Soul of Youth 1920
directed by William Desmond Taylor
cinematography by James Van Trees
When the first half hour of this flickered across the big screen, the stunning images seared themselves onto my brain. I gushed afterwards about its beauty and learned that it already existed on dvd. But of course, the reason I and thousands of other people cram ourselves into the steamy, stifling heat of the Castro Theatre is that films never look half so good on a tiny screen as projected in a theater.
And the last remaining fun from the San Francisco Silent Film Festival is identifying the themes running throughout the string of films. My companions pointed out the repetition of animals and children/younger siblings. For me, it was lampshades. Look at this poor thing:
I'll allow that it may have been draped with fabric, but what a strange shape underneath. And this wasn't the only one. There are more in this film and scattered throughout the rest. Sadly they have all blurred together at this point- only the lampshades remain.
2 comments:
There was a killer lampshade in Michael, too -- a massive thing that, in one shot, dominated about 1/3 of the frame (that's how I remember it at least). The DVD's on the way from Netflix, and I'll be sure to post a capture of it. :)
See?
I'm pretty sure there were even some attractive wall sconces in the lunch wagon of HER WILD OAT.
Darren, if you post a screen cap of the lampshade, I'll link to it.
It was wonderful to meet you and to watch all those films together.
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