Jason goes to SilentFest--The End

It seems like it just started, did 5 days go by that quickly? Just kidding, I'm exhausted!

But not too exhausted to still get breakfast at Orphan Andy's (pretty much the only place I've gotten a real meal since Wednesday) and be in the front row in time for Serge Bromberg Presents...

Serge Bromberg is a longtime friend if the festival, an excellent historian, archivist, preservationist, restorer, and most importantly for today, showman.

This man is in your Castro Theater, narrating your 3D films. Image courtesy of the SF Silent Film Festival.

He started off with one of his classic demonstrations of why so many old films are lost. I.e., he burned little silver nitrate film on stage. This always tickles my evil side, knowing he's doing that in front of a full audience of silent film fans. Anyway, it burns really well.

ROBINSON CRUSOE (1902): Before we got the the 3-D extravaganza, Serge debuted this recently discovered and restored Georges Méliès film. What some people don't know about very early silent films--before the innovation of intertitles--is that they were intended to be shown with a live narrator. The lack of narration often makes these films hard to understand. But there was no such trouble with Serge doing the narration himself. In fact, with Serge you don't just get the story, you get weird asides and jokes, too. Oh yeah, anyway, the film. It's a beautiful, hand-tinted, very familiar story of Robinson Crusoe.

MOTOR RHYTHM (1939): An animated Chrysler Motors show reel, with the component parts of an automobile coming together. A cute treat, which was re-released in the 50's during the 3-D craze back then. At the time it was sometimes incorrectly called the first 3D film. This is, of course, incorrect, as Serge went on to demonstrate in many ways.

First up, he showed us the happy accident of 3D films by Georges Méliès. Méliès never intentionally made a 3D film. What he did do was invent a dual-film camera for shooting two copies of a film at the same time, one for release in Europe and one for release in America. This was an anti-piracy measure, after his VOYAGE TO THE MOON was copied and released as VOYAGE TO MARS by Lubin. Another thing Méliès did was succumb to the financial pressures of continued piracy, and in a fit of depression burned the negatives of all his films. So...surviving Méliès films are all due to collectors, and of course restoration houses will attempt to piece together films from multiple sources to try to recreate the best version of the film. This is what Serge was doing with THE INFERNAL CAULDRON (1906) when he noticed that every time he switched from a European source to an American source the film would jump slightly. It never lined up quite right. And that's when he figured out that Méliès's dual-film camera had a parallax between the two films, and about 100 years after the fact...the 3D versions of a few of these films were created. At least, if both a European and American print exist.
THE ORACLE OF DELPHI (1903): A thief tries to steal from the famous oracle, when a spirit guarding the tomb appears. He makes statues come to life and gives the thief a monkey's head.
THE INFERNAL CAULDRON (1906): The one that started this 3D adventure. Demons throw captives into a cauldron, where they disappear in puffs of smoke. Now, an interesting thing with these 3-D films is often only parts of one print exist. So for some time it's 2D (because one lens in the stereoscopic glasses is blank) and suddenly jumps into 3D. In this one, that happens to occur right at one of these puffs of smoke, making for some extra accidental magic. Méliès would be pleased, I'm sure!
THE MYSTERIOUS RETORT (1906): An alchemist asleep in his lab. Suddenly strange emanations come from his vessel, either a nightmare or a miracle of the mystic sciences.

Well then we got to see a few of the Lumière Brothers stereoscopic selection from 1935. Note, the Lumières, credited with the invention of the film camera/projection system, had a very short career. They were more inventors than filmmakers (and allegedly thought this whole "moving pictures as entertainment" was a fad that would soon pass. So after moving on in ~1905, they did return with a new moving picture invention in 1935, a stereoscopic camera which they used to recreate their famed TRAIN PULLING INTO A STATION (1896), this time in 3D. Confusion over the 2D and 3D versions of this film probably led to a probably apocryphal story of audiences reacting in fright at the original screening. It makes more sense that they would do that for the 3D screening. Although I gotta say, it's bulling into the station well to the side of the screen, so not that frightening. There was also 3D footage of a woman and her baby (if I heard correctly, that was Louise Lumière's daughter?) And some scenes of a beach and harbor. Unfortunately, their 3D projector did not fit easily into most projection booths (well, it fit...sideways) so while they were great inventors, they weren't very successful businessmen.

Then we got a stereoscopic demonstration from 1900. Not originally on film, but on paper, in stereoscopic flipbook form, at 4 frames per second. But scanned and projected a good century later. And being French...it comes within a few frames of revealing a pornographic scene!

And finally, we ended on THE MERRY FROLICS OF SATAN (1906): This is the brand new, newest accidental 3D Méliès, literally hot off the presses. In fact, the first time in front of an audience and since his spot on stage doing the narration didn't give him a good view for the 3D, we got to see it in 3D before Serge did. So much fun, as a couple of inventors are tricked by Satan. They get to travel the world--and the stars--but are tormented by the devil and his minions all along the way.

And the opposite of tormenting all along the way was the wonderful accompaniment by Donald Sosin.


A THROW OF DICE (PRAPANCHA PASH) (1929): Then we took a little trip to India, where Sohat and Ranjit are cousins, who rule neighboring kingdoms. They're going on a nice little hunting trip together, but Sohat's henchman "accidentally" shoots Ranjit with a poisoned arrow. Oh well, he'll die soon, and Sohat will have to take over his kingdom. But wait, there's a hermit doctor who just happens to live right there, and he can cure King Ranjit, no problem! Extra bonus, he has a beautiful daughter, who may become Ranjit's Queen. Oh, but her father forbids it, as he clearly has a gambling problem, and the wise old man knows that will cause him great suffering. It's a fun movie, with a painfully naive hero, a comically evil villain, and a ridiculous plot. But most importantly, it has beautiful cinematography, direct from India (where it was shot on location.)

And even more important, it had the brilliant Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius accompanying it.

Kings fighting. Still courtesy of...the Internet.

THE ANCIENT LAW (DAS ALTE GESETZ) (1923): Then from India we headed to Austria, for a good Jewish tale that's pretty clearly an inspiration for THE JAZZ SINGER. We start in a poor shtetl where Rabbi Mayer is a studious and popular leader. His son Baruch is equally studious, and has the eye of the lovely Esther.  On Purim, he creates a bit of a stir by playing the king in the traditional play--a rabbi's son, engaging in such frivolous antics? Worse yet, he catches the acting bug, and wants to leave to try his hand at acting professionally. This is something that his friend, the travelling beggar Ruben Pick, sees as a good thing. But his father forbids it. So he just has to run away. And thus begins his multiple struggles to obey the ancient talmudic law, while also learning the ancient law of the theater, and running into the ancient court law of etiquette. A great story, well told, of a family fractured and then redeemed. Also pretty cool to see a Wiemar German film from the time that showed Jews and their traditions in a positive light. And it features one of the coolest parallel action scenes I've seen in a long time, showing the crowd awaiting the opening night of Baruch starring in Hamlet while back in the shtetl everyone arrives at the synagogue for Yom Kippur services.

