Tag: silent film

The Last Command and The Act of Killing

We’ve gotten a lot of new movies already in 2018, but one of my favorites so far is a set of three silent films by Josef Von Sternberg. While these films are campus use only (DVD 14852 – 14854), they are truly worth watching and can be viewed by students in our screening room. One … Continue reading “The Last Command and The Act of Killing”

We’ve gotten a lot of new movies already in 2018, but one of my favorites so far is a set of three silent films by Josef Von Sternberg. While these films are campus use only (DVD 14852 – 14854), they are truly worth watching and can be viewed by students in our screening room.

One of the films, The Last Command, has an interesting connection to a 2012 documentary, The Act of Killing. In The Last Command, an exiled Russian general turned Hollywood extra lands a role playing a version of his former czarist self, bringing about his emotional downfall. Most of the film covers his acts during the Russian Revolution, including a love affair with a revolutionist. In the film’s stunning conclusion, he encounters shadows from his past as he reenacts them, and is transported by them.

In The Act of Killing (HU DVD 12262), the filmmakers examine a country where death squad leaders are celebrated as heroes, challenging them to reenact their real-life mass-killings in the style of the American movies they love. Again, film making becomes a kind of question, and a way of interrogating the cruelties and injustices of the past.

These two films are both interesting examples of a very different kind of self-witnessing through performance. In a way, they echo community-based theater, including the focus on process in addition to final product. The act of creating is powerful: these films address the power of acting on an actor, even when acknowledged as an act. Both are highly recommended, especially for students of film and theater.

Silent Cinema Showcase 2017

AFI in Silver Spring is having their Silent Cinema Showcase, and it’s a great lineup! You can see the listing by film here: https://silver.afi.com/Browsing/EventsAndExperiences/EventDetails/0000000011 And on the calendar here: http://afi.com/silver/films/Calendar.aspx This calendar below was accurate as of 11/2, but be sure to check the live one because they update things sometimes. Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday … Continue reading “Silent Cinema Showcase 2017”

AFI in Silver Spring is having their Silent Cinema Showcase, and it’s a great lineup!

You can see the listing by film here: https://silver.afi.com/Browsing/EventsAndExperiences/EventDetails/0000000011

And on the calendar here: http://afi.com/silver/films/Calendar.aspx

This calendar below was accurate as of 11/2, but be sure to check the live one because they update things sometimes.

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For the silent film treasure hunter…

Imogen Sara Smith highlights Mostly Lost on Criterion. Definitely worth a read. On eventbrite, the description of the Mostly Lost workshop is:  The Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Packard Campus presents “Mostly Lost 6: A Film Identification Workshop” on June 15-17, 2017 in Culpeper, Virginia. “Mostly Lost” will feature the screenings of unidentified, … Continue reading “For the silent film treasure hunter…”

Imogen Sara Smith highlights Mostly Lost on Criterion. Definitely worth a read. On eventbrite, the description of the Mostly Lost workshop is: 

The Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Packard Campus presents “Mostly Lost 6: A Film Identification Workshop” on June 15-17, 2017 in Culpeper, Virginia. “Mostly Lost” will feature the screenings of unidentified, under-identified or misidentified silent and early sound films.Early film experts and archivists are encouraged to attend, but the workshop is also open to anyone willing to actively help identify and research the films showcased at the workshop. In addition to films from the Library of Congress’s collections, “Mostly Lost” features material from other film archives around the world. Throughout the event there will also be presentations about The Destruction of Some American Silent Features, The Lost Origins of Silent Horror Icons, William Fox and the Fox Film Corporation, as well as others. Live musical accompaniment during the workshop and evening presentations of silent films will also be featured.

This festival sounds like an amazing opportunity for those with an eye for film treasure, and a riot even for the amateur.


Tickets are available on eventbrite.

Check out this silent version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea on Viki: https://www.viki.com/videos/1037941v-20000-leagues-under-the-sea This was the first motion picture filmed underwater! As Wikipedia states: Actual underwater cameras were not used, but a system of watertight tubes and mirrors allowed the camera to shoot reflected images of underwater scenes staged in shallow sunlit waters. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20,000_Leagues_Under_the_Sea_(1916_film)) Here … Continue reading “”

Check out this silent version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea on Viki: https://www.viki.com/videos/1037941v-20000-leagues-under-the-sea

This was the first motion picture filmed underwater! As Wikipedia states:

Actual underwater cameras were not used, but a system of watertight tubes and mirrors allowed the camera to shoot reflected images of underwater scenes staged in shallow sunlit waters. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20,000_Leagues_Under_the_Sea_(1916_film))

Here in Media Services, we of course have the 1954 Disney version (HU DVD 10179):

Silent Movie GIFs shows the sausage-making behind old special effects

Special effects aren’t usually exciting anymore. Filmmakers can create worlds and human beings from whole cloth now, so digital trickery doesn’t wow like it used to. 100 years ago, though, every difficult shot took a herculean effort. The Twitter account Silent Movie GIFs recently shared a few explanations for how silent films pulled off their … Continue reading “Silent Movie GIFs shows the sausage-making behind old special effects”

Special effects aren’t usually exciting anymore. Filmmakers can create worlds and human beings from whole cloth now, so digital trickery doesn’t wow like it used to. 100 years ago, though, every difficult shot took a herculean effort.

