History of Film, Part 2: 1920-1929

A variation on the yearly threads we did a few years ago, with these monthly threads we will talk about individual eras of film, from the obvious classics to the forgotten masterpieces to those giants that might need to be re-evaluated.

In July we continue with a major turning point. Cinema was really starting to pull away from its roots in the stage, as directors experimented with newer camera techniques and explored a variety of genres. Films like Metropolis predicted the big-budget spectacle, and The Passion of Joan of Arc showed how the sublety of acting for the camera could still be profound. However, the real change came in 1927 when The Jazz Singer came out and introduced the world to synchronized sound. Other than a few holdouts like Charlie Chaplin, sound quickly replaced the orchestras and intertitles of older films, ushering in a new era.

Other major films of the era include the competition between Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, the experimentation of Man With a Movie Camera, the beginnings of film-as-propaganda in Battleship Potemkin, and the recently relevant copyright dodge known as Nosferatu. While the 1910's was still figuring out what a film was, the 1920's was the golden age of the silent film.

What are your thoughts? Favorites? Recommendations? Challenges to the canon?

 

Great era of film. I've only seen a few of the staples but I've been trying to dive in more lately. Love all of Murnau's work I've seen so far, and Dr. Caligari is an all time favorite for me.

Also this is incredible.

 

1. The Cameraman (Buster Keaton, Edward Sedgwick, 1928)
2. Strike (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
3. The Crowd (King Vidor, 1928)
4. Häxan (Benjamin Christensen, 1922)
5. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)
6. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
7. The Big Parade (King Vidor, 1925)
8. The General (Buster Keaton, Clyde Bruckman, 1926)
9. Lonesome (Pál Fejős, 1928)
10. Destiny (Fritz Lang, 1921)
11. The Gold Rush (Charlie Chaplin, 1925)
12. The Navigator (Buster Keaton, Donald Crisp, 1924)
13. 3 Bad Men (John Ford, 1926)
14. The Scarlet Letter (Victor Sjöström, 1925)
15. Sherlock, Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924)
16. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)
17. Wings (William A. Wellman, 1927)
18. Steamboat Bill, Jr. (Buster Keaton, Charles Reisner, 1928)
19. Our Hospitality (Buster Keaton, John G. Blystone, 1923)
20. The Phantom Carriage (Victor Sjöström, 1921)
21. Orphans of the Storm (D.W. Griffith, 1921)
22. The Kid (Charlie Chaplin, 1921)
23. West of Zanzibar (Tod Browning, 1928)
24. One Week (Buster Keaton, Edward F. Cline, 1920)
25. The Great White Silence (Herbert G. Ponting, 1922)
26. The Boat (Buster Keaton, Edward F. Cline, 1921)
27. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)
28. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F. W. Murnau, 1927)
29. Go West (Buster Keaton, 1925)
30. Faust (F. W. Murnau, 1926)
31. A Cottage on Dartmoor (Anthony Asquith, 1929)
32. Safety Last! (Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor, 1923)
33. The Scarecrow (Buster Keaton, Edward F. Cline, 1920)
34. Un Chien Andalou (Luis Buñuel, 1929)
35. The Wind (Victor Sjöström, 1928)
36. The Nightingale’s Voice (Władysław Starewicz, 1923)
37. Girl Shy (Sam Taylor, Fred C. Newmeyer, 1924)
38. Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924)
39. Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild’s Revenge (Fritz Lang, 1924)
40. Ménilmontant (Dimitri Kirsanoff, 1926)
41. Sparrows (William Beaudine, 1926)
42. Seven Chances (Buster Keaton, 1925)
43. Grandma’s Boy (Fred C. Newmeyer, 1922)
44. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (John S. Robertson, 1920)
45. Lucky Star (Frank Borzage, 1929)
46. The Circus (Charlie Chaplin, 1928)
47. Mother (Vsevolod Pudovkin, 1926)
48. The Blacksmith (Buster Keaton, Malcolm St. Clair, 1922)
49. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (Fred Niblo, 1925)
50. Day Dreams (Buster Keaton, Edward F. Cline, 1922)

Clearly Buster Keaton is my favourite filmmaker of the decade, his work was just filled with so much fun and creativity I can't help but love almost everything he made in the silent era.

 

Now we're talking. Love me some Caligari and Nosferatu. I am more interested in filling these blind spots than the earlier decade. Might do Haxan this week.

 

Haxan is great. Bit slow in spots, but very solid watch.

 

The previous decade felt like it was full of curios, this is the first decade where there are films that I actually love, as opposed to just find interesting, or innovative.

I've still got some absolutely huge blind spots here, but I love a handful of films from this decade.

The Passion of Joan of Arc has one of the greatest performances ever captured on film, there's a moment where Maria Falconetti's face starts twitching after she's been sentenced to death, and it's either one of the most impressive bits of deliberate acting ever, or the power of losing herself entirely into the performance. I do find it remarkable that this is literally her only filmed performance (I think...?), so there's absolutely nothing else we know of her other than Joan of Arc.