And it was all brought home with the brilliant music of the Donald Sosin Ensemble (Donald, Sascha Jacobsen, and David Short of Mont Alto) along with special guest violinist Alicia Svigals, whom Donald credited with composing the main theme. 

Baruch Mayer hamming it up in the Purim play. Still courtesy of Deutsche Kinemathek

FRAGMENT OF AN EMPIRE (OBLOMOK IMPERII) (1929): Well it was quite the world tour on Sunday. After France, India, and Germany/Austria, what could be next? How about Soviet Russia, and a brilliant restoration of this film. Fridrikh Ermler should be in the conversation with Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov when talking about great Russian silent film auteurs. The film opens with the horrors of war during the Revolution, including a pretty shocking surreal scene of Jesus on the cross in a gas mask (needless to say, in most markets censors cut that out.) Filimonov is shell-shocked and can't remember a thing. Nonetheless he manages to save a soldier who is on death's door (and thirsty enough to suckle on a dog, in another shocking scene.) 10 years later, a bit of his memory returns. Like...enough to remember he's a soldier, and he has a wife back home. So he travels home to St. Petersburg to find her. And he learns about the Soviet revolution, and the new system, and the fact that they have no masters anymore, because everyone is their own master in this Communist utopia.

Except I beg to differ. Ermler is the master. And so were the masterful Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius, providing the accompaniment. By the way, everyone who gave this a standing ovation at the end--myself included--automatically became a member of the Communist Party. Good job, comrades!

Holy shit, that's Jesus in a gas mask! This movie is intense. Still courtesy of SFSFF

BATTLING BUTLER (1926): So finally we returned home to the good old U.S. of A. for a nice, light comedy. Although not topping anyone's list of best Keaton films nowadays, this was a big hit at the time, both critically and at the box office (It was much more successful than his follow-up, some train flick called THE GENERAL.) Keaton plays Alfred Butler, a wealthy dandy and a weakling whose valet (Snitz Edwards) does all the work for him, including shaking the ash off his cigarette and putting it back in his mouth. His father thinks a camping trip will do him good to toughen him up. Well, it doesn't quite do that but it does introduce him to a beautiful mountain girl (Sally O'Neil) and soon he is planning to marry her. In fact, he's so serious...he asks his valet to arrange it. The thing is, her family can't stand any weaklings. No problem for the fast-thinking valet, who just noticed in the paper that a prize-fighter who is challenging the champ also is named Alfred Butler (and goes by the name "Battling Butler.") So he can claim Buster is the prize-fighter, and when the champ knocks out the real Battling Butler as expected, he can "retire" to obscurity. The only way this can go wrong is if Butler actually pulls it off. Well...guess what happens. Of course, more wacky hijinx ensue as Buster has to impersonate a boxer and gets into many shenanigans as a result. And of course, true love will give him the strength to fight eventually. Lots of fun, and after a 5 days of silent film, this was a true feel-good way to end it.

And helping out with the feel-good spirit was the magnificent Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

Fun fact: what Buster is doing here is technically considered boxing. Still courtesy of the Cohen Film Collection

And that, finally, was SF SilentFest, 2018 edition!

Total Running Time: 443 minutes

My Total Minutes: 482,106

Jason goes to SilentFest--Day 4

Another full, full day of films, starting with NO MAN'S GOLD (1926) starring Tom Mix and, of course, Tony the Wonder Horse! As part of the Niles gang, my heart will always be with Broncho Billy, but I totally understand how Tom Mix surpassed him in popularity (hey, when you're the first, no one can take that away. When you're the best, someone will always eventually come along and surpass you.) Fast paced action with adventure and comedy. A man is shot while riding back home to stake his claim. He's found a huge vein of gold, and in his dying words he gives three parts of his map to the three men who find him. Little does he know one of them is the villain who shot him, Frank Healy (Frank Campeau.) The others are hobo Lefty Logan (Harry Gripp, basically playing the same character he played in Mix's GREAT K&A TRAIN ROBBERY in the same year,) and of course Tom Mix as "Tom Stone." Eva Novak joins the cast as the love interest who can also ride a horse, and Micky Moore (who went on to have a great career as a second unit director, including the silent-serial inspired Indiana Jones movies) as Jimmy Rogers, the young son of the miner who was shot. Anyway, non-stop action ensues, and it's a great pick-me-up for the bleary-eyed 10 a.m. audience.

Donald Sosin and Frank Bockius kept things humming along briskly, including opening it in appropriate Saturday morning style, with a sing-a-long of the movie's theme song...written just minutes before by Donald Sosin. Awesome!

Tom Mix puts Mickey Moore to bed. He will sneak out and join in the adventures, of course. Still courtesy of SFSFF

MARE NOSTRUM (1926): Next up was a melodrama of seafaring and WWI, directed by Rex Ingram (THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE) and starring Antonio Moreno as the Spanish sea captain Ulysses Ferragut. In the opening scene, young Ulysses is pulled between his uncle Triton--who encourages him to continue the family tradition of seafaring and find the mystical sea goddess Amphitrite--and his father, who wants him to abandon the sea like he did, and become a lawyer. I guess I already revealed that the sea wins out. But more importantly, although he becomes a captain and husband and father, he falls for a woman he meets in Italy, Freya Talberg (Alice Terry.) She happens to look just like his uncle's old painting of Amphritite. But she also happens to be a German spy, and she (and her network) convinces the otherwise neutral Spaniard to help refuel a German U-boat. Terrible consequences ensue, of course. Loosely based on the Mata Hari case, it's a gripping and exciting action-drama.

And Stephen Horne performed brilliantly again in accompaniment, assisted and once again Frank Bockius on percussion.

A breech of a U-Boat's hull. Still courtesy of Photoplay

The next show started with the 9 minutes that probably had the most local anticipation SAN FRANCISCO AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE (1906): Recently rediscovered and restored, I saw the digital restoration in Niles just a month and a half ago. Well, this was the 35 mm premiere, which is basically the same footage, but on an order-of-magnitude larger screen, and with the final sequence tinted red. There's basically a reprise of A TRIP DOWN MARKET STREET, showing a similar hustle-and-bustle but now with destroyed buildings and people hustling to rebuild. Then there's footage of refugees leaving from the ferry building to rebuild elsewhere (or at least, stay elsewhere until they can return.) And finally there are scenes of them dynamiting the remaining precarious structures so they can rebuild. I guess rebuilding is the theme. Still amazingly cool.

TRAPPOLA (1922): And then the feature was a fast-paced comedy from Italy. Italian diva Leda Gys stars as Leda Bardi, a young lady living in an orphanage run by nuns, and getting into all sorts of trouble. Effervescent doesn't begin to describe her, as she goes from orphan to runaway, to accused thief, to hero, to movie extra, to movie star, to avenger of her friend (whose betrothed turned her away in favor of a film diva,) to traitor to her friend, back to friend when she realizes the guy she fell for was a completely different Claudio. All in a light 62 minutes. Whew!

