The Wings of The Artist – A Silent Oscars Special

83 years ago, in 1929, silent films were king at the inaugural Academy Awards. Wings won Best Picture, while a Special Oscar was awarded to Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, just because I suspect they wanted to recognise it, but weren’t sure where to put it. I have covered Sunrise in depth on my other blog here.

Wings has recently had a digital restoration and remastering onto Blu Ray, so the timing seemed right and proper to finally get round to seeing the first ever Best Picture Winner. This year, the first since 1929, silent films are once more dominating the Academy Awards. Martin Scorsese’s formidable work Hugo, and Michel Hazanavicius’ equally notable The Artist have 11 and 10 nominations respectively, including the two big ones: Best Director, and Best Picture. Hugo is a traditional talkie (to use the old school parlance), shot to questionable effect in 3D, but which pays homage and obeisance to the master of early cinema, Georges Melies. It is a talkie about silents. The Artist on the other hand is as silent a film as many early silent films. It is not absolutely silent – one sequence uses sound as a dream effect, and two lines are spoken – but then again, many “silent films” used sound effects. City Lights and, recently noted when viewed, Wings both spring to mind. The film looks, like Singin In The Rain and A Star Is Born before it, at the transition between late silent films, and early talkies. It is a silent film about talkies. Continue reading →

Harold Lloyd’s Shorts: Two-Gun Gussie & The City Slicker

Before his well-known features, like Safety Last (1923) Harold Lloyd, like most silent comedians, started off making short films. Starting with other characters, slowly Lloyd developed the “glasses” character. Positioned as a positive, optimistic character, always on the lookout for opportunity, it was a phenomenal success.

I am shockingly underinformed on Harold Lloyd, so in an attempt to remedy this, I’m going to look through the short films he made as he introduced the glasses character. And, because it seems to be the most logical way of doing it to see a progressions, but also because that’s the order on the DVD, I’ll be doing it chronologically… To start with, then, a couple of one-reelers. Continue reading →

Chaplin’s The Kid

To not know the joy of Chaplin’s films at an early age is saddening. To discover them as an adult is a joy: to share them with one’s own children is happiness itself. Amid cries of “Harry Potter!” or “Star Wars!”, I was determined to get some Chaplin into my weekend with the children. Those who have visited my other blog will know that I have introduced my children (8 and 6) to silent comedy some time ago. Yet, the flash-bang of modern cinema will always be a temptation. The idea of silent films to children of that age – however much they enjoy it at the time – is less appealing. I reassured them that The Kid was only 50 minutes long. Continue reading →

I’m just decorating the blog at this point

While trawling for silent-cinema-related oddities, I came across a webpage (link below). Keaton was famed for being the great “stoneface”, rarely smiling in any of his films, and thus becoming a legend. Well, that and the outrageous stunts and perfectly-timed jokes. Someone has compiled stills in which Keaton smiled. It’s a rather nice idea, showing a different side to the unsmiling, straight-faced genius.

The Great Stoneface Cracks Up

Silence Is Golden

This is a brand new blog – the giveaway is the lack of posts thus far – dedicated to silent cinema. Drama, comedy, science-fiction, the variety is large, the enjoyment endless. In the wake of new films like The Artist and Hugo, which look fondly at the silent era of film, I was inspired to start up this exclusively silent blog. It complements my other main film blog, The 24th Frame, which deals with all manner of films.

I became properly interested in silent cinema 5 years ago, when I watched Nosferatu. Since then I have fallen in love with silent films, particularly Murnau, Chaplin and, latterly after an opinion about-face, Keaton. It is – on the whole, while acknowledging exceptions – a purely cinematic conceit. Purely visual, purely filmic. That story, emotion and, crucially, humour, should be able to be transmitted with no spoken words and a minimum of intertitular ones, is a phenomenon that still amazes and entertains.

Looking across the spectrum of silent cinema, I hope this blog is one you return to from time to time. I’ll give update notifications via my Twitter-feed, @Populusque. Spread the word!

[The blog title, and accompanying quote, are from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Since you asked.]

 

[A grateful nod to Copycat Films, from whose website I liberated the template for the intertitle image above. Many thanks!]