SFSFF 2009 - sunday

Erotikon (1929, directed by Alexander Hackenschmied) was the film I was most anticipating this year and it truly was fantastic. I especially liked the Soviet-style framing of the actors. I was happily surprised by the sympathetic treatment of the lead character and her situation. Unfortunately, I felt this was undermined by the musical score, composed and provided by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. The music accompanying the seduction scene was rather too sweet, more suited for a mother-daughter reunion than for the sensual interplay happening on-screen. There were virtually no dynamics throughout the score. In fact the music made the languid pace actually feel boring. I know I would enjoy the film much more with a different soundtrack. I hope to be given that opportunity sometime.

So's Your Old Man (1926, directed by Gregory La Cava) lifted the mood this afternoon. If not for the beautiful intertitles during Wild Rose, the intricate John Held Jr illustrated cards would surely win the prize. Although W C Fields was just as funny without using that voice, my heart was captured by the scene-stealing caddy in the overly-long golf scene. He is uncredited unfortunately; does anyone know who that was?

The Fall of the House of Usher (1928, directed by Jean Epstein) was also a visual pleasure. Again, I have to credit Stephen Horne for a brilliant and harmonious accompanying score, utilizing both piano and synthesizer for special sound effects. The stunning visuals were a treat, especially the long veil that reminded me of Vera Chytilova's Automat Svet.

But the long days of sequestering myself in the lovely old theater surrounded by thousands of fellow silent film fans finally extracted it's price - I left the remaining film for the rest to see, perhaps for my own viewing another time.

SFIFF 2009 - saturday

Amazing Tales From The Archive is one of the highlights for me of the entire weekend. It's so inspiring to learn about all the work done to bring all these films and fragments to such an appreciative audience. This year the theatre was nearly full to see these little tidbits:
Screen Shots promotional short (1923)
The Actor's Children short (1910)
Polly of the Follies trailer starring Constance Talmadge (1922)
Happiness Ahead trailer fragments starring Colleen Moore (1928)
The Lover's Oath trailer starring Ramon Navarro
How the Hungry Man Was Fed (1911)

I missed the next but was back in time for
Wild Rose (China, 1932, directed by Sun Yu)
The special guest was actress Qin Yi, who received a standing ovation as a well-known actress and wife of the star of this film. Restored by the China Film Archive, it was a beautiful print. Unfortunately the film occasionally jumped its tracks, one time obscuring the FANTASTIC Art Deco set I knew had to be in a film from Shanghai in the early 1930s. It also featured the most beautiful intertitle of the fesetival: the Chinese character for snow that was drawn as if weighed under in snow. Qin Yi said before the film that China was behind the rest of the world in film making but with double exposures and a crane shot, this movie wasn't lacking in any department.

Underworld (1927, directed by Josef von Sternberg)
This was as stunning as everyone told me it would be. The lighting was moody and turned out multiple gradations of gray. The nightclub scene was a stand-out, especially the rapid set of close-ups as the drinking progressed. The look was reminiscent of der Blaue Engel showing that this was pure von Sternberg. Stephen Horne's score was as impressive as ever- understated as the film was in the first half, dramatic and pulling tension as the film making picked up the same speed. Mr Horne really knows how to ratchet up the tension, even dropping back if need be. He doesn't always replicate the sound effects suggested by the screen, rather he underscores these moments and plays around them as a good jazz musician does to swing the melody. Brilliant.

The Wind (1928, directed by Victor Sjostrom)
Far better than I had expected. As phenomenal as it was, it greatly benefitted from the accompaniment of the mightly Whurlitzer organ and TWO wind sound machines hand cranked by sound artists. The overwhelming storm was fighting it out with the volume of the organ - I could feel the wind from the pipes along the wall of the theatre.

More next time about the final day of the festival.

i saw the gaucho on the big screen

I haven't seen many Douglas Fairbanks movies - just The Thief of Baghdad, When the Clouds Roll By and The Mystery of the Leaping Fish, the last two also courtesy of the San Francisco Silent Film Fest. The hammy qualities overshadow the daring stunt work for me. However, I couldn't pass up an opportunity to view my first Lupe Valez.

You know I'm not easily won over by movie stars but wow, she has a presence. I'd heard about her from friends and its easy to see why she's talked about. Fiery is the best term, and much like Clara Bow especially the eyebrow expressions. Oh Mr. Fairbanks - why walk into a scene when you can do a back flip? Its all so endearing and so much fun.

The best part was the outtakes shown before the feature. The shots of Mary Pickford as the Virgin were not only shot in two-strip technicolor but with a whirling set of metal spikes behind her head lit brightly to replicate the celestial glow. Numerous shots were tried and miraculously those that didn't quite line up just right (as well as those with the technicians making adjustments) have been preserved.

Viewed at the Castro Theatre as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.
The booklets published by the festival feature great articles on each film.
This film was written up by local writer and blogger Brian Darr .

125 Hyde, 255-259 Hyde

In case you're in town this week for the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, you may be interested in a side trip to view some local motion picture history....



In fact, San Francisco's Bay Area has played a few roles in early film history.

The famous claim made by Leland Stanford that a horse would lift all four feet off the ground while running was solved in 1877 just south of this city. Eadweard Muybridge's photography set-up experiments which came out of that incident have been cited as an important step in the development of motion picture image capturing.

The Miles Brothers ran an early film distribution company in San Francisco. They were also producers of local "actuality" films, forerunners of travelogue films. The most famous is A Trip Down Market Street which was filmed just days before the earthquake and fire of April 1906 wiped out the buildings on the film - as well as their stockpile of motion picture films, their business and San Francisco's film industry.