And the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra kept pace with their score, and Amanda Salazar had probably the toughest job reading all the Italian intertitles in English without falling behind.

Leda Gys praying to the Madonna to get her the heck out of the Catholic orphanage. Still courtesy of Cineteca Milano

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (DER HUND VON BASKERVILLE) (1929): Then a little something for the Sherlockians in the audience, a recent restoration of the last silent Sherlock Holmes film. Long thought lost, then found in the basement of a Polish church, this was pretty exciting.  Carlyle Blackwell stars as Sherlock Holmes, and  George Seroff co-stars as Dr. Watson, in pretty much the first film that treated Watson as more than part of the set dressing. The story is familiar to any Sherlockian, and to my poor memory this adaptation is more or less faithful. It's definitely got the German influence (including, inexplicably, never getting that Baskerville doesn't have an S at the end.) But it's got action, humor, mystery, and of course Sherlock Holmes being brilliant. Oh, and it's got a scary looking hound. Cool.

The brilliant accompaniment was courtesy of the Guenter Buchwald Ensemble, consisting of Guenter Buchwald, Sascha Jacobsen, and again Frank Bockius--who just had to work all day today!

Holmes and Watson wrap up the case. Still courtesy of Deutsches Filminstitut

THE SAGA OF GÖSTA BERLING (GÖSTA BERLINGS SAGA) (1924): And finally, we ended the day with a bit of a Swedish epic (complete with a half-hour intermission.) An incredibly playful epic, while still being dramatic and moving. Lars Hanson stars as Gösta Berling, who is introduced as a cavalier (may I say, that term is a little distracting during the NBA finals, as our local team is playing the Cleveland Cavaliers) leading a band of carousing cavaliers. In the opening sequence they're enjoying their Christmas feast when Gösta announces a toast to the 13th partier, which confuses them since there's only 12 of them. Soon enough, Satan himself barges in, ranting about how their beloved mistress keeps her riches by promising the soul of one cavalier every year! He is, of course, soon revealed to be the inn-keeper playing a joke. That's the sort of playful epic this is, even at times when it gets awfully dark. Anyway, we learn Gösta's entire saga, from when he was a priest who liked the drink a little too much and was defrocked. To his time as a tutor--and how that was a weird inheritance plot by the madam of the house. Up to his time as a cavalier and the strange, soap-opera-ish entanglements that ensue. Including with the lovely Elizabeth Dohna, wife of the son of the house who will someday inherit it all. Oh yeah, she's played by Greta Garbo, in her first starring role. Despite the playful nature of the meta-narrative, there's enough drama, deceit, and cruelty that you never know until the end if it will all turn out alright. It's an epic melodrama of human weakness and human forgiveness.

This is the movie that not only brought Garbo to Hollywood, but also director Mauritz Stiller--although his stint in Hollywood was nowhere near as successful. Mostly, he's known as the guy who discovered Greta Garbo, and allegedly came up with her new name (Greta Gustafsson just didn't work as a screen name.)

And the Matti Bye Ensemble accompanied brilliantly, of course. They're representing Sweden, too!

It would make more sense to show Lars Hanson as Gösta Berling, but how can you not show Greta Garbo in her first co-starring role? Still courtesy of the Swedish Film Institute

Total Running Time: 498 minutes

My Total Minutes: 481,663

Jason goes to SilentFest--Day 3

Another full day of silent film in the Castro, starting bright and early at 10:00 am.

GOOD REFERENCES (1920): Constance Talmadge stars as a young lady in the city, looking for work, but not finding any because she doesn't have any references. She happens to run into a lady with impeccable references (from the Vanderbilts, no less!) but who happens to fall ill. So, it's a shame to let those references go to waste. Wacky hijinx ensue in this light comedy, including Vincent Coleman as her employer's college dropout son (who hasn't exactly revealed he's a dropout) and his equally disreputable buddy played by Ned Sparks. A comedy of high society vs. illegal underground boxing ensues.

And Donald Sosin was there at the piano to help the comedy along brilliantly.

A boxer passes himself off as a gentleman at a society ball. Still courtesy of the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

THE OTHER WOMAN'S STORY (1925): From Preferred Pictures--don't let the name fool you, this was a lower-end studio. Pretty much the only starring role for Helen Lee Worthing, who plays the titular "other woman." Seems her lover is on trial for killing the lawyer who was serving him with divorce papers. And it's a pretty airtight case. One witness after another gets up, and through flashbacks from their testimony, we see a story play out. Jean Prentiss (Worthing) was business partners with Colman Colby (Robert Frazer,) and allegedly there are pictures proving they were more than that. Scandalous, since Colby is married. Also, powerful evidence in divorce proceedings, which is why lawyer Robert Marshall (Mahlon Hamilton) was holding on to them (allegedly.) One night Colby goes to visit him. The next morning Marshall is dead. And Colby's coat is still there. And the maid didn't see/remember anything. Except maybe there were two knocks on the door that night. Well, despite the overwhelming--but circumstantial--evidence, Jean is convinced Colby is innocent. And even after it goes to the jury she still investigates to (hopefully) prove it. A cool whodunit, which I like.

Stephen Horne accompanied, and I won't even attempt to remember/guess at all the instruments he played. But he was, of course, fantastic.

Helen Lee Worthing protests Colby's innocence. Still courtesy of SFSFF

Then time for a real treat, with Silent Avant-Garde Cinema, introduced by someone who is not just an local Avant-Garde artist, but an Avant-Garde experience, Craig Baldwin. I couldn't begin to describe these all...but I'll try.
ANÉMIC CINÉMA (1924-26, Marcel Duchamp): Spirals and puns--unfortunately, in French, and I don't speak French. But there's no better way to start than with the master Dadaist, Duchamp.
PAS DE DEUX (from the Looney Lens series from Fox Movietone, 1924): A couple of guys goofing around, dancing, mugging for the camera. All in a funhouse-mirror lens.
Then a series of Slavko Vorkapich montages. Easily the best part of the series, these montages were all Vorkapich, and used as parts of feature films. I need to learn more about this Vorkapich guy!
SKYLINE DANCE (1928): A montage of buildings, shadows, and dancing. Part of an otherwise lost film called MANHATTAN COCKTAIL
THE MONEY MACHINE (1929): A brilliant composite shot, used in the 1929 film called THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (not the 2013 Scorsese one)
PROHIBITION (1929): An expressionistic history of the roaring 20s and the sudden imposition of Prohibition, part of the 1928 Emil Jannings film SINS OF THE FATHERS.
THE FURIES (1934): White cloaked demon women break glass and kill lovers, in part of CRIME WITHOUT PASSION (1934)
A BRONX MORNING (1931, Jay Leyda): Exactly what it sounds like, a fly-on-the-wall observational look at a morning in the Bronx.
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF 9413–A HOLLYWOOD EXTRA (1927, Robert Florey, with Slavko Vorkapich once again!): A brilliant and biting satire of Hol-ly-Wood, where the extra is nothing more than a number, and the star is given kudos for wearing standard masks. Heaven forbid the extra actually be a better actor than the star.
HÄNDE (1927, Mikos Bandy and Stella F. Simon): Dancing hands. For 13 minutes. It was fun for about 5.
1931 Mexican footage by Sergei Eisenstein: To be honest, I dozed off in part of this, but I could see it was some excellent footage of Day of the Dead celebrations. I wish I had snoozed more during the dancing hands instead of during Eisenstein.

