Since I can't take you all with me all of the time, here is one of the films I saw on Saturday at the SF Silent Film Festival, Winter/Valentine's Day Event.
Buster Keaton in his second film, an entertaining romp of love and vengeance called Our Hospitality. From the program notes:
Set against the drama of an age-old feud between two families, Buster Keaton's ingenious take on Romeo and Juliet is a laugh-out-loud parody of Southern hospitality, circa 1830. Upon learning he's inherited the ancestral estate, Buster takes the first train home to reclaim his heritage. Soon he's courting a sweetheart and dodging her family's bullets. Buster's daredevil rescue attempt above a waterfall is one of the all-time great movie stunts.
If I was forced to pick my favorite silent film comedian, I'd have to pick Harold Lloyd. BUT my very very very close second would be Buster (who got his nickname as a child from none other than Harry Houdini, how freaking cool is that?!) That face ("The Great Stone Face") just kills me. He was such a pro. I'm not going into one of my silent film raves now (you can look up past ones yourself), but gosh darn it, I'll watch a Buster Keaton film a million times before I rent the Director's Cut of the Boring Sappy Blech of Benjamin Button.
Some very kind and patient person uploaded the entire film here, viewable in three parts. For those of you who (like me) despair of most modern cinema experiences nowadays, here you can watch a film full of stunts that are real (no special effects), great comedy, no special effects, and no special effects. Just imagine, a movie without CGI! How ever did they do it?!
Amazing.
ps.: I know that most of you (all of you?) won't watch the entire film if any of it, but if you do (maybe there's a lull at work?), there's a scene in part 2 here where a man kicks a hat off of another man's head (no special effects, just incredible gymnastic ability). That man was Buster Keaton's dad, who makes a brief cameo. And Keaton's son, billed here as Buster Jr, makes an appearance in the beginning of the film, as the baby. Keeping it all in the family. Oh, and his wife is the love interest. So there you are.
pss.: The full SF Silent Film Festival is scheduled this year for July 10-12. So don't call or write to me then. But I'll save you a seat!
"I was going to ask you to play House, but I think you'd be a weird example for our children." ~ Susie from Calvin and Hobbes
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Last week at dinner, The Boy and I were chatting over some Thai food and he said to me, "You understand me better than anyone else I know." He said it in such a sweet and sincere way that I wanted to jump across the dishes of food and give him a big smooch, but I restrained myself. I'll remember the way he said that for a long time. (Although sometimes I know him too well and it annoys him, like when your mom knows you're doing something naughty even though you deny it.)
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Four years and almost 365 days ago, I met The Boy under circumstances that involved him thinking that I was British (and thus having a cute accent), that my name was Bridget, and that I looked good in a sweater (a la Lana Turner). Only one of those three scenarios somewhat resembles the truth.
The anniversary of our 5-year meeting is coming up next week, although neither one of us is quite sure of the exact date. I blew off an initial invite with him to see a Sunday matinee of Duck Soup (which he still mentions on occasion) and he was over two hours late to our eventual first date that might have been on a Wednesday (and that is what I counter with). But the rest of the "four years and change," as he puts it, has gone quite swimmingly, all things considered. Life with The Boy's been the best and brightest example in my life of where jumping into something (or someone) with total abandon and impulsiveness was the best thing I could have ever done. I can't even imagine what my life would be like without my Boy, all of these details that make up our days are like the colorful sprinkles on our Cupcake of Life:
He is all Brooks Brothers and I am all about $5 sunglasses and big rhinestone rings... He loves Ealing Studios comedies and I love Stanley Kubrick (but we both agree on Billy Wilder)... He'd throw me over for Carole Lombard (and I totally support him on that one), although he's the one that bought me the large vintage photo of Errol Flynn... He has two expensive watches but is always late and I don't wear a watch but am compulsively early... He's a Presbyterian and I am some sort of infidel... He steals my fuzzy socks and I steal his t-shirts with the holes in them... He likes Paul and I like George... I've been to Paris, Venice and Buenos Aires without him but together we've been to a party at the Playboy Mansion and to Disneyland... He bought the camera and I take the pictures... He makes me laugh--a lot. I hope I make him laugh almost as much...
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We always seem to be entertaining each other and not on purpose. Our life seems to be all about what happens when you could be surprised at any moment.
I look at all of our little quirks and our life together is like mish-mash of ideas and comings and goings, an intricate puzzle that wouldn't seem to harmonize but in fact meshes perfectly in many ways, on many levels. His neverending boyish charm and giant dimple suckered me, but it's his fine mind and genuine compassion that tethers my heart. Plus he's a good kisser. I'll probably get in trouble for saying that.