The silent comedy from Keaton and Chaplin is wonderful from this period, brilliant physicality but also romance of these characters, very often / always the underdogs. A big influence on 80s Hong Kong cinema, which in some cases I watched first, so it's been fun to see some of the references before seeing the originals.

Some very good and innovative Soviet cinema, including Battleship Potemkim, Strike and Man with a Movie Camera, all very innovative in terms of formal cinematic approaches, and a big influence on basically any cinema that followed it. I have seen nothing else other than those three Soviet films from this period, so no doubt there's some great films I'm missing.

German Expressionist cinema is fantastic to look at, all jaggedy angles and surreal sets and landscapes. Hitchcock's early stuff from this period borrows heavily from the look of German cinema too, and even in his early work, his films are subversive and creepy. Blackmail and The Lodger are my favourite from the 20s.

I've been slowly making my way chronologically through Ozu films, and he got started in the 20s - there's a lot that didn't survive, or only exists incomplete, but what does exist in the 20s from him are interesting. Interesting to see how (potentially?) westernised Japan was at this time, plenty of background street shots with English signs, which from my very very limited knowledge of Japan at this time, wasn't something I expected. All of his 20s and 30s silent cinema films seem to have a poster from a different American film in, so fun spotting that.

Also can't forget Un Chien Andalou, with the eye slitting scene a level of grotesque horror that makes you wince in a very effective way that most films haven't managed to do in the following 100 years.

 

The Passion of Joan of Arc was my number nine of all time when we did it last year. It is one of the two best acting performances of all time.

 

Silents are an area where my game is really weak. I'm like 4-5 tiers into the Golden Age, but am still missing some huge silents.

The big 3 silent comedians definitely feel like the easiest access point. I do love Chaplin (The Gold Rush), Keaton (Our Hospitality, Sherlock, Jr., Steamboat Bill, Jr.) and Lloyd (Safety Last!, Why Worry?, Speedy, The Kid Brother, The Freshman).

Others I do love/like in rough order:
The Adventures of Prince Achmed
The Crowd
Metropolis
The Thief of Bagdad
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The Docks of New York
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
7th Heaven
Wings
The Unknown
The Last Laugh
Nosferatu
The Big Parade
Pandora's Box
The Passion of Joan of Arc
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
The Wind
Blackmail
Sadie Tompson
The Divine Lady

And while the very early Hollywood sound films can be stiff, there are some good ones:
The Love Parade
Condemned!
The Cocoanuts
Thunderbolt
Bulldog Drummond

 

Started Metropolis yesterday this is sick.

 

Watched Haxan and Metropolis this week, both for the first time.

Metropolis is such a massive film, wonderful sets, and a brilliantly mechanical vision of the future, with big machines and steam. I think it's really interesting how a film like this wasn't available in full until 2010, when the missing footage was discovered in Argentina. From a narrative perspective, this wasn't that interesting to me, but seemingly every single visual was mesmerising.

Haxan I had very little idea what to expect, but this wasn't what I thought it'd be. Almost like a video essay, divided into chapters about witchcraft and superstitions of the middle ages. Shown as part documentary (ish), but with plenty of re-enactments and some really cool little animated bits. I love the depiction of the Devil here, a horny hairy big man who turns up and seduces your wife. Really cool stuff.

Loads of blind spots in this decade, and much more interested in filling some of them in than I was in the previous decade, which felt a little bit more like a chore.

Looking to watch (maybe) this month, Picadilly, Faust, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, A Page of Madness, The Phantom Carriage, Nanook of the North and He Who Gets Slapped.

Would also like to watch Abel Gance's Napoleon one day, but I have to be honest with myself and say a 5 hour silent film (depending which cut you go for) is probably not going to happen.

 

Starting Haxan now

 

Haxan was a lot of fun. Doing Passion of Joan of Arc now

 

Do not love the score on the CC edition, almost distracting.

A letterboxd review recommended this one

 

Yeah that was incredible. Enough has been said about the acting. I was not expecting how graphic the ending of the movie was

 

That's how I feel for most silent era films, that it's doing too much. I've just been watching without the score on.

 

I generally find scores added later to be overbearing. The silence is part of the experience.

 

Watched Murnau's Sunrise today. Really enjoyed it.

It blends fantasy in with the narrative in a really great way throughout. A few great moments that I liked, the two lovers lying in the grass and viewing the big city emerge all around them with a brass band. I loved the shot of the man and wife walking out of the registrar office and through the streets and into paradise, only to appear back into the streets, cars all around them as they embrace. There are some really cool visual and storytelling techniques here which I haven't really seen before.

I found the narrative wasn't hugely interesting (you can try and kill your wife, but if you buy her some bread and wait twenty minutes, she'll forgive you), and I was just waiting for the next great bit of imagery, but luckily we were never too far away from a really cool visual moment.

 

Man With a Movie Camera is incredible

 

One Week by Buster Keaton is a lot of fun