And of course, when the Silent Film Festival brings the weird and avant-garde, they have to bring the Matti Bye Ensemble, who were brilliant as always!

The Furies are going to get you. GIF courtesy of...the Internet

ROSITA (1923): Mary Pickford directed by Ernst Lubitsch, it's gotta be great, right!? Well, it wasn't Pickford's favorite of her films (although accounts that she wanted it destroyed are almost certainly false.) She plays a street singer in Seville. Carnival is her jam, but the king (Holbrook Blinn) interrupts her singing and costs her a day's profit. Ironic, since the king was there to make sure the depravity didn't get out of hand, even though he's the most lecherous one in the kingdom (the queen put him up to it.) And when he raises taxes on top of it, she eviscerates him in song. Well, his soldiers arrest her, but gallant Don Diego (George Walsh) comes to her defense. Which is unfortunate, because he ends up killing a soldier and they both end up in prison. Of course, she's pretty enough to catch the eye of the lecherous king, so she's safe, but Don Diego is kinda fucked. That is, until wacky hijinxe ensue. I don't care if Mary Pickford didn't really like her own work here, I think it's pretty hilarious and kinda great.

And you know who is more than kinda great? The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, who accompanied this film.

Mary Pickford side-eyeing...something offscreen. She should be side-eyeing the king, but that's dangerous. Still courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Film Stills Collection 

MOTHER KRAUSE'S JOURNEY TO HAPPINESS (MUTTER KRAUSENS FAHRT INS GLÜCK) (1929): Well, then it was getting into the evening, so time for some darker films. A Weimar German film, set in the Wedding district of Berlin--a poorer neighborhood, full of struggle and suffering, and communist sympathies. Mother Krause (Alexandra Schmitt) lives in a tenement building with her grown son, grown daughter, a lodger, his prostitute girlfriend, and her child. She makes ends meet by selling newspapers, but that leaves no margin for error. Her daughter meets a nice man named Max at the fair. Perhaps he'll be a good husband for her? Certainly he understands Marx and how feminism is a part of the worker's struggle. The movie moves at...let's say a "deliberate" pace (IMDb puts it at just over 2 hours. I thought it was longer, although it was brilliant and engaging all the way through.) Eventually the plot revolves around her son Paul spending some of the newspaper money on beer, and her not having enough to cover her costs. Mother Krause has precious little time to come up with the difference before she's fired from the newspaper and sent to prison for theft. Rest assured, there is NOT a happy ending. I mean, the film is a masterpiece, it's just a super-depressing masterpiece. One that watching once is enough.

And Sascha Jacobsen and the Musical Art Quintet were masterful in accompanying this masterpiece.

The entire house sitting down to dinner. Still courtesy of the Munich Film Museum

POLICEMAN (KEISATSUKAN) (1933): And finally, we ended the night with a Japanese masterpiece. You know a film is good when Eddie Mueller introduces it (except when he admits it's bad, but that wasn't the case tonight.) I mentioned yesterday in my write-up of AN INN IN TOKYO how it's so cool that because Japan didn't switch over to talkies immediately the way the U.S. did, they continued to get more sophisticated with silent film. I'm not sure if Hollywood would've gotten this sophisticated if the silent era lasted another 50 years. It's a super-stylish crime drama--proto-noir, if you will (and you will!) Itami (Isamu Kosugi) is a police officer, and a good one. He is beloved in his community for the little things (like helping kids with their stuck kite.) His old school chum Tetsuo (Eiji Nakano) has come back to town, and they catch up over tea, food, and sake (although Itami resists, since he is, after all, a policeman.) Then there's a bank robbery. One of the criminals is caught, but one gets away--but is injured in the leg in the melee. Shortly thereafter, Itami notices that Tetsuo is walking with a limp. Could he be the masked criminal who got away? Anyway, he's trying to catch the criminal (who also put the chief of police in the hospital during the getaway) but his loyalty to his old friend is maybe keeping him from investigating too hard. It's a brilliant little cat and mouse game, and a moral dilemma, and a final act that is as brilliant as just about anything I've ever seen on film.

And it was all brought home by the brilliant accompaniment of Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius. Because we finally found a film that required so much that Stephen Horne couldn't play all the instruments himself. He needed a master percussionist, too.

Policemen, being policemen, in POLICEMAN. Hey, it's late and I'm tired, okay? Still courtesy of the National Film Archive of Japan

Man, it was a long, long day. But every minute of it was worth it.

Total Running Time: 549 minutes

My Total Minutes: 481,165

Jason goes to SilentFest--Day 2

We started Thursday bright and early (10:00 am) with Amazing Tales from the Archives, always one of the best programs in the festival, if you can make it.

First up we had Cynthia Walk and Martin Koerber from Deutsche Kinemathek talking about their new restoration of THE ANCIENT LAW, which will be playing Sunday, so I'll hold off writing about the film until then. There interesting part is how it's an update of a 1984 restoration, and how after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Cynthia found the original censor card which contained every intertitle in the film, and realized there were some inconsistencies in the 1984 version. Eventually, when the Kinemathek decided to do a new reconstruction, they worked with her on the most complete and authentic reconstruction known. Can't wait to see it!

Then from Germany we went to Italy, with Davide Pozzi, head of L'Immagine Ritrovata film restoration laboratory. He spoke about the challenges of restoring Kinemacolor films. This was an early color technique, where the film was shot at 32 fps through alternating red and green filters, and projected through the same filters, making for a color film at 16 fps (albeit with fringing of the colors if the action is moving too fast.) Well, beyond the difficulties of physical damage and deterioration of the films, there's also the problem that simply tinting alternating frames red and green doesn't really work for a digital restoration. And Davide talked about how they overcame that, and then showed some examples of their restored films. Fascinating.

And finally, another sneak peek of an upcoming film, Saturday's presentation of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. Russell Merritt spoke about the history of this German film, the last silent Sherlock Holmes picture, the first version of The Hound of the Baskervilles that was more or less faithful to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's story, and the first movie that really got the Holmes/Watson friendship. Then Elzbieta Wysocka of Poland's National Film Archive told the story of how a 35 mm print of this thought-lost film was found in a collection of a Polish church, and how before even publicly announcing the restoration a private collector offered up a 9.5 mm print. And finally Robert Byrnes talked about the physical process of restoring it, the challenges of different versions and melding then seamlessly, hiding the 9.5 mm perforations (which are center if the frameline, instead of on the sides out of frame,) etc. And, of course, the most important part of the process...showing it to an audience! Can't wait to see it!