While San Francisco was recovering from the destruction, Hollywood gained a foothold in movie production. A brief attempt was made in the late 1920s to re-establish the motion picture industry in SF, but there is little information about that. Presumably the stock market crash destroyed those dreams but it seemed to have also taken the back story with it. I didn't much believe it until I saw these buildings:




And this isn't the only one. Two more buildings on the next block are rumored to be former studios. One is blocked by an overgrown tree but it's neighbor sports a dead giveaway:





125 Hyde Street circa 1930
architecture by Wilbur Peugh

255-259 Hyde Street circa 1930
architect unknown

influence

You know this one, don't you?



Ringing any bells yet?

Its so eerily beautiful.
I fell in love with this scene when I saw this film as a little girl.
Apparently so did Lars von Trier.
In the commentary for his own film, he names the ending sequence of Europa as an homage to
Night of the Hunter (1955).

zentropa

Europa (1991)
aka Zentropa
directed by Lars von Trier
cinematography by Henning Bendtsen
and Edward Klosinsky
and Jean-Paul Meurisse


I'm listing the title Zentropa because that's how I saw it in the theatre when it was released. [I also saw Europa, Europa, released around the same time, since they were linked in numerous articles due to the similarity in names.] My first von Trier film and it made a lasting impression on me. The rear and front projection look just as gorgeous and overwhelming as they did when I sat in the theatre, watching with no inkling of what was to come.

Ghost Ship

Gorgeous cinematography only slightly marred by the poor video transfer.
Can't someone release a nice, REMASTERED boxed set to honor Val Lewton?
Or is this as good as a B-movie can hope to look?



There's a wealth of geometric combinations to be arranged on the set of a ship.
Some of this reminds me of The Long Voyage Home a few years earlier:







Ghost Ship (1943)
directed by Mark Robson
cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca
produced by Val Lewton
art direction by Albert D'Agostino
and Walter E Keller

single shot - regeneration

Regeneration (1915)
directed by Raoul Walsh

designer of fireworks

Lately it seems I've come across a lot of shots of men with megaphones. Maybe it's time for a new posting label.

He certainly does have something to warn the viewers. The last thing I expected to see in a movie about the turn of the century is this:









Beautiful, though.

Ragtime (1981)
directed by Milos Forman
cinematography by Miroslav Ondricek

2009 SFIFF

Due to my keyboard troubles I'm late with this announcement, but here it is:

The 2009 San Francisco Silent Film Festival line-up has been announced for July 10-12.

The Gaucho (1927)

Bardelys the Magnificent (1927)

Wild Rose (1932)

Underworld (1927)

The Wind (1928)

Aelita, Queen of Mars (1924)

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit shorts program

Erotikon (1929)

So’s Your Old Man (1926)

The Fall of the House of Usher (1928)

Lady of the Pavements (1929)

The only one I've seen already is Aelita, Queen of Mars. I was so sure I'd seen The Wind but now that I think about it, I've just seen clips. So far, Eroticon and The Fall of the House of Usher look to be the stand-outs but there have been upsets in my predictions in previous years.


So what I want to know is what films in this line-up do you recommend?

One thing I know is I'll go to see virtually anything when Stephen Horne is playing the score.

single shot - van gogh

Lust For Life (1956)
directed by Vincente Minnelli

Favorite Film Books meme

I've been tagged for a FILM BOOK MEME by MovieMan0283 from the Dancing Image. Some of these already appeard in this long ago post about books, but there are a few new ones as well.

The Complete Greed by Erich von Stroheim
by Herman G Weinberg 1972

This is pretty much my favorite film and my heart aches thinking of all that was lost. The author dug up studio photographs and arranged them with the screenplay, including scenes that were cut. It's the closest to von Stroheim's original vision.

The Film Till Now: A Survey of World Cinema
by Paul Rotha and Richard Griffith 2nd edition 1951

Originally published in 1929, I love the perspective brought to the table by someone who saw these films in their initial release.

Forgotten Films to Remember
by John Springer 1980

I haven't even begun to crack the amount of information in this volume. There are paragraphs after paragraphs listing less famous films and why he recommends them. It's too early to be a home video guide, so he must have written this from memory.

People Will Talk
by John Kobal 1986

As much as I appreciate Peter Bogdanovich's interview with important directors and actors, this collection also includes lesser-known contributors to film, such as photographers, choreographers and dancers. This is where I found the quotes about Busby Berkeley.

Caligari's Cabinet and Other Grand Illusions: A History of Film Design
by Leon Barsacq

This is still my favorite film book. It's led me to so many films that I now count as my favorites. I especially loved learning that someone else shares my passion for film design.

City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940's
by Otto Friedrich 1986

Golly, I bought this from the sale table for 25 cents and didn't put it down until I'd finished reading it. It includes the Los Angeles race riots, WWII rationing and other events happening at the same time Hollywood was making its classic films to remind us that movies were not created in a vacuum.

Screen Deco
by Howard Mendelbaum and Eric Myers 1985



Designing Dreams: Modern ARchitecture in the Movies
by Donald Albrecht 1986

Both are responsible for a lot of the images you've seen on my blog.

...because he's a damned good storyteller, and that is what movies are all about.

I've cheating here, because that is my due as a blogger. I'm in love with this series of little paperback books chiefly produced by Tantivy Press. They have so much information packed into small format. I refer to them all the time. I'm practically drooling whenever I find another and I must admit at times I've paid far more than they are worth. Such is the life of a film book collector.

And now I must tag five other bloggers. I choose these lovely learned ladies whom I love to read:

Fire and Music Movies

She Blogged By Night

House of Mirth and Movies

Self-Styled Siren

Spinster Aunt