penfold

I think we've probably had them on previous years, certainly 'Triumph'.....I did hear a rumour that we might be getting an Eille Norwood Sherlock Holmes....

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

theuofc

I also appreciate your listing the Milestone Films url. I especially like their "Pick of the Month"....the rediscovered "Beyond the Rocks" with Valentino and Swanson.

Among the many reasons I admire Marty Scorsese is his ongoing support of film conservation and restoration. He capures the eternal allure of Silent films in his review of "Beyond the Rocks":

"A cause for celebration... Now, thanks to the efforts of the Nederlands Filmmuseum, we have the entire film. It?s a precious gift... A testament to the extraordinary artistry of silent cinema.

The greatest actors of the silent era had a rare intensity ? emotional, physical, almost spiritual. They had to seize us right from the start, with their own inner power and luminosity. As you will see, that?s exactly what Valentino and Swanson, both at the peak of their powers, do in Beyond the Rocks. The film is carefully built around that power and luminosity.

Once again, we owe a debt of gratitude to the Nederlands Filmmuseum for all the work they did in the conservation and restoration of this film. And, in North America, to Milestone Films, who have tirelessly dedicated themselves to the distribution of silent cinema. ? Martin Scorsese"

Barbara

phil_sheffield

I fully agree that Silent Era : The silent film website is one of the best sources of information and release details in the US.
Only a relative handful of titles have been released on commercial video/dvd by the major distributors, Image, Milestone, Kino, MGM but hundreds of forgotten gems are available on VHS/ DVD-r via the US public domain suppliers, most noteably Grapevine Video and Nostalgia Family Video - Quality Videos Since 1989
The quality of picture and musical scores varies wildly on these releases but most are unlikely ever to appear anywhere else so always worth investigating
I also endorse the alternative score on the Milestone 'Hindle Wakes' even though the modern score originates from my home city! In my opinion these modern compositions are always inferior to the type of score that would have accompanied the film when it was originally shown.
Isn't it a shame that , with the exeption of the Hitchcock films, so few examples of British silent cinema are available for home viewing
Phil

ChristineCB

I believe the film industry was only 20 or so years old by the time Talkies took over, and there weren't that many 'professionals' in the cimenatography business. I wonder how many of those camera crews felt 'successful' into the 1940s and '50s?

The successful silents had to pay so much attention to visual crafting or risk losing the audience after the film's novelty wore off.

Sound would later help distract the audience from poor camera work, but I'd think Learning To Film Silents had to be somewhere between The Acid Test and a Ph.D is Understanding The Audience.

In some recent threads, there was a mention of a film with "too much archive footage" and having its graininess cause headaches. And another thread talked about the "jerkiness" of the handhelds. And my own motion-sickness experience from Woody Allen's HUSBANDS AND WIVES.

I wonder if so many of my favorites from the '30s and '40s weren't the result of those Ph.D Camera Crews using even more experience?

theuofc

Hello, Phil,

I couldn't agree with you more in wishing that more British silents were available.
I appreciate the reminders about Grapevine and Nostalgia. I am still waiting and probably will for years to see Abel Gance's Napoleon on the big screen again. What a dream that would be.

Other than at film festivals, silents are hard to find on the big screen accompanied by a fitting musical score. If Turner Classic Movies didn't show silent films in the middle of the night, I'd have to buy all of them or hope that my interlibrary loan carried the titles I longed to view. People are often turned off by the lack of dialogue in silents and the black and white film, but I think they are visually luminous and richly gratifying to the imagination. Who needs words to be gripped by Way Down East or Sunrise.

All the best,

Barbara

phil_sheffield

hi Barbara,
There are so many great silent films I personally would find it difficult to pick favourites but, Napoleon would be there, I was lucky enough to see it 'live' with the incredible Carl Davis score. Of course The Birth of a Nation has to be there, again there is a print with a Carl Davis score. The other one I can watch over again is King Vidor's Big Parade this certainly could have not been improved upon by the addition of sound!
Of the British silents I would love to find a copy of Gainsborough's The Wrecker 1928, I had this on 8mm film years ago so I know it is out there somewhere. Grapevine issued E A Dupont's Moulin Rouge and more recently the great little Stoll Adventures of Sherlock Holmes shorts.
The silent film was a unique artform, conveying the story without words and with the minimal use of intertitles. The score, I think, is as important as the film itself. The use of modern electronic scores, in my mind distracts from the film and in some cases makes it virtually unwatchable, at least if you are watching at home you can turn the sound off and put your own music cd on in its place!
Phil

ChristineCB

Phil, do you get a chance to see Silents displayed in theatres with live orchestras or bands, and if so, what's your opinion? Hit or miss? More one than the other?

I have not seen the same film with different scores so I can't do comparative analysis. For me, the live performances have been hit-or-miss, and even then, I'm not certain why I can justify a favorable rating over an unfavorable one. Sometimes, "noticing a score" is a hindrance, and sometimes "not noticing it" can be the weakness.

I know there are a few Silents who've been taken 'on the road' with a new composer's orchestra/band, and I'm not sure if there's any true success or failure rating beyond the composer's own, or the individual viewer's own.