The Twitter account Silent Movie GIFs recently shared a few explanations for how silent films pulled off their most difficult shots. Many involve the clever use of matte paintings and partially blocked shots. In the above clip from Sherlock Jr., the motorcycle and trucks were filmed separately; the rest of each shot was blacked out, then both were combined.

The level of work needed to pull off even the simplest shots makes you appreciate how relatively easily we can now throw Spider-Man into a movie.

No, a silent film of a train probably didn’t cause mass hysteria

You’ve probably heard this one before: back during the dawn of motion pictures, a short movie showing a train heading for the camera caused audiences to freak out and try to run from the theater. It’s a funny anecdote about how much of an impact film made – and it makes those audiences look pretty … Continue reading “No, a silent film of a train probably didn’t cause mass hysteria”

You’ve probably heard this one before: back during the dawn of motion pictures, a short movie showing a train heading for the camera caused audiences to freak out and try to run from the theater. It’s a funny anecdote about how much of an impact film made – and it makes those audiences look pretty naive.

But as Atlas Obscura’s Eric Grundhauser explains, this probably never actually happened. We can trace the story to a specific film (1898’s Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat), the lack of circumstantial evidence like news stories and police accounts of a mobscene suggests this was just a myth. If anything, it was a metaphor for the powerful impact of film, one that spread so quickly it was parodied in a 1901 short (embedded above).

So although audiences probably didn’t actually panic, the mental image was real. It might’ve been exaggerated shorthand. Think of it like a turn-of-the-century straw man argument.

A new lost Méliès was discovered… after it was mislabeled

A Trip to the Moon, not Match de Prestidigitation First there was the lost Hitchcock film. Then, the lost Laurel and Hardy sequence. Now, film conservationists have found a long-list film by Georges Méliès, one of the pioneers of cinema. Méliès was one of the pioneers of film as an art form, especially in the … Continue reading “A new lost Méliès was discovered… after it was mislabeled”

A Trip to the Moon, not Match de Prestidigitation

First there was the lost Hitchcock film. Then, the lost Laurel and Hardy sequence. Now, film conservationists have found a long-list film by Georges Méliès, one of the pioneers of cinema.

Méliès was one of the pioneers of film as an art form, especially in the area of special effects: the director was an illusionist, and he used his skills to create astounding effects that had never been previously achieved on screen. Méliès reportedly produced over 500 films, and although you may know his famous A Trip to the Moon, most of his work has been lost.

This particular film, Match de Prestidigitation, had the wrong name on the container when it arrived at a Czech film archive. So in addition to the joy of recovering a foundational piece of film history, this is also a great lesson in keeping things organized and described correctly.

Atlas Obscura thinks Fritz Lang may have invented rocket countdowns

Life imitates art, but rarely does art have the chance to define the hallmark of a totally unrelated field. For an example of when a film managed to capture the public imagination that strongly, read Cara Giaimo’s article for Atlas Obscura about how German director Fritz Lang essentially popularized the basic ideas of space travel. … Continue reading “Atlas Obscura thinks Fritz Lang may have invented rocket countdowns”

Life imitates art, but rarely does art have the chance to define the hallmark of a totally unrelated field. For an example of when a film managed to capture the public imagination that strongly, read Cara Giaimo’s article for Atlas Obscura about how German director Fritz Lang essentially popularized the basic ideas of space travel.

Giaimo ties Lang’s 1929 silent film Woman in the Moon to the booming popularity of rocketry in post-World War II Germany. Lang worked with a rocket scientist through the film’s production to depict space travel as realistically as possible, often making up concepts as needed. A number of their hypothetical inventions, like a multi-stage engine, have become standard in space travel.

But their biggest artistic license was the use of a countdown before a rocket launch. That was entirely a filmmaking technique to build tension in the absence of sound, but it was so effective that it immediately became part of the popular imagination. The next time you watch any sort of space launch, remember that we have Fritz Lang to thank, accidentally, for that countdown from ten.

Woman in the Moon so accurately predicted the future of rocketry that Hitler reportedly banned the film during Germany’s development of the V-2 rocket. We have no idea if that’s true, but you can certainly watch it now. Borrow our DVD copy at the Media Services desk (HU DVD 1285).

This shot is the most expensive shot in silent film history

The General (1926) – HU DVD 34This shot is the most expensive shot in silent film history. It was filmed in a single take, that had to be perfect, with a real train and a ‘dummy’ engineer (notice the white arm hanging out the conductors window). Some of the locals who came to watch the … Continue reading “This shot is the most expensive shot in silent film history”

The General
The General (1926) – HU DVD 34
This shot is the most expensive shot in silent film history. It was filmed in a single take, that had to be perfect, with a real train and a ‘dummy’ engineer (notice the white arm hanging out the conductors window). Some of the locals who came to watch the filming, thought the dummy was a real person and screamed in horror; supposedly, one person even fainted.

As seen on the Jaeger Amzallag blog and the Black and WTF blog.

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