Hopefully the restoration will hit wide release (I really want to see the restoration because I saw a very low quality copy of the movie) but one of the silent films I most enjoyed was Filibus
It’s about a bisexual nonbinary air pirate who has many identities, toying with the police for kicks. It’s from 1915 and the closest it resembles other media is the french adventure serials like Les Vampires and Judex
Oh and I do love Der Golem. If you’re on a horror kick, I can’t recommend FW Murnau’s Faust highly enough, it’s one of the most beautiful films
I SAW THE NIGHT COMES FOR US ON @anonymous AND @Khan’s (ONE HUNDRED PERCENT ACCURATE) recommendations and YES. every bit of violence and effort and impact had me SCREAMING i got brawl in cellblock 99 excited for this but MAYBE MORE. SO MANY KNIVES. SOOOO MANY CUTS
LESBIAN KNUCKLE LICKING!!
You should put The Cabinet of Dr Caligari on your list then, because you may enjoy watching it as well to round out your german expressionistic cinema-phase.
Thank you @Tulpa for the recommendations! Somehow, I still haven’t seen Faust even though I like Murnau quite a bit. I’ve also been curious about his collaboration with Flaherty, Tabu. I’ve been meaning to delve into cinema from before 1920 and Filbus looks like a great picture to start with. German Expressionism and Soviet montage consume so much of the discussion about this period, so it’s always a treat when I’m able to step outside of them for a bit.
@SUPERSONNICK, I saw that during my first phase with silents. It’s really great! I’m going to make a point to watch Robert Wiene’s later film The Hands of Orlac before it leaves Criterion Channel.
Speaking of silents, I’ve been meaning to watch one of the Fantomas movies. The Paris Surrealist group was completely enamored with them, and that’s a strong recommendation in my book. Anyone seen any of them and have recommendations for where to start?
they’re goofy romps and the idea of surrealists loving them is comparable to the french adoring jerry lewis beyond all reason, but the second one is the best imo
Jerry Lewis rules
If you haven’t watched it, I totally recommend checking out all of Judex, too. It’s on youtube!
I got a folder of nearly every silent movie that’s been given a bluray release I mean to start on someday until I’ve seen every one. I should do that while it’s still a reasonable size
I watched A Page of Madness, a Dr. Caligari-inspired Japanese film set in a psychiatric institution.
I was really taken aback at the lack of intertitles and abrupt cuts between subject matter. I thought, wow, this film really wants to challenge the viewer to puzzle out the associations between these images; it wants the viewer to empathize with the mental confusion the characters experience. Later, I learned that the film was probably not so overtly obscure when it was first screened. Japanese theaters had narrators or benshi who would add context and detail to the events that were occurring on screen. I had no idea! Their work was just as improvisational as the live musicians’. I imagine the film would have been just as avant garde at the time as the frenetic pace and subject matter likely would have taxed the benshi’s abilities. I’m curious if there are any recordings online that simulate the experience of watching a film accompanied by a benshi. I’d imagine having a narrator like that would solve as many problems as it creates.
since silent movies are the current topic, always nice to remember one of the best movies centered around memories is mario peixoto’s ‘limite’ and i love it so much
I really appreciate the World Cinema Project for restoring and promoting films like these. They’re doing good work at expanding the scope of what people view as world cinema.
Hey, it’s me again. I saw two more silent movies.
The first is The Hands of Orlac. It was directed by Robert Wiene of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and he brought back Conrad Veidt to star. This is an excellent casting choice because Veidt has the veiniest temple I’ve ever seen. It really sells how much mental pain the character is in.
A famous pianist loses his hands when a train derails, a bargain is made, and Orlac struggles with the trauma over losing a vital part of himself. Turns out the title of the film is very apt.
The sets are now made to look realistic, but the jagged lines and high contrast lighting remain. Theatrical style has been transformed into a cinematic style.
Particularly impressive is the scene of the trainwreck. Rescuers search frantically in the night, relying on flares to look through the wreckage. It’s realistic, but artfully composed.
The second film I saw was The Oyster Princess, a “grotesque comedy” from Ernst Lubitsch.The standout talent here is Ossi Oswalda, who plays the violent daughter of an oyster “king.” I looked her up after I saw the film and it turns out she was the most famous actress in Germany at the time but died penniless at 50. These tragic stories seem to be painfully common for those who worked in this period of the industry. I think that’s one of the reasons I’m drawn to these films; it’s a time period before everything changed.
The comedy in this film is really different than the American pictures. Rather than focus on a charming fool against a cruel world, Lubitsch gives every cast member their moment and the whole universe seems like a comic-strip.
A very good print is available on YouTube if you want to watch it for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH-lqSrcFNo
I wasn’t that hot on the trailers or the concept but Bill and Ted 3 is a fucking delight and if you can find a drive-in to watch it on a big screen you really should. They kinda avoided almost every pitfall they could have done and came up with a great way to heighten the original story even without a huge budget. I kinda don’t even know how to describe it except it is kinda adorable like a Muppet movie or something? One day I’m gonna have to trace the weird throughline of kind of dumb-smart high concept ideas from Ed Solmon from Bill and Ted to Men In Black to the Mario movie.
Wife and I watched the 2 billnteds last night to prepare for the drive-in tomorrow. You have me unreasonably excited. The idea that there’s a throughline from Mario to MIB makes so much sense of my taste in movies…
Tenet fucking sucked, my new rule is to never trust anyone who liked that film
This is maybe the most confusing movies I’ve ever seen, and I’m not talking about the time nonsense but about like basic character motivation. The spy fiction stuff is incomprehensible. In any given scene I almost never had any idea what anyone’s goals or motives were. I feel like Nolan knows he is mocked for including too much exposition so he removed half of it but the movie is now indecipherable? The story does lead to a very predictable, boring and safe finale that makes sense of everybody’s motives beforehand and that’s the only reason I can think of why this movie is not sitting at 10% on rotten tomatoes
Amusingly at one point we get one of these good old Nolan exposition scenes to explain some time paradoxes and the protagonist is all « Uhhh what??? » and I’m like, what the hell, this was the least confusing part of the movie
What doesn’t help is that the themes are so juvenile, it’s all spies with guns in suits in what looks like an ad for a VIP club for boat owners only. There’s military porn, car chases, a damsel in distress, preventing the end of the world, some non-descript Call of duty fight scenes at the end that will remind you of the boring fight scenes in Inception in the Snow World
At no point does the time concepts sound interesting or awe inspiring, it’s all explicitely purely in service of the action without any desire to go beyond
I don’t get who this is supposed to be for besides 17 years olds who like to pretend they’ve managed to follow the plot
Don’t catch the coronavirus to watch it in theaters but maybe pirate it to see it drunk with someone else
Starting to go through all the Beckett on Film shorts. They’re so well realized, everyone is great in them and each manages to be really creepy and hilarious. It’s a great time.
wow this rules thanks
The whole collection seems worth checking out if you can find the files online!
