The Silent Film Era

Denerally, late silent movies are more watchable than earlier because acting and film technique is more sophisticated.

Uncle's Tiom Cabin is no classic, just based on a well known novel.

The one silent I think you would be very impressed with is Greed.

Expressionism's really the way to go with silent films. If you liked The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, you may like Metropolis- a dystopic masterpiece.

Apparantly German Expression is a strong influence in Tim Burton's films, particularly Edward Scissorhands and Sweeney Todd.

__________________
You cannot have it both ways. A dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts of human love can never be a great dancer. Never. (The Red Shoes, 1948)

Netflix doesn't seem to have Greed and I'm through blind buying anything, so it's doubtful I'll be seeing it. That's unfortunate because I believe that was one honeykid recommended to me as well.

I know Uncle Tom isn't considered a classic of silent film, I just listed it because it was one of the silents I have seen (and, for the record, I watched it simply because I'd read the novel).

Thanks, I'll give Metropolis a try.

Greed can be seen on youtube if you google Greed 1924. An excellent print, but with annoying German subtitles, which isn't so bad once the movie gets going because it's lighter on title cards than many silents.

Charlie Chaplin...the man who showed and proved the silent era ....

I just watched Metropolis (1927). It's really awesome visual effect for 1920's. Too bad about 1/4 of the film is missing. Overall, it's pretty good film. I really enjoyed it. I would recommend anyone to watch it.

Thanks for your recommendation from other posts.

__________________
Timetravelfan
www.timetravelmovie.com

They recovered some parts of that film recently, if not all the missing parts. The version I watched just recently had all these descriptions of the missing bits so I've never seen them. 'Tis a great film with great visuals even today.

They supposedly just added 25 minutes (from a miracle Argentinian print, I believe) so it's still missing a few parts, but it should have a lot less descriptions and a lot more movie nowadays. I may see the restored version at the theatre later this month.

__________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

I wonder how Metropolis was badly damaged. That makes me think of many silent films might be damaged and we never see them. Does anyone know about damaged silent films that survive today?

That's interesting that parts of Metropolis haven't been recovered. Is there a lot of films from back then like this?

Movies back then were shot on nitrate film, which is extremely flammable (remember Inglourious Basterds?). Vault fires occurred all the time. Also, around 1930, almost every major studio destroyed its silent films to make room in its vaults. I think it's because they thought they were now worthless with the inception of sound. There were exceptions for culturally significant movies, like much of D.W. Griffith's stuff and all of Chaplin's movies. But I've read that literally 80% of films from the silent era--from the 1890's throughout the 1920's--are gone forever.

So it's pretty normal to hear about a film whose original print was destroyed or lost, especially foreign films like Grand Illusion (not a silent film)and especially Metropolis. On a bunch of copies of DVD's I have, especially Criterion releases, there's a special feature about how the original negatives were recovered somehow and remastered after they had been lost in shipment or storage, or destroyed in fires.

__________________
"I want a film I watch to express either the joy of making cinema or the anguish of making cinema" -Francois Truffaut

80%???? That is a large percent! Wow. What source? I would love to read it.

I would have guessed about 95%.

Luckily, a pretty good amount of Ozu's silent era stuff still remains. Only in Japan.

__________________
"Loves them? They need them, like they need the air."

The Japanese appreciate quality.

After I read posts, I am now fascinated with the silent film era. I plan to read a book from my library called "Silent Movies : The Birth of Film and the Triumph of Movie Culture" by Peter Kobel (2007). Does anyone read it before? How good?

Here's three for now:

http://www.criterion.com/boxsets/532...amily-comedies

Also, I have access to at least a dozen more silent films of his.

__________________
"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Interesting trivia on The Grand Illusion.

Goebbels made sure that the film's print was one of the first things seized by the Germans when they occupied France. He referred to Jean Renoir as "Cinematic Public Enemy Number 1". For many years it was assumed that the film had been destroyed in an Allied air raid in 1942. However, a German film archivist named Frank Hansel, then a Nazi officer in Paris, had actually smuggled it back to Berlin. Then when the Russians entered Berlin in 1945, the film found its way to an archive in Moscow. When Jean Renoir came to restore his film in the 1960s, he knew nothing of Hansel's acquisition and was working from an old muddy print. Purely by coincidence at the same time, the Russian archive swapped some material with an archive in Toulouse. Included in that exchange was the original negative print. However, because so many prints of the film existed at the time, it would be another 30 years before anyone realized that the version in Toulouse was actually the original negative.

Trivia for The Grand Illusion from IMDb.

Thanks for sharing it. I did not think about WWII that could be one of factors that destroy many silent films and 1930's films. Ummm...