Silent Films

[j d worthington]

Yes, "The General" is an amazing film, in numerous ways. A lot of Keaton's work (at least, where he himself had artistic control) are quite astounding.

There is a story -- whether or not it is entirely true, I don't recall, but I believe Keaton himself was the one who told it -- that, in the filming of it, he was knocked down onto the tracks and then hopped up and chased after the train. He didn't know it at the time, but he had broken one (at least) of the vertebrae in his neck. Yet he kept going. He began to have horrible migraines and it wasn't until years later, when being x-rayed, that they found out about the neck injury. So he had actually continued doing all those acrobatic stunts with, essentially, a broken neck....

 

[ravenus]

I've downloaded a couple of days ago "The phantom of the opera" from 1925 and am looking quite forward to watching it.

(Yes, I said downloaded. Don't look so disapproving at me, there's really no other way for me to get some of the films I want here. Amazon takes forever to get anything here and there's no cinemas that play old films. So I'm stuck with what I've got as a solution.)

Oh I think the silent version of The Phantom of The Opera is an out of copyright work so you're not breaking any laws as such by downloading and watching it.

 

[CyBeR]

Had a bit of courage last night and watched "Metropolis".
For my first foray into silent films, I can't say there was a better title to chose. I'm actually sad that not the whole film survived to this day and out of a 3 hour one it got reduced to a two hour long piece of cinematography. It was impressive for its time and quite original I might add.

I may just become a regular poster in this topic from now on.

 

[AE35Unit]

Had a bit of courage last night and watched "Metropolis".
For my first foray into silent films, I can't say there was a better title to chose. I'm actually sad that not the whole film survived to this day and out of a 3 hour one it got reduced to a two hour long piece of cinematography. It was impressive for its time and quite original I might add.

I may just become a regular poster in this topic from now on.

I rented this a while ago,the only thing is it was the version with the new aoundtrack by Giorgio Moroder, which spoiled it!!

 

[Foxbat]

Whilst ordering a copy of Dario Argento's Inferno on DVD, I came across a reference to a movie called L'inferno. Made in 1911, it was (apparently) the first ever feature film to come out of Italy. Don't have a clue what it will be like but it was fairly inexpensive so ordered it as well. Anybody seen this?

 

[Ursa major]

According to Wiki (whose contributor thinks well of the film, or is passing on a recommendation), the DVD you've bought has a soundtrack - not specially composed for it - by Tangerine Dream.

 

[Foxbat]

According to Wiki (whose contributor thinks well of the film, or is passing on a recommendation), the DVD you've bought has a soundtrack - not specially composed for it - by Tangerine Dream.

Hopefully, that will be an option I can de-select. Failing that, I may have to watch this silent movie with the sound turned down.......oh the irony

 

[Ursa major]

So Tangerine's not appealing, then?

I would have thought, given that the music is more than half-a-decade distant from the film, that you should be able to deselect it.

Then again, a silent film heard in silence sounds rather odd, to my ears. (Seriously: I'm guessing that this film wasn't meant to be watched without some sort of musical accompaniment.)



.

 

[AE35Unit]

Hmm Tangerine Dream,wold like to hear that!

 

[Foxbat]

Then again, a silent film heard in silence sounds rather odd, to my ears. (Seriously: I'm guessing that this film wasn't meant to be watched without some sort of musical accompaniment.)



.

I agree that a silent film in silence would be odd.

As for Tangerine Dream - saw them live many years ago.....three guys sitting staring intently at their synths, separated from the audience by black netting and creeping dry ice. Music nothing to write home about.

I managed to fall asleep.

 

[Foxbat]

Just finished watching L'inferno. Movie quality varied quite a lot (different parts of the film were from different sources). Interesting and fairly faithful interpretation of Dante's Inferno.

The music had no option to deselect but the swirling synths seemed to suit the mood of this movie at first and I felt pleasantly surprised. But then the vocals kicked and I can only describe the effect as truly awful. I'm not a great fan of Tangerine Dream but this is the worst I've ever heard from them.

In conclusion, an interesting movie that is worth having but I will definitely watch it in future with the sound down.

 

[Ursa major]

Would the description, Silence is Tangerine, be appropriate here? (Or are we more in the domain of the lemon?)

 

[Foxbat]

Would the description, Silence is Tangerine, be appropriate here? (Or are we more in the domain of the lemon?)

Very appropriate.

 

[The DeadMan]

I'm not usually a fan of silent movies, but I recently saw "Nosferatu" with a muscial soundtrack by "Type-O-Negative". Their spooky music really set the movie off for me. It also had an introduction by
David Carradine. Best of all I bought the DVD at Wal-Mart for $1.00!

 

[Foxbat]

It always amazes me how music can change the whole mood of a film. A classic example is Todd Browning's Dracula (admittedly not a silent movie). It is available with a new musical soundtrack by Philip Glass (performed by the Kronos Quartet) which is simply beautiful in its effect.

 

[JB_Dresden]

I was always partial to NOSFERATU, and was the Japanese THRONE OF BLOOD silent or just subtitled?

 

[j d worthington]

I was always partial to NOSFERATU, and was the Japanese THRONE OF BLOOD silent or just subtitled?

Subtitled.

 

[Starbeast]

Silent Film: The Call of Cthulhu

I'm an H.P. Lovecraft fan and I really enjoyed this modern made silent movie.​

 

[j d worthington]

Yep, that's an interesting little piece. Made on something less than a shoestring budget, largely with amateurs, and yet it manages to capture a great deal of the feel of Lovecraft's story (as well as getting an enormous amount of the actual incidents and details right), and also manages to be a delightful little hommage to the silent era.

Yes, it has its flaws; but overall I was very pleased with it indeed... now if I can only get to see their production of The Whisperer in Darkness (which looks as if it is done as an early sound film), that would be wonderful....

 

[Ursa major]

Thanks for linking to that The Call of Cthulhu.

As JD has said: delightful.