Impressions: The 2015
San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Part 1: How I got
here.
Caveats:
1. I am not a film scholar, historian, or critic. I am a
person who loves to watch and read about films. I got the idea that
attending a silent film festival might be a great vacation. The fact
that the festival was in San Francisco was pure gravy. That idea coming to fruition after a two year
gestation period is the source of this entry.
2. This entry will be peppered with Youtube Internet addresses.
These addresses are for your entertainment and perhaps, edification. Note that:
A. There may be problems with copyright for some of these
addresses. My philosophy is live and let live. It is Youtube’s problem, not
mine. Look at anything you like. Downloading or copying may be illegal.
B. These addresses are ephemeral. What is at Youtube today
may not be there tomorrow, or may be available at a different address or a
different site entirely. I use Youtube for convenience and breadth of coverage
There are other sites. Openculture.com and Archive.org are two. For that
reason, I will give titles and authors, which you can search, as well as
addresses which I have found. At the end, I will point you to some places I
have found useful if you want to watch online or purchase titles you might be interested in.
C. I will give examples that I have found particularly
useful. The best way to find more examples of a director’s style is to search Youtube by that director’s name.
D. After clicking on any link, click on the back button to get back to the blog item.
D. After clicking on any link, click on the back button to get back to the blog item.
=====================================
It should be said, to begin with, that silent film is an acquired
taste. Just like several other acquired tastes that have occupied (obsessively,
some would say) my time over the years (cricket, chess, astronomy, opera, the
US Civil War, Basque court sports (cesta punta, remonte, pala, paleta goma, xare, pasaka, frontenis, joko garbi, rebot, bote luzea, grand chistera, main nue, and mano, for those
who are interested), other Basque sports (wood chopping and giant ball picking up and dropping, other Basque "rural ", Basque boat racing, sheparding), and one Italian sport (calcio storico) so crazy that...well, see for yourself), it is difficult to trace where, when, or
exactly how my "interest" was piqued.
What I can say about silent films is that my interest coincided with the free guest auditor classes I began taking at my university when I turned sixty. Any resident of my state, at age sixty, can take university classes for free. A remarkably progressive policy. I am trying to take as many as I can as quickly as I can.
What I can say about silent films is that my interest coincided with the free guest auditor classes I began taking at my university when I turned sixty. Any resident of my state, at age sixty, can take university classes for free. A remarkably progressive policy. I am trying to take as many as I can as quickly as I can.
The very first class I took was Film History from the beginning to 1960. In this class we were exposed to the very birth of the art:
Eadweard Muybridge: The Weird World of Eadweard Muybridge
The Lumiere Brothers: Moving Pictures: The Lumiere Brothers
Edwin S. Porter
A. The Life of an American Fireman (1903)
B. The Great Train Robbery (1903)
Cecil Hepworth: Rescued by Rover (1905)
D.W Griffith: A Corner in Wheat (1909)
Shortly after that, we saw Charlie Chaplin in Easy Street (1917)
and
Buster Keaton in The General (1927)
All of which was prelude to one of my favorite films:
F.W. Murnau's The Last Laugh
Seeing these films lead me to a book by Kevin Brownlow: The Parade's Gone By...
and two documentaries by Brownlow and David Gill:
A. Hollywood: A Celebration of American Silent Film (1980)
B. Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood (1995)
Parts 1-5:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG3WUVkJBAxT1hzRLONUK1Olo8NfNcuwm
Part 6:
https://vimeo.com/130231000
Part 6:
https://vimeo.com/130231000
By now silents were taking up quite a bit of my time.
The second class I took was on documentary film. We watched Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1922)
The fourth class I took was on Russian film. From the stop motion animation of Ladislaw Starewicz: The Cameraman's Revenge (1912)
To the melodramas of Evgeni Bauer: The Dying Swan (1917
and Yakov Protazanov: Father Sergius (1918) (click on CC for closed caption English subtitles.
To early Soviet silent film: L.V. Kuleshov: The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks
Sergei Eisenstein: Strike (1924)
Dziga Vertov: The Man with a Movie Camera (1929) (no subtitles, but they are really unnecessary
and Vsevolod Pudovkin : The End of St. Petersburg (1927)
I was exposed to more great silent films. I started watching some of my own, which I have chronicled elsewhere in this blog (An interesting movie and Mr. Eisenstein meet Mr. Gance).