All of the clips (and some of the technical difficulties) were beautifully accompanied by Donald Sosin

Next up was a bit of comedy, starting with a Stan Laurel (before he was teamed with Oliver Hardy) short, DETAINED (1924): Laurel is an ordinary guy, mugged by an escaped criminal who steals his clothes and leaves him in prison stripes. So naturally, the cops pick him up and throw him back into prison without a trial. Wacky hijinx ensue in prison, including an attempted escape and chase that leads him resting for a bit in the electric chair.

SOFT SHOES (1925): And then the feature, starring Harry Carey as a small town sheriff and all around decent guy. But his girl doesn't want to marry him unless he has money. Well, an inheritance solves that, but to collect he has to go to a very dangerous city--San Francisco! A series of wacky hijinx ensue, with a stolen brooch, a failed attempt to return it, being mistaken for a criminal, impersonating a criminal, and getting into a hell of a lot of trouble. Pretty exciting and funny.

Harry Carey in trouble. Still courtesy of SFSFF

Both films were again beautifully accompanied by Donald Sosin.


MASTER OF THE HOUSE (DU SKAL ÆRE DIN HUSTRU) (1925): Carl Theodor Dreyer, most famous for PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (1928), shows off his comedic directing chops in this film. A domestic comedy, it starts with a father and husband (Johannes Meyer) having one of his lately typical "bad days." He complains about everything--where are his slippers, why was he not served coffee first, why is there no butter on his bread, what of his wife's stupid birds, why is his old nanny coming to help with the household again today, etc.? Well, his wife (Astrid Holm) has always taken it with a sweet nature, but it's getting to be too much. So perhaps the nanny (Mathilde Nielsen) will have to teach him a lesson. Soon his wife is whisked away to her mother's for some well-needed rest, and the nanny takes over her household duties. But she doesn't take any shit from the alleged master of the house. Soon he is like a child again, remembering when she was his nanny and gave him a good thrashing when he misbehaved. Her remedy plays with the balance between fair and cruel, but there's never a doubt that he will come through it in the end a better man, more ready and willing to appreciate and help his wife with the household chores. Very funny, with an incredibly wry wit that maintains the stately manner Dreyer is famous for but allows for a breath of near-slapstick comedy in it.

The master, wife, and Nana fighting over the birds. Still courtesy of Janus Films

Accompanying it all was the marvelous Stephen Horne on piano...and xylophone...and flute...and accordion...and I'm sure I've forgotten or missed some other instruments. Anyway, the festival's own one-man-band was brilliant again.

AN INN IN TOKYO (TÔKYÔ NO YADO) (1935): And then some Yasujirô Ozu beauty. One of the things I love about foreign silent films is the countries that continued with silent films for years after the U.S. switched to talkies. Japan is chief among them, and the silent films from the mid-30s are marvelous. The art form had more places to go, and was cut short with talkies, but the sophistication of mid-30s silents is unrivaled. Here Ozu brings a poetic beauty to working class struggles on the outskirts of Tokyo. Kihachi (Takeshi Sakamoto) and his two sons are struggling to survive. He's looking for work, but not much luck so far. They meet Otaka (Yoshiko Okada) and her young daughter, Kimiko, who are also struggling for work. Kihachi's old friend, Otsune (Choko Iida) helps Kihachi find work and lets him rent a room in his inn. Otaka eventually gets work, as a sake-house waitress (which, I assume, includes more..."unsavory"...tasks.) Kihachi doesn't like this, and fights with her. And resorts to drastic measures to try to help her.

But you know, the plot is kind of secondary to the beauty that Ozu finds in the mundane. Empty wire spools, factories, telephone poles. I don't think anyone could photograph them the same we he did. The story is depressing, but the photography is beautiful, and it's finding that beauty that is the genius of the film.

One of Kahachi's sons, in front of beautifully photographed factory smokestacks. Still courtesy of Janus Films

Adding to the beauty and the genius were accompanists Guenter Buchwald on piano and Frank Bockius on percussion.

I then had to skip out on the evening shows (sorry) because I had an important conflicting appointment.

Total Running Time: 300 minutes

My Total Minutes: 480,523

Jason goes to SilentFest--Opening Night

Even when it was just 3 days, I was consistently more exhausted after the San Francisco Silent Film Festival than I was after any other 2+ week long festival. Now that they've expanded to 5 days, let's find out if I can even survive. 

After some obligatory introductions and thank-yous (especially, thank you to Universal, as this is part of their project to restore their silent films, which they announced tonight they have expanded by 10 more) we got on with the program.

THE MAN WHO LAUGHS (1928):

This is my second time seeing this film, but the first time in this restored version. The first time was back in 2011, when it was the Halloween show at the Niles Film Museum. Here's what I wrote then:

THE MAN WHO LAUGHS (1928): I'd never seen this classic Paul Leni directed Conrad Veidt starring film. It's an adaptation of a lesser-known Victor Hugo (Les Miserables, The Hunchback of Notre Dame) novel. And it's a shockingly grim story, even for today (it's especially bleak for the audiences of 1928, it didn't do well on the initial release). Gwynplaine is the son of a nobleman who has displeased King James II. So while his father is sentenced to death in the Iron Lady, Gwynplaine is surgically altered so his face is in a permanent grin--as the king say, "So he will always be laughing at his fool of a father." He's abandoned, and in his wanderings in the snow he encounters hanged corpses in a rather shockingly grim scene (oh yeah, it's a very German expressionist style) and then he comes across the corpse of a mother with a baby girl in her arms. The baby is still alive, so Gwynplaine rescues her, and eventually finds himself at the home of the philosopher (i.e., playwright/mountebank) Ursus. There we find out the little girl (who they name Dea) is blind. Years later they are travelling performers, and Gwynplaine (now played by Conrad Veidt) is known as The Man Who Laughs. It's a very popular show, and he and Dea are falling in love. And then his noble birth becomes known, and he's drawn into palace intrigue with the Queen (King James' heir), the seductive Duchess Josiana (who is living in his rightful family home), and especially the evil jester/power behind the throne Barkilphedro. Amazing story, very melodramatic and dark. And just an amazing movie.

Oh yeah, and a lot has been made about Conrad Veidt's performance being at least part of the inspiration of The Joker in the Batman comics. This might or might not be true, allegedly there are no accounts of Batman creator Bob Kane ever claiming this. Maybe it's true, maybe the coincidence is just so striking that it's impossible to believe there's no connection. Certainly, the similarities are absolutely there, and it's become enough of Batman lore that if the original connection wasn't there it's certainly been put in there since. But while we're comparing him to famous pop culture characters, with his angular nose and covering his mouth with a scarf so often, I also saw a bit of The Shadow in him.

Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine, looking really Shadow-y (Still courtesy of Universal Studios)

I'll stick by that plot synopsis, although I'll say that this time it didn't seem quite so dark and I picked up more on the comedy, particularly broad satire of the nobility. Perhaps that's because of the restoration, or perhaps that had to do with the excellent score by the Berklee Silent Film Orchestra, who got that it was a melodrama more than a horror film, and played it for high drama and comedy, as appropriate.

