Silent Films
 

I've had a fascination with silent films for a long time. They used to play 3 or 4 of them at like 1am on TCM every night, and during the summer I'd watch the majority of them. A lost art form, but an important one. Anyone else dig movies from the 1920s?

Favorites:


Josephine Baker

Lon Chaney


Nosferatu (1922)

Metropolis (1921)

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I love old movies, but I'm not familiar with silents. The closest I have is Dracula (1931), which has sound. I have a ton of 40's-50's film noir, though. I should see some silent films; I'd probably like them.

Metropolis and Nosferatu are amazing. I just recently saw the cabinet of dr. caligari and that was really neat. Awesome looking sets.

i think your forgetting the king of silent films...charlie chaplin. The gold rush was him best movie! i love that movie it's so funny!

You are right, credit is deserved.

I'm not highly familiar with silent film, but I did watch Un Chien Andalou because of the Pixies, and I liked that. I also really liked the Kid with Chaplin and the Lon Chaney Phantom of the Opera.

Un Chien is one screwed up movie.

Yeah it is.

Ooh, I forgot, on the Clash DVD, there is a really cool silent film they made.

I love them.
I've gotten to compose and perform live soundtracks to both Nosferatu and The Passion Of Joan Of Arc, which was an honor and a rewarding challenge.
Others I love:

The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari
Wampyr
Nanook of the North
Man With A Movie Camera
The Thief Of Baghdad


A shot of my bandmates Dave and Madeline (amazing talent; she was just 12 when we did this music together):



Madeline silhouette with Joan:

amc played The Circus the other day & i joined in a few minutes late, although i would have loved to have taped it. it's my favorite Charlie Chaplin movie.

The Passion of Joan Arc was featured in a contest of sorts on TCM, if I remember correctly. Were you involved with that? Nice film too.

I wasn't involved with that; we just did 3 performances. Two at the Red Eye theater and one at the College of St. Catherine.

most of stan brakhage

download Un Chien Andalou (1929) & many more
http://www.ubu.com/film/index.html

the banner at the top of the page is of course from that film

oh fuck you guys already mentioned some of my greatest favorites like

-nosferatu
-dr caligari
-metropolis

however, im going to add some masterpieces such as--



battleship potemkin



faust




sherlock, jr.

and (im cheating here)




modern times (not totally silent, but o well...)

Fuck yeah! Silence from the Soviet Union!

Ok good, you listed Nosferatu:D

ooh great link... i realise i have never really explored that ubuweb site, altough i have been aware for some time that it existed...

you must spread some reputation around before giving it to atari 2600 again

I like "Speedy", Lou Chaney classics of course, and others that I don't know the name of...

friends of mine did an excellent live score for metropolis at the last adelaide film festival

http://2005.adelaidefilmfestival.org...etropolis.html

Battleship Potemkin.

and

Der Golem.

I hereby nominate Chaplin's City Lights, the one with the blind girl. Made me a little bit weepy. Maybe the most romantic movie ever. Perfect.

chaplin's the kid made me weepy. all of his films have odd endings. they aren't happy but they aren't sad. his movies always just all of a sudden end without warning. i usually find myself confused at the end of his movies. chaplin said he perfered his movies to all end with sad endings, but the studio made him stick somekind of happiness in the end because the audience always want's a happy ending. that explains why his endings are akward.

the only other chaplin movie I've seen is Great Dictator, but that's for another thread (not silent!). So I can't comment on The Kid.

I use to watch those on TCM. I think it would be really cool to go to an actual theatre and see one though.

Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau unfortunately died too young.
Apart from Nosferatu, he also directed Sunrise, which was acted beautifully, where image was composed with taste, a truly admirable film, with some special effects that amazed the friend I brought to the movie to see that gem.
More special effects (and some setting) in Faust. The film ain't a good one though in my opinion, he was too focused being smart with the possibilities of the camera. Which he would have exhausted if exhaustion could apply to a camera.

Georg Wilhelm Pabst's Lulu with Louise Brooks is really really fine too. For a young man, it's more than charming.