What I learned from all of this was that
1. Silent films were never silent.
2. Silent films were an art unto themselves, not an evolutionary step on the way to sound, wide screen, etc. A "great art of pantomime," as one of the documentaries stated. An art form that was kneecapped at its height for commercial reasons. At about this time I started going to the Music Box Theater in Chicago, where they have a silent showing the second Saturday of every month.
I also learned of two magnificent silent film festivals. One
is in Italy, the Pordenone Silent Film Festival
A bridge to far for me. The language, cultural, and financial
barriers are too intimidating. But the other one is in San Francisco, an amazing city that
is within my reach, culturally, linguistically, and financially.
Part 2: The 2015 San
Francisco Silent Film Festival
It took me two years to finally get up the courage to go. It
did not disappoint.
Five days. Nineteen programs. I was able to see parts or all of 11 programs and 15 films. All in a "picture palace.", the magnificent Castro Theater.
Five days. Nineteen programs. I was able to see parts or all of 11 programs and 15 films. All in a "picture palace.", the magnificent Castro Theater.
Each film had a musical accompaniment, sometimes a single
piano and violin player, sometimes a small ensemble, and in one case an entire
silent film orchestra:
The music is an integral part of silent film. Byrony Dixon
in 100 Silent Films, describes it like this: "The feature length silent
drama, with its combination of images and musical accompaniment, is perhaps
most analogous to opera, with its own vernacular and appeal to obsessives and
enthusiasts." (p. 1). In each film, within seconds, the music merged into
the film. This was a tribute to the quality of the musicians.
I felt as if I were time traveling while watching these
films. This must have been something like what watching a silent film in the
1920s was like. The other thing that really struck me was just how
visual a medium film is. That would seem to be obvious, but when you watch a
modern film, ask yourself how much of your enjoyment of the film comes from the
images alone. If you watch a silent film seriously, as was stated by King Vidor in the 1st installment of Hollywood, you cannot take your eyes
off the film. Not for a second. Not to look into your popcorn or to locate your
drink. If you do you will miss something. Seriously watching a silent film
demands much more concentration, in my opinion, than watching a sound film. It
is work, but tremendously rewarding.
I loved everything I saw. Two films stood out in my mind. One was the above mentioned The Last Man. Watching it on Youtube or even on a film class screen is barely watching it at all. Projected in all its glory on the big screen, accompanied by a symphony orchestra, the film is an overwhelming experience. I don't know enough about film to try to get into why F.W. Murnau was among the greatest of film directors in the history of cinema. The plot of the film is that a hotel doorman is demoted to washroom attendant. That is all. But the themes of human degradation and redemption are universal.
There is no dialog in the film.
There are title cards, but no dialog. Murnau was able to tell an emotionally complex story with images alone. Think about that the next time you watch a film. The other film was Jacques Feder's Visages D'enfants (1925). It is about a world seen through the eyes of a child. It is subtle and powerful, a film I knew nothing about by a director I also knew nothing about. A great discovery for me. It was a beautiful film, one that elicited tears at the end. Flesh and the Devil (1926) (excerpts only) (mainly the sizzling chemistry between John Gilbert and Greta Garbo—simply a reflection of what was actually going on between them at the time) was also compelling viewing.
There were many other films. You can read articles about all
of them at:
Click on “Festival Year” next to “Archive by” on the right side of the page. Or simply search for year (as Festival Year browse isn't available as of 10/14/18)>
Some were better than
others. But I enjoyed every one I saw. I also bought some books and dvds.
Something to keep me going until next year's festival. My greatest
disappointment was missing Brownlow and Dixon sign copies of their books
that I bought after one of the films. I stepped out of the theater to stretch
my legs, not realizing that, even with my full pass, I couldn’t re-enter
until the next film.
A very large part of this festival was also about reclaiming and restoring lost films. It has been estimated that around 90 percent of all the silent films produced before the advent of sound have been lost. Films were trashed for the silver in the stock after they had their runs. Or they burned. There was an interesting demonstration at the festival that compared the burning of safety stock to silver nitrate stock. The nitrate exploded into flames. It demonstrated how dangerous a job projecting a film on this stock was. William Fox's New Jersey warehouse burned in 1937. Most of the Fox archive was lost.
Many people have been instrumental in the reclamation and restoration of silent films. Kevin Brownlow was one of the first. Serge Bromberg, who addressed the festival on more than one occasion, is one of the most important. See his Lobster Films for more on this. Many national archives are also involved in this. One of the joys of this festival is that it presents one or more of the latest films to be found and restored. And they are restored magnificently.The last time silent films looked as beautiful as they do today was when they were first exhibited.
A very large part of this festival was also about reclaiming and restoring lost films. It has been estimated that around 90 percent of all the silent films produced before the advent of sound have been lost. Films were trashed for the silver in the stock after they had their runs. Or they burned. There was an interesting demonstration at the festival that compared the burning of safety stock to silver nitrate stock. The nitrate exploded into flames. It demonstrated how dangerous a job projecting a film on this stock was. William Fox's New Jersey warehouse burned in 1937. Most of the Fox archive was lost.
Many people have been instrumental in the reclamation and restoration of silent films. Kevin Brownlow was one of the first. Serge Bromberg, who addressed the festival on more than one occasion, is one of the most important. See his Lobster Films for more on this. Many national archives are also involved in this. One of the joys of this festival is that it presents one or more of the latest films to be found and restored. And they are restored magnificently.The last time silent films looked as beautiful as they do today was when they were first exhibited.
As I said at the beginning, silent films are an acquired
taste. I know people who can't watch 10 minutes without becoming uncomfortable
or falling asleep. But if you can get over the fact that there won't be any
yack yack yacking (to paraphrase Gloria Swanson caricaturing herself in Sunset
Boulevard), check out some of the examples above, especially the documentaries,
which are filled with excerpts. Enjoy the act of watching the "high art of pantomime." You might discover something that you weren't
expecting.
Selected Internet sources of silent film:
Online:
Archive.org silent films
Hundreds of silent films, available free of charge. Organized in multiple ways.
Openculture.com silent films
The site says 101 free silent classics. Judge for yourself.
Fandor
(fee based but very reasonable). Hundreds of silent films, categorized by genre, country, and time period.
Thanhouser Company
An independent film studio in New York that operated from 1909 to 1918. The site contains a complete history of the studio, along with 57 films available for free online and many more on dvd.
If viewing some of these (various levels of completeness and clarity for the first two above) intrigues you and you'd like to buy copies that are in better shape:
Milestone Films
Excellent eclectic collection, highlighted by a collection of ten dvds covering pre-revolutionary Russian silent film (Starewicz, Bauer, Protozanov, etc.). At the above address click on "select a product" for links to information, including pricing information about all available silents.
Kino Lorber
over silent 150 films available
Flicker Alley
Select catalog of silent films. Flicker alley offers dvds, streaming, and made on demand films. Click on "shop" and search "silent".
Grapevine Video
Selected Internet sources of silent film:
Online:
Archive.org silent films
Hundreds of silent films, available free of charge. Organized in multiple ways.
Openculture.com silent films
The site says 101 free silent classics. Judge for yourself.
Fandor
(fee based but very reasonable). Hundreds of silent films, categorized by genre, country, and time period.
Thanhouser Company
An independent film studio in New York that operated from 1909 to 1918. The site contains a complete history of the studio, along with 57 films available for free online and many more on dvd.
If viewing some of these (various levels of completeness and clarity for the first two above) intrigues you and you'd like to buy copies that are in better shape:
Milestone Films
Excellent eclectic collection, highlighted by a collection of ten dvds covering pre-revolutionary Russian silent film (Starewicz, Bauer, Protozanov, etc.). At the above address click on "select a product" for links to information, including pricing information about all available silents.
Kino Lorber
over silent 150 films available
Flicker Alley
Select catalog of silent films. Flicker alley offers dvds, streaming, and made on demand films. Click on "shop" and search "silent".
Grapevine Video
Eclectic collection, quite a few "not classics." But also some gems,like Beggars of Life (1928) directed by William Wellman and starring Louise Brooks. Also White Hell of Pitz Palu (1929--American version). Directed by Arnold Fancke and G.W. Pabst, featuring Leni Riefenstahl.