Running Time: 110 minutes
My Total Minutes: 480,223

Jason comes back from hiatus

I know I said I'd be back in 2018, and here it is nearly a month in. I don't think I explicitly said I'd be back at the beginning of 2018, but that was the intention. I didn't account for how busy the beginning of each quarter is for me.

Anyway, I've seen a small handful of movies since I went on hiatus. Of course, I finished of Another Hole in the Head and the Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival (both fun festivals, and frustrating that they're at the same time. But I think the entire crossover audience of Jewish films and horror fans is...me.)

I caught THOR: RAGNAROK, which was hilarious is excellent the Taika Waititi way I hoped it would be.

COCO made me cry. OLAF'S FROZEN ADVENTURE made me wretch.

I spent a lot of time with silent films, mostly at my beloved Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, but also at the glorious Castro for SF Silent Film Fest's Day of Silents.

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI deserves all the praise it's getting, and none of the baffling backlash.

Of course I saw STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI--twice. It also deserves all the praise and...very little of the backlash. But then, I didn't feel that way until after the second screening. I didn't get all of what Rian Johnson was going for the first time. Also, I have to say that scene--you know the one I'm talking about--is just about the greatest thing ever put on cinema. I'll always call it the "Oh, SHIT!" scene, because the first time I saw it, on opening night (thanks to a good friend who scored some tickets) when that scene came up, the movie was silent and the audience was silent save for one guy who yelled out, "Oh, SHIT!"

And the night before taking off to see my family in Anchorage, AK, I celebrated a Noir City Xmas with Eddie Mueller, MANHANDLED, and ALIAS BOSTON BLACKIE.

And then earlier in 2018, I kicked it off with a little Midnites for Maniacs tribute to Gus Van Sant. TO DIE FOR is hilarious and provocative, a great satire on celebrity culture, with a faux-documentary format that it seems every sitcom is copying now (no, it didn't start with THE OFFICE, it at least goes back to 1995. And then Van Sant's controversial shot-for-shot remake of PSYCHO (1998.) I'll admit I was one of the snobs who didn't care to see it back then because, heck, the original is already perfect (I am a big fan of remaking shitty, forgotten movies, though.) But I do remember my sister and cousin seeing it, and saying they liked it better than "the black and white version." I chalked it up to them being young and stupid, but.... Okay, it might still be unnecessary, since the original is still perfect. But it's also a good movie, and good movies are totally necessary. I'm happy I finally saw it.

Oh, I saw THE SHAPE OF WATER. Yeah, that chick totally has sex with a fish-dude. And it's an exciting story about love, acceptance, and the Cold War. But what really excited me about it was...she lives upstairs from a theater! Oh my God! I wanna live upstairs from a theater! Especially a grand movie palace! Why aren't there apartments above the Castro?

THE POST is...pretty good. I can't say there's anything particularly wrong about it. But here's a sampling of what I was thinking when I watched it:
Man, Meryl Streep is a great actress. Yup, that's totally Meryl Streep being a great actress playing...what's her name, the owner of the paper. Yup, in this movie The Washington Post is owned by Meryl Streep.
Man, Tom Hanks is a great actor. Yup, that's totally Tom Hanks being a great actor playing...what's his name, the editor of the paper. Yup, in this movie The Washington Post is edited by Tome Hanks.
Hey, that's Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, from MR. SHOW WITH BOB AND DAVID. They're both playing serious roles. They've both played serious roles before. I don't know if I've seen them do that together, though. They probable have. But still, it's weird that Bob and David are doing scenes together but it's not a Mr. Show sketch.
Hey, remember when Tom Hanks was a comic actor, and then he made the leap into serious drama with PHILADELPHIA? Tom Hanks is in this movie, too. Maybe Bob and David are hoping some of that magic rubs off on them.
Boy, they're really, really hammering the point that it's bad for the President to attack the press. They seriously hope Trump will watch it...but even if he does there's no chance he changes his tune.
A whole lot of other thoughts....
...
And somewhere near the bottom...
...
The Pentagon Papers.

I had more fun at Niles, included the long-awaited DVD release of our brand new (a couple of years old) silent film, BRONCHO BILLY AND THE BANDIT'S SECRET. Stop by the museum and pick yourself up a copy.

And finally, I'm currently in Noir City. But that deserves it's own post.

My Total Minutes:466,047

Jason goes to Silentfest--The Finale

6 more films on Sunday, to wrap up the best and most intense film weekend of the year (every year)

We started the day with some Ernst Lubitsch hilarity with THE DOLL (DIE PUPPE) (1919.) Set in a magical storybook, Baron von Chanterelle (Max Kronert) has no heir to leave his fortune (because, it appears he's not a fan of women. Oh yeah, this is presented as a children's storybook, but if you have a dirty mind it's a lot funnier.) So he offers his fortune to his nephew Lancelot (Hermann Thimig) if he'd only get married. But Lancelot isn't a fan of the ladies either. In fact, he runs away from several lovely wannabe brides to go join a monastery. There he and the monks hatch a plan. He'll go to the famous dollmaker Hilarius (Victor Janson) and buy a lifelike automaton doll to pretend to be his bride, so he can get his uncle's fortune and then give all the money to the monks. Hilarius' daughter, and model for his newest doll, is played by the Lubitsch muse, the delightful and mischievous Ossi Oswalda. Well, wacky hijinx ensue and Ossi has to fill in and pretend to be the doll. While Lancelot marvels at the cleverness and craftsmanship, the wedding party agrees he's chosen a wonderful bride. Very silly, and absolutely hilarious.

Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius did an excellent job with the score, kicking off the early morning with some high energy laughs.

Then it was time for a little early Cecil B. DeMille melodrama (he produced, director was Rupert Julian) with SILENCE (1926.)  Jim Warren (H.B. Warner) is in jail. He's going a little mad listening to the constant hammering. That hammering is construction of a gallows. A gallows that he will hang from. And although he has been a crook for much of his life, his lawyer is sure that he's innocent and is taking the fall for someone else. So the story is told as a flashback, unraveling a tale of love, misunderstandings, blackmail, and an unorthodox family (at least, for the times.) High melodrama, well done. Plus, it was thought lost until just last year when Cinémathèque Française discovered it in their archives. So we were the first audiences in ~90 years to see it!

And as long as we had to wait 90 years to see it, we might as well see it with the best possible accompaniment, Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

The next show started with a bonus short, not in the program, FIFTY MILLION YEARS AGO (1925.) It's an animated primer on evolution, and released the same year as the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial. And it was very entertaining.

But okay, as a guy with a science background, I have to address the title. In the opening lines, they claim that scientists agree that the earth is at least 50 million years old. "At least" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, because scientists now peg the age of the Earth at ~4.5 billion years, with multi-cellular life being around for about half of that time. Well, it turns out we've learned a lot in the past century. Earlier, younger estimates were largely based on the work of William Thomson, better known as Lord Kelvin, preeminent physicist and giant of thermodynamics. He had a pretty simple model--starting with an Earth-sized ball of molten lava, and knowing what we do about the transfer of heat within the Earth and from the Sun to the Earth, how long would it take to cool so that there was a crust with our current average surface temperatures. His first calculations gave him an estimate of 20-400 million years. So even at best he was "only" off by an order of magnitude. With further refinements he concluded the right answer was closer to 20 million years--i.e., he was refining his model in the wrong direction.

