Summary 1910-1919

Originally posted to Facebook on 1/22/2017

Late last year we finished up our chronological viewing of the 1910s, and are now four films into 1920. I thought this would be a good time to single out the films that I most enjoyed or found the most interesting from that period. We watched nineteen shorts and thirty-one features, though the dividing line between the two was a little fuzzy at times, and included some ~45 minute "features." One of those shorter features that I liked was The Mystery of the Kador Cliffs [1912], directed by Léonce Perret and produced in France at Gaumont Studios. As I mentioned in the write-up, it could very easily have been adapted as an episode on the old Alfred Hitchcock show, and coming when it did at the dawn of features it seemed markedly more realistic than the shorts we'd been watching previously, which were largely melodramas or the tail-end of the Melies or Melies-inspired camera-trick films. Two other films, also from Gaumont, were the crime serials Fantomas [1913] and Judex [1916], both of which were over five hours in total length, and both of which were directed by Louis Feuillade. Judex is more consistent in tone, and is probably the better film; I could easily imagine it being rebooted for a modern audience. But Fantomas is more tongue-in-cheek, and more bizarre (for instance the drive-by attempt at murder via python, foiled only by the hero having the foresight to wear a python-proof suit.)

The two films that are likely on any in-depth film history curriculum -- and deserve to be -- are Cabiria [1914] and Intolerance [1916]. The shock of seeing the camera begin moving into a scene during Cabiria -- rather than just panning -- cannot be felt by a modern audience in the same way it must have been felt by a contemporary audience, but one can still apprehend that something new is happening. And it is has a number of elaborate and impressive set pieces as well -- including the dark and weird scenes where children are tossed into an oven embedded in the stomach of a statue of a local god. Intolerance builds upon Cabiria, and adds the famous Babylonian crane shots, as well as an insanely ambitious attempt to make a coherent movie out of four distinct time period. It doesn't completely succeed, and spends a lot of time burrowing down some weirdly misguided moral rabbit-holes, but it's an impressive film, both in its ambition, and in what it accomplishes. Both films are long, and periodically lose focus. Cabiria, though, at least, seems to always have entertainment on its mind, rather than trying to teach some questionable moral lessons.

Besides Feuillade and Leonce Perret, there were three other directors whom we saw more than once: D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, and Victor Sjöström. Victor Sjöström is the only one of the three all of whose films I liked. Probably the best of his three films we saw was Ingeborg Holm [1913]. Like The Mystery of the Kador Cliffs, it was markedly more realistic than the films we'd been seeing up until that point, and stopped short of some of the sentimental cliches it could have employed, at least up until the very end. It was Dickensian in a sense, in that it told a story about an individual's misfortunes, but also had a focus on the institutional failures that had played a role.

The final feature I'll mention was the one that I personally found the most entertaining from this period: the Douglas Fairbanks feature When the Clouds Roll By [1919], directed by Victor Fleming. It was the funniest of the various comedies we'd seen -- including the films we saw by the canonical three silent comedians -- Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd. To be fair to those three, all of their greatest work came in the twenties, and only Chaplin was making features in the 1910-1919 period. Fairbanks, too, probably did his major work in the twenties, but by 1919 he was already well established, and this film features his typical athleticism along with some intricate stunts and some fancy editing. Also it helps that he and his leading lady actually seem to like each other, always helpful in a romantic comedy, and surprisingly missing in a lot of the films we saw from this period (and even today, really.)

As far as shorts are concerned, I can't say there was anything that really stood out for me. Griffith's The Girl and Her Trust [1912] was a good short from the period just prior to features becoming common. I understand there were several other versions with a similar story that Griffith and others shot, but this was the one we saw, and it was a good straight-forward western, sort of a natural evolution of The Great Train Robbery. The Immigrant [1917] was probably the best of the Chaplin shorts we saw, especially the first half which was set shipboard. From Hand to Mouth [1919] by Harold Lloyd was also intermittently amusing. Lloyd's films don't have the touch of obsesssiveness that Chaplin's and Keaton's do, but he does have more of an everyman quality that makes his protagonists a little more sympathetic.

So that's it for the teens for a while -- probably forever in that concentrated a dosage. I'm looking forward to the twenties quite a bit, because I'm expecting the films to be better and stranger and more ambitious, which certainly seems to be the case four films in.

Ingeborg Holm (1913)

Originally posted to Facebook on 4/4/2016

We finished off 1913 in our chronological movie viewing with Ingeborg Holm. This film was directed by Victor Sjöström (later Victor Seastrom after moving to Hollywood.) He directed many other famous films, including The Phantom Carriage, He Who Gets Slapped, and The Wind, and also was the lead actor in Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries in 1958. But that was almost half-a-century after he directed this film, which is probably the most naturalistic we’ve seen to date. The plot revolves around the title character (played by Hilda Borgström), whose husband has just taken out a loan to open a general store. Unfortunately he falls ill and dies a few scenes after prominently coughing, and she loses everything and is forced to enter a workhouse, and place her children into foster homes. And then things get worse from there. (“I hope this never happens to us,” said Alli.) It’s played less sentimentally than it sounds, at least through the first three-quarters, and is probably the best film we’ve seen from 1913 (though the first few episodes of Fantomas were more entertaining.)

