves to show how terrible the lead couple are with their tacked on happy ending. Guy is talented enough that some of the jokes work, but the plot overpowers everything else.

'49-'17
As an extra to The Ocean Waif Kino so kindly included '49-'17. Seemingly made just to show off San Diego this sentimental look at the death of the west is weird in just the right way to make it very enjoyable. The story is mostly an excuse for a romance to develop, but that excuse is really fascinating as a historical document. It does not cry over the death of the west due to a loss of romantic notions, but because of how a certain sentimental joy is not possible anymore. At the same time there seems to be a lot of good brought about like that. The movie shows off Balboa Park and Old Town in a way that really makes one happy at the west's death if it means you can get a hold of such a city. This especially rings true as we see the old west from a variety of perspectives some of which make it seem like the worst place to live. The, then, present is so much better it almost turns the judge's sentimentality into a joke if it weren't for how sincerely the film cares for him despite also disliking the extent his sentimentality endangers the people.

Eventually the film turns totally self reflexive as the machinates of the story force the people to act with sincerity like the imagined old west. It's kind of nutty, but in a good way that makes me like the film more than it probably deserves.

[knives]

I think I've finally gotten back on a roll with this project. There's a surprising number of great obscurities lying about.

Engineer Prite's Project
This film is compelling to watch just due to its historical significance as the first film of the Soviet thinkers. It provides a lot of little elements for what would become arguably the best decade of any nation's cinematic output. Those little elements don't really build to a perfect whole though so this plays a bit more like those films by the proto-New Wave theorists that critically haven't measured up to Godard etc. There are a number of shots that play off of Kuleshov's best known theories and the intercutting is exquisite, but largely the aesthetic is not distinguished from previous Russian films, nor what anyone else was doing at the same time.

Rather the film is perhaps most interesting on the thematic level. It's short so doesn't get into the reeds, but the way it hits on all the major Leninist themes is interesting thanks to the film also providing a strong narrative. The main idea is about renewable energies. Not for, as a modern version of this likely would have, any environmental cause, but for how renewables make things cheaper and more freely available to the people at large. The conflict from this utopian hope comes as could be expected the monied class of oil barons (probably the same bad guys in my modern version) fearing that renewables will make their ability to gather money more difficult. It's a tad simplistic, but the idea at least rings with truth. The story is pretty traditionally told pulp for the era taking inspiration from Jules Verne and all the other usual suspects which is okay as a lean, fun story works very well for the film's purposes. Even though this is only a good movie it has me pumped for what Kuleshov made in the next decade.

The Hero of the Dardanelles
This is the sequel to a film I've never seen and only around a third of the film survives, yet in spite of those potential negatives Rolfe's film has a lot of emotional components to it that simply could not have been captured in any other era. A lot of this is the documentary element of the film featuring the real training of real soldiers alongside the narrative elements (which are cheerily propagandist and not as compelling). What, for me, makes this such an eerie experience is how though an Australian production speaking toward Australians in a full Kuleshov reality these soldiers could be anyone anywhere during this time. I find myself feeling toward them as if they were Americans and the silence with black and white only reinforces the everyman nature of the film and situation. It's a gentle shock to realize what film has lost with the change that has come in the course of the over 100 years since this film was first seen.

Reaching for the Moon
It seems Fairbanks had invented the Walter Mitty story before James Thurber was even a published author. The film doesn't go as far as all of that, but as a way to give new life to Fairbanks' usual comedic personality it's a welcome enough change though it is never particularly funny (in contrast I was watching some early Harold Lloyd and cracking up like an idiot). One point of interest though, and where it really differs from the Thurber, is in its treatment of women. Fairbanks' love is allowed fantasies of her own and the film clearly sides with her on most things in direct contrast to Thurber's deliberately toxic masculinity (it is no shock that a woman co-wrote the picture). In general it seems compared to his contemporaries Fairbanks was willing to have his female protagonists be not just characters, which in itself is a major change (going over the Chaplin films it is so annoying that Edna Purviance was never really given a role), but have a fairly clear internal life with wants, needs, and desires. I don't think this amounts to much of a film in the same way the others in the set don't, but there are some refreshing things going on all the same.

[matrixschmatrix]

The Merry Jail

The Harvard Film Archive was showing this (in a double feature with Romeo and Juliet in the Snow), so I caught this one- though if I'd realized it was on Criterion's release of Trouble in Paradise (which it doesn't much resemble) I probably would have watched it sooner. It's apparently an adaption of the same source material as Die Fledermaus, and it shows- the basic plot-stuff is very similar, insofar as it concerns a husband meant to report to jail for an evening, having his place taken there by a dude with connections to his wife, and going to a ball instead, where both his wife and his maid appear in disguise. Both resolve with a reconciliation between the principles, too, though Lubitsch never takes anything that separates them too seriously. He doesn't take anything too seriously, to even a greater degree than what is already a fairly silly operetta.

Mostly, it's a frame on which to hang the same sort of farce elements Lubitsch revels in during I Wouldn't Want to be a Man and The Oyster Princess- homoeroticism (there's a runner about the lines between greeting kisses and romantic kisses that blurs gender boundaries and is capped by Emil Jannings borderline making out with his boss, as well as some jailhouse homosocial fraternization matched with women in drag dancing with other women in a fancy ball), comically drunken aristos, gluttony, blurred lines between servants and masters, infidelity, and general farce plotting. It's fun, but maybe because it's going along the plot structure of something a little older, it never gets quite as insane as The Oyster Princess (with which it shares some major cast members, playing similar parts), nor as in depth with the gender play as I Wouldn't Want to be a Man. It's still worth watching- I really love the effect Lubtisch gets simply by having women have fun in an uninhibited way, and there's never a moment where the joyousness of it is checked by anything gross- but for me at least, it's just a bit outshone but his other work in the era.

[matrixschmatrix]

I could really use an extension on this- the Lang list has been monopolizing my time a bit lately, and I'd really like to get another 20-30 movies in before the due date, which I don't think is possible right now. If that's just me, I'll make due, but I'd appreciate a bit more time.

[swo17]

How much more time? There's a little over a month still until the first deadline. Actually though, you've earned whatever extension you want. Name it and it's yours.

[matrixschmatrix]

Three extra weeks would give me enough to make my goal, I think. Thanks!