His conclusions were disputed, particularly by geologists who claimed that the geologic record (e.g., how long it would take certain geologic features to form.) They had a powerful ally in one Charles "Chucky-Boy*" Darwin, who used geologic principles to establish that the Earth was, in fact, old enough to give his theory of evolution enough time to work. Kelvin had a ready counter to the geologists points, though, which was, "Screw 'em, they're not really scientists!" Okay, not in those words, but essentially that the time scale of geologic processes had too much uncertainty.

Of course, the geologists turned out to be right and Kelvin was massively wrong. He missed two important points about heating inside the Earth that counteracted the cooling. One any good chef knows--convection. The other, only a few scientists at the time were discovering--radiation. Although it was well known by 1925, when the movie was made. Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be writing about movies here. Sorry for the interruption, let's carry on.

Anyway, FIFTY MILLION YEARS AGO thematically would've fit better before A LOST WORLD, but there was more room in the schedule to stick it before A MAN THERE WAS (TERJE VIGEN) (1917.) Victor Sjöström's beautiful take on Henrik Ibsen’s poem. The tinted and toned print was phenomenal, and featured one of the best examples of the technology, in a brilliant yellow and blue scene early in the film. Sjöström himself plays the hero Terje Vigen, a sailor with a lovely wife and young daughter whom he adores. But when a British blockade leaves them starving, he bravely sets out in his small dinghy to get purchase food from Denmark and save the village--and especially his family. But he is captured, and languishes in jail while his family starves. Years later he returns, is heartbroken, but soon gets a chance at revenge... A masterfully done morality tale.

And speaking of masterly, I can think of no better way to describe Mattie Bye Ensemble accompanying it.

Then one of my favorite films, THE LOST WORLD (1925.) Here's what I wrote the last time I saw it, back in 2014:

THE LOST WORLD (1925): Starring Wallace Beery, but especially starring Willis O'brien stop-motion effects (the first time stop-motion animation was used in a feature length film.)

When people ask me why I care about silent films, this is a big reason. Because this film's influence can still be seen today. Have you seen the trailer for the new JURASSIC WORLD? Doesn't it look awesome!? Remember how the second JURASSIC PARK movie was called THE LOST WORLD? You better believe Spielberg was inspired by this silent film to create his own dinosaurs.

Oh, but that's not all. Willis O'brien followed this up with a little film called KING KONG. You better believe that inspired a lot of filmmakers, most notably Peter Jackson. Maybe you loved the LORD OF THE RINGS movies like I did (maybe you also think the HOBBIT films are getting to be a bit much, but that's a different question.) And I guarantee you his movies have inspired kids who will become the master filmmakers who blow your mind 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now.

Oh, and Willis O'brien mentored Ray Harryhausen, who became the master of stop-motion animation. And it can all trace back to THE LOST WORLD.

Oh, do you like Pixar films? Perhaps you recognize the influence on UP (which kind of makes me wish UP had actually been an unofficial sequel to THE LOST WORLD and they found dinosaurs instead of weird looking birds there.) This is not a coincidence, Pixar luminaries have spoken about how they studied silent film to learn how to tell the story of WALL-E, where large stretches have no dialogue.

So this is why silent films are so great, and so important. They're the start of a century-long conversation on film, with influence that stretches beyond generations and will continue as long as film does (and maybe even carry over into whatever medium is next.)

Oh, and do you want to know what the film is actually about? I think I've written about it before.

This might be one of my favorite reviews ever, despite barely mentioning the actual film. But this time I will add that this was a glorious restoration, the best version that has been seen since 1925, and Serge Bromberg and Lobster Films deserves all the credit for that.

And, of course, equal credit goes to Alloy Orchestra for their excellent score.

So after child's storybook silliness, high melodrama, Sweden, and dinosaurs, it was time for the Russian Revolution. Or close two it, the Ukrainian civil war of 1917-1921, with TWO DAYS (Dva Dni) (1927.) Despite the big political setting, it's a very personal and apolitical story about a father and son. Aton (Ivan Zamychkovsky) is a loyal servant to his master, and stays behind to protect their property as they flee from the approaching Bolsheviks. When they arrive, he's surprised to find that his very own son Andrii (Sergei Minin) is their leader. Meanwhile, the young master of the family (Valeriy Gakkebush) was accidentally left behind in the chaos, and Anton hides him in the attic and saves his life. The Bolsheviks make a mess of the place, and make Aton's life miserable. But he remains loyal to his master, and protects their son, more than his own. Which makes it all the worse when young master accuses him of being a Bolshevik spy. An emotionally powerful movie that showcases personal misery instead of getting drawn into politics. It's interesting they showed it the same weekend as BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN. It would be blasphemy not to say that POTEMKIN is the greater movie, but TWO DAYS definitely has it's strong value as well. (Oh, and trigger warning, there is a graphic scene of a dead puppy early in the film, if that sort of thing bothers you.)

And Stephen Horne, the festival's one-man band, brought it all to life with his music.

And finally, we ended the night on a rollicking comic adventure, with Douglas Fairbanks and THE THREE MUSKETEERS (1921.) What can be said? It's a classic, D'Artagnan (Fairbanks) joining the other three musketeers (not Douglas Fairbanks, so who cares?) and with Gascon bravery he leads them on a mission to save the queen from Cardinal Richelieu's machinations. Plot isn't important, this is about swashbuckling, daring-do, adventure, loyalty, and charisma. I.e., it's all about Douglas Fairbanks. And it was a great way to end a great (and exhausting) weekend.

And the great accompaniment of Guenter Buchwald Ensemble took us to the finish line and set us out into the night as merry adventurers!

Total Running Time: 492 minutes
My Total Minutes: 429,398

*To my knowledge, no contemporary scientists ever called Charles Darwin "Chucky-Boy." Neither do scientists today. I'm trying to start this.

Jason goes to Silentfest--Day 3

Saturday started bright an early, after a little breakfast at Orphan Andy's, with MAGIC AND MIRTH: A Collection of Enchanting Short Films, 1906–1924

But first, a one minute home movie from 1942 of David Shepard as a toddler. The whole festival--but especially this program--is dedicated to the memory of the great David Shepard. And this program, curated by his friend and colleague Serge Bromberg, featured many of David's favorites.

THOSE AWFUL HATS (1909): An early D. W. Griffith short, which would be played at the beginning of programs to remind women to take off their gigantic feathery hats. Very funny.

CARTOON FACTORY (1924): Koko the Clown out of the inkwell and causing his typical amount of trouble, this time with an army of Fleischer soldiers.