But I was curious if you've run across Silents with live music, and what you've thought of that experience.

phil_sheffield

Hi Christine. I know there are differing opinions on silent film scores, some people seem to be of the opinion that seeing a silent film with or without a score is rewarding i n itself. I feel a good score can be the difference between fully appreciating a silent film as opposed to simply seeing it.
I have seen many silent films with live scores over the years and I agree the quality and presentation is very much hit and miss. Obviously the most grand performances such as Napoleon in London with a live symphony orchestra cannot be faulted. The powerful score matching this film perfectly. I doubt the combination would work so well with, for example, a Buster Keaton short, which would be better suited to a solo pianist or small orchestra or trio.
In Manchester I saw a presentation of the Four Horsemen of the Appocalypse, the score on film had been turned off (incidently the Carl Davis score that accompanies the laserdisc version) and an American organist had been invited to play a score on the Wurlitzer organ, I'm not sure whether it was just the nostalgia of seeing a performance on this musical instrument from a bygone age but I found myself watching the film and organist in almost equal proportions!

Years ago when my home city of Sheffield had its own version of the National Film Theatre, long gone due to public spending cutbacks, silent films were on the programme nearly every month, most were accompanied by a pianist or in some cases string quartet, the pianist was nearly always 'off stage' out of sight of the audience, this worked just as well as some of the grand performances you see now and again.
I have seen a couple of performances scored by In the Nursery who did the modern score on the Hindle Wakes DVD, they are invariably too loud and the music distracts from the film to a degree which makes it almost a trial to watch.

If you watch some of the many laserdiscs and dvd's with dual scores it is easy to make comparisons in the quality and suitability of performance, music type etc. But the factors that are exclusive to live performances can I think vary from presentation to presentation, what may sound great in a large venue may be totally overwhelming in a smaller place.

To sum up, my view anyway, live scores can be an hindrance to appreciating the silent film if badly presented or not in keeping with the mood or period. With the passage of time there will be fewer and fewer people with sufficient knowledge of silent film music to properly represent these presentations, so there will be more poor live perfomances or just less frequent screenings of any silent films.

ChristineCB

Exactly. I hope the public-domain world will locate these and keep circulating them. I know there are music colleges that have film-score projects over semesters, and I've seen a few of those efforts. I've not liked some, but at least they're trying. I saw a guitar/grunge band do a (and I'll use the term loosely) "score" for GOLEM. While their score (which was sometimes like dental drills and other times like car-crashes) was definitely not my preferred style of noise, it wasn't always inappropriate.

Jazzier scores for the comedies were always my preference, but I'm not sure I don't simply prefer Silent Comedies, period. Lloyd and Keaton, especially. I'm not sure why I have a somewhat negative feeling toward Chaplin. Maybe it's genetic.

I saw a Rudolph Valentino-Gloria Swanson "epic" with a live orchestra and they were too intrusive, or else I couldn't keep my eyes off of them and on the screen. "Too distracting" was my eventual thought.

At the same time, I recommend those all the time if only to keep those Silents in the public's attention.

image45

I have three Eille Norwood Sherlock Holmes stories, they are the 'Devils Foot', 'The Man with the Twisted lip' & 'The Dying detective'. They run for around 25 minutes each. I once met someone that had had access to the 'Hound of the baskervilles' that was a feature lengh version from the Eille Norwood era. Sadly he had returned it to the collector who lived in europe so I was unable to see it!

"Seya next time!"

penfold

Quite a few...one example is Georges Perinal, French cameraman for Powell and Pressburger up to and including 'Blimp', and important in the industry until Peter Finch's 'Wilde' in 1960, was a top cameraman in the silent era.....there's a sequence in 1928's 'Maldone', a dance in a French country inn where you see an accordion-fuelled waltz, first from the inn's beams, then we go downstairs to the floor, and you (and the cameraman) become participants in the dance, weaving and waltzing throughout the crowd....hand held, and before steadicam, and edited perfectly too..... breathtaking. If you ever get the chance to see really mint condition films on the big screen, you'd know how great those early cameramen were...if there was much improvement, it was in sensitivity in film stock, and lighting power.

The 'Archive footage' comment was from me, re. The Queen...but that was about watching VHS taped TV news footage on a large cinema screen....

And the training they passed on to the younger generation like Jack Cardiff....there, never thought I'd put that in a sentence....

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

penfold

All the above is true.....except that Beyond The Rocks is pretty much a stinker, and was seen as such at the time....sometimes these films disappeared for a reason. The leads are fine, Swanson's dresses are spectacular, and....that's it. It was the 1920's equivalent of a J.Lo/Ben Affleck movie...they made them then too.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

penfold

Nottingham does promise to be spectacular this year, if you can get away that weekend, it should be well worthwhile.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

theuofc

Oh very good one, Mark! Which JLo/Ben Afflectk film is your favourite? (I couldn't resist!)

All the very best,

Barbara

theuofc

I'm sure it's a treat for Jack to hear! He's still very young in spirit, isn't he. After a recent talk at The National Gallery, as Jack was coming down the stairs, a bit slowly but the stairway was narrow, he grinned mischievously to his wife who had reached out to help him, "Well, hello there, didn't I see you at the last talk?" while she rolled her eyes and laughed. A lovely man and always young.

Barbara