So here's to our random meeting, our random anniversary on whatever day we think it was, and to lots of years and "change" to come, Boy o' my Heart.
I sat for many hours in a darkened theatre with almost 2,000 other enthusiastic cineastes.
It was a weekend of plucky orphans and exotic princesses and Ojibway Indians and powerful caliphs and underdogs and heroes and lovers.
It's hard to know what to tell you about the festival, really. I mean, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to describe movies you haven't seen, because that won't relay the power and attraction that these movies have.
I guess one thing I can tell you is something that The Boy says: These movies are a perfect form of time travel.
They are, of course, because you can see in exquisite detail the life in the teens and Twenties, when this country was undergoing monumental changes in technology and social roles and mores. But to me, these films are not only a way-back machine, but also a timelessness machine. What I see in these films, apart from great acting, interesting cinematography and inventive stories, are that people still want and love and dream of the same things, today just as they did almost 100 years ago.
One thing that I also enjoy about this festival is the amount of education I receive about the movies I am about to watch. The festival brings in respected critics (Leonard Maltin is a regular) and film historians and archivists, who explain the historical significance of these movies and what they mean to us as well as audiences in the past. Often, the stories of how these films have literally been saved from assured deterioration and are painstakingly conserved so that they can go on to be enjoyed by future generations are almost as interesting as the movies themselves. So few of these films have actually survived (some reports are less than 10%--meaning over 90% of these films are lost forever), that the ones that can be shown are even more important than ever.
One of the tragedies of our modern entertainment industry is that it leaves no room for exposing most people to the films of times past. Seeing a silent (or any classic film, for that matter) on television is a very second-place alternative but one that often is the only alternative. When these treasured films are given the venue and the opportunity to be viewed on a big screen like they were intended to be, the life and substance of the stories, the vibrance of the acting, all of that springs to life.
Otherwise, these films suffer the fate of becoming museum pieces and quaint curiosities.
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I'm going to recap a few films here, and I hope that someday you can see them too. Clips of these films on youtube are rare, as you might imagine, but I've found a few that you'll enjoy if you have a few minutes to watch.
One highlight of the festival was The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), by German animator Lotte Reiniger. This stunning and enchanting film took three years to complete, animated entirely by delicate paper silhouette figures. This film, a pastiche of stories from One Thousand and One Nights, is the oldest surviving animated feature film and Reiniger the first female animator.
The clip below is one of the highlights of the film, when Prince Achmed finds the exotic harem:
Harold Lloyd's amazing talent is experiencing a renaissance after many years of neglect. Along with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, he was one of the world's most popular and successful comedic actors.
I'll be honest and tell you that Lloyd is my favorite of the classic silent comedians. His films are fast, witty and expertly made. There's never a dull moment in a Harold Lloyd film and the one we saw, The Kid Brother, was accompanied by a live orchestra, the Mont Alto Picture Orchestra from Colorado.
Whereas many American silents are imbued with a somewhat innocent manner, the German Expressionism movement during the height of the Weimar Republic created incomparably powerful and sophisticated movies.
(The entire film is actually available in sections on youtube, beginning here, but if you can rent the DVD...)
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Lon Chaney Sr., the Man of 1000 Faces, was a terrifically talented actor. Raised by deaf-mute parents, he was perfectly destined to work in a medium where a voice was not a prerequisite. His face, so agile and so expressive, even without makeup, is fascinating to watch. Paired with an extremely young and very sexy Joan Crawford (not the Mildred Pierce variety you are thinking of) and directed by Tod Browning (now idolized as a cult director) in an atmosphere of circus creepiness...there is not a movie today that even comes close to The Unknown.
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I know this is a lot of information that might only be of interest to a few of you, but if you even get to see one of these films (and be sure to let me know!), I'll be so happy to know a new appreciator is out there to help spread the word about these wonderful, artistic treasures.
The San Francisco Silent Film Festival returneth! I am not exaggerating when I say that I have been looking forward to this event for a year--since the last one.
I'm looking forward to seeing a really great lineup of films, starting off the weekend right with Harold Lloyd in The Kid Brother.
I can't wait to see to an animated film that I read something about a few months ago, called The Adventures of Prince Achmed. It's the earliest surviving feature-length animated film.
One of my favorite events from the last festival is a talk that will be repeated again this time, called "Amazing Tales from the Archives," where film historians and conservationists talk about the efforts of film preservation and how conservationists are saving precious early films for generations of us to enjoy.
Oh, I just could go on and on about this festival (and probably bore you to tears), but I think I'll wait until after I've actually been there so I have something cool to tell you. In the meantime, you can read my previous posts about the festivals here and here.
"It would have been more logical if silent pictures had grown out of the talkies instead of the other way around." ~ 
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