THE MASQUERADER (1914): An early Charlie Chaplin at Keystone Studios, and taking place in...Keystone Studios. First he causes a bit of a ruckus in the dressing room, fighting with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Then he causes chaos all over the studio until he's kicked out. Then he sneaks back in very convincingly disguised as a lady. Very funny.

FIRST PRIZE FOR CELLO PLAYING (1907): One of the funnies things I've seen, and one of the shortest films in the program. A man sets up in an alley and starts playing cello...badly. Very badly. Badly enough that the neighborhood pelts him with anything they can find.

FANTASMAGORIE (1908): Possibly the earliest example of animation on film, simple line drawings change shape in a sort of dream state.

TIT FOR TAT (1906): A gloriously colorful hand-painted (stenciled) film. An entomologist goes hunting insects. But the insects get their revenge, before he learns a lesson and they all get along in peace. Wonderfully inventive and a bit surreal.

WHEN THE DEVIL DRIVES (1907): Like the title suggests, the devil takes control, first of a coach and then of a train, and takes the passengers on a wild, wild ride.

DOWN IN THE DEEP (1906): Another beautifully hand colored film, this time taking us on an adventure under the sea.

THE DANCING PIG (1907): One of my favorite hilarious nightmare-inducers. A grotesque pig tries to get a girl to dance with him, then she embarrasses him by stripping him naked (why was the pig wearing a suit anyway?) and makes him dance. Later he dances in a lady's dress. Bizarre, especially the tongue and the googly eyes.

THE WITCH (1906): And we ended with a little Melies. And for extra verisimilitude, just like they had back in the day, we had live narration provided by Serge Bromberg. A hero gets his fortune read by a witch, who tells him of a beautiful maiden who is in love with him but held captive in a dungeon. The hero goes to save her, but he doesn't pay the witch enough, so she chases after him and tries to thwart him for revenge. 

Donald Sosin and Frank Bockius provided an excellent accompaniment on piano and percussion (and Donald's voice providing the screech of the cello)

Next up was the proto-noir, A STRONG MAN (1929) introduced to the Czar of Noir and world's premiere noir-cheologist, Eddie Muller. A Polish film about a powerful man who believes the rules don't apply to him and he can get away with murder. Henryk Bielecki (Grzegorz Chmara) is a failed writer. His friend Jerzy Górski (Artur Socha) comes to him with a manuscript for "A Strong Man." Henryk steals the book and drives Jerzy to kill himself. When the book becomes a best-seller, Henryk becomes the toast of the town and king of the world. Even more so when it gets adapted to a stage play. But a suspicious girlfriend and a guilty conscience brings the comeuppance to him. I'll confess I had trouble staying awake at the beginning, which made much of the later part a bit hard to follow. But it was still pretty fantastic, and I could see the influence of Russian films, especially in the layered mise-en-scene.

Guenter Buchwald and Sascha Jacobsen provided a perfect musical accompaniment.

The next show started with the festival award presentation to EYE Filmmuseum for its commitment to the preservation and presentation of silent cinema.

The movie started with an aerial theme, with a short unidentified documentary footage of the launch of a weather balloon.

Then it was time for a little girl power and air pirates with the serial adventure FILIBUS (1915.) Filibus is the name of the leader of a daring gang of thieves who travel by zeppelin and drop in from the sky to rob banks, steal jewels, etc. Revealed early to the audience, but unknown to most characters in the film, Filibus happens to be a lady (Cristina Ruspoli.) In fact, not just any lady, but the glamourous Baroness Troixmonde (when she's not disguised in drag as Count de la Brive.)  Detective Hardy is on the case to track down Filibus, but she's always one step ahead. Getting away with the crime while framing...none other than Detective Hardy. Soon enough she has him questioning his own sanity, thinking perhaps he's actually Filibus when he's asleep and sleep-walking. A wonderful, funny, and pretty bizarre serial. With enough loose ends left at the end for it to continue indefinitely. But then...it's been over a century, I don't think anyone is going to pick up the reins on that one.

Providing the perfect accompaniment was the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra (with help from Stephen Horne for the short.)

Then a little more proto-noir with OUTSIDE THE LAW (1920,) once again introduced by Eddie Muller (as a last minute replacement for Leonard Maltin, who couldn't make it.) A Tod Browning/Lon Chaney collaboration, but one with Chaney taking dual supporting roles as villainous Black Mike Sylva and Chinaman Ah Wing. Wing is the assistant to Confucian master Chang Lo (E. Alyn Warren,) who is teaching San Francisco crime boss Silent Madden to go straight and lead a better life. His daughter Molly 'Silky Moll' Madden (Priscilla Dean, the real star of the film) isn't quite on board with this, and so when a setup gang fight (orchestrated by Black Mike to frame Silent Madden for the murder of a cop) sends her dad to prison, she falls back into crime. But Dapper Bill Ballard (Wheeler Oakman, married to Priscilla Dean at the time) knows that the caper they're planning is a plot to frame her and get away with the loot, so he tells her, and they double-cross Black Mike. Confusing enough yet? How about we throw in an adorable little kid? How about we put that little kid in shockingly dangerous situations? (Oh yeah, Lon Chaney in yellow-face isn't the most outdated non-PC element in the film.) Crazy gangster antics, with a bloody, violent ending. What fun.

And Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius added to the fun with an excellent score.

And then a highlight, the rock-star of silent cinema, BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1925.) I had puzzled earlier in the day whether I had only seen clips of this film or if I had seen the whole thing in a class in college. I believe the answer is the former. In any case, if it had played in front of me I had never truly "seen" it until tonight. It truly is the masterpiece by Sergei Eisenstein, the man who pretty much invented the language of cinema (that is, the language of montage and editing.) A battleship crew is pushed to their limits by their cruel admiral who insists wormy, rotten meat is good to eat and anyone who thinks differently will be executed. So they mutiny, raise the red communist flag (hand painted on the film) and steam into Odessa, where their cause garners popular support but also vicious repression by the Cossacks--leading up to the famous scene on the Odessa Steps. The film was made for the 20th anniversary of the failed 1905 revolution, and premiered at the famous Bolshoi Theatre (the first film to play there) and no matter your politics, it revolutionized cinema. More importantly, it reinvigorated my night. I felt more awake after than I had all day. And again, no matter your politics, it's always good to have a little revolutionary zeal in you (depending on your politics, especially now.)

The Matti Bye Ensemble did a fantastic job accompanying, and breathing some of that revolutionary zeal into the soundtrack.

Then finally, we ended the night in a Japanese insane asylum, with A PAGE OF MADNESS (KURUTTA ICHIPEIJI) (1926.) The program notes give a synopsis: "A retired sailor volunteers to work odd jobs at the asylum where his wife has been confined since her attempt to drown their infant son many years before." I didn't get that from watching it. I got: "we're in an asylum, and it appears the inmates have taken over and made a movie." Perhaps it was that exhaustion creeping in, perhaps it was the lack of intertitles (on purpose, not just that there was no translation, this film was made without intertitles, leading to speculation that it was supposed to be accompanied with a live narration.) But there's a lot of frenetic action, rapid editing