Next week we start 1914 with D.W. Griffith’s first full-length feature: Judith of Bethulia. I’ve also added a slate of films representing 1915 to the spreadsheet, which takes us out through late May. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT

The Last Days of Pompeii (1913)

Originally posted to Facebook on 3/29/2016

The Last Days of Pompeii was the third film from 1913 that we watched as part of our chronological movie viewing. As you might guess from the title, it was set in the Roman Empire in 79 AD, approximately 1,950 years ago (but only ~1,850 years from when the film was made), and was the first historical costume feature of this type we’ve seen -- though at this early stage, almost every film we see is a “first” of some sort or other. It has several largish Roman sets, and although there were some painted backgrounds, they seemed intended, if not actually to fool the eye, at least to be unobtrusive, rather than a Méliès-like upfront theatrical artifice. Some of the climactic scenes, when Pompeii was (spoiler!) being destroyed, were reasonably impressive as spectacle, with columns collapsing on people, and lots of panicked extras. There were also scenes in a gladiatorial arena with actors interacting with what were clearly real lions, showing that when CGI is not available one can easily achieve the same effect with nothing more than a callous disregard for human life. Overall the film was quite melodramatic, and it seemed like a bit of a waste of the dramatic period setting to have everything boil down to a love triangle, but one can see the filmmakers reaching towards a certain type of epic template.

Next week we’ll watch our final film from 1913: Ingeborg Holm. The viewing spreadsheet is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT

Fantomas (1913)

Originally posted to Facebook on 3/23/2016

We continued our chronological movie watching with Fantomas, our second film from 1913. This was a serial, with five parts, each hovering somewhere between an hour and ninety minute. We watched them over two weekends. It was produced at Gaumont, the same studio as Child of Paris and Mystery of the Kador Cliffs, and was directed by Louis Feuillade. The movie takes its name from its central character, a criminal mastermind played by René Navarre, who is being hunted by Juve (Edmund Breon), a police detective, and Fandor (Georges Melchior), a journalist. It was extremely tongue-in-cheek, but not entirely a comedy. It’s difficult to explain the tone without spoilers, so let me give just one: Early on in the serial, Juve and Fandor have apprehended Fantomas at a restaurant. He agrees to come with with them, and gets his coat from the coat check. They walk out, Juve and Fandor each holding an arm. After walking a few blocks, Fantomas breaks free and runs off, leaving Juve and Fandor each holding a fake prosthetic arm that he’d apparently inserted into his coat as they were leaving. Fantomas eventually winds up back at the restaurant to finish his meal. One more: Juve is aware that Fantomas is going to try to murder him in his sleep, so he has Fandor hide in his bedroom. During the night, a car pulls up outside, and a python slithers out and into Juve’s bedroom via a window. After Fandor and Juve fight off the python, it flees back out of the window, and gets back in the car, which then drives off. Did I mention that Juve somehow suspected a python would be involved and wore a python-resistant suit in preparation? I shouldn’t give the idea that the serial is made up of non-stop nonsense. There’s a lot of procedural cat-and-mouse type action, and also lots of people dressing up in various disguises. But it is definitely interspersed with bizarre cliffhangers and escapes. It did peter out a little toward the end, in part because the fifth episode has not completely survived, and title cards explaining missing action have been added to compensate.

Next week we’ll watch our third film from 1913: The Last Days of Pompeii. The full list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT

Traffic in Souls (1913)

Originally posted to Facebook on 3/16/2016

Update on our chronological movie watching: Last week we sat down to watch Traffic in Souls. I knew vaguely that it was about a prostitution ring, but I wasn't aware how explicit it was. Members of the ring were actively recruiting vulnerable young girls, meeting them as they came off of boats, or elsewhere in the city. After about the first ten minutes, I decided to pull the plug, because there's only so much you can explain to an eight year old. We switched to Fantomas, which we'd planned to start watching the subsequent week. Fantomas is a serial, and is about 300 minutes long in its entirety, so we're watching it over two weekends. To replace Traffic in Souls for 1913 I added Ingeborg Holm, which we'll watch in early April. The updated list is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT

The Child of Paris (1913)

Originally posted to Facebook on 3/7/2016

On Sunday we continued our chronological movie watching, and saw our first film from 1913: The Child of Paris. This was also what I would consider our first real feature film, though by some accounts the film we saw two weeks ago, Richard III, was a feature film because it had five reels. A Child of Paris, though, was a full two hours, more than twice as long as Richard III, and certainly a feature film by any definition.

This movie was directed by Léonce Perret, who also directed last week’s The Mystery of the Kador Cliffs. The two movies had a few cast members in common, and I believe a set was re-used as well. The plot involved a little girl whose father is called away to military service and later reported dead. Her mother then dies, and her uncle, with whom she’d been living, is called away to military service as well. She’s sent to a boarding school, where she is treated poorly, and from which she runs away. While we were watching, I mentioned the similarities to A Little Princess, and Ben mentioned Oliver Twist as an antecedent as well.

I can’t say this was the most engaging movie I’ve ever seen, but it held my interest. From a movie making perspective, there were a number of camera pans, including from one room to an adjacent room. Also, although there were no close-ups that I recall -- except of written letters -- there were some cuts from long shots to medium shots, which I don’t recall seeing before. Another interesting note was that the movie unselfconsciously depicts 1913 as a time when horse-carriages and cars seem to coexist. Cabs are hailed periodically, sometimes automobiles and sometimes horse-drawn carriages, and the characters take no real note of the difference.

Next week we watch our second film from 1913, Traffic in Souls. As always, the link to our list of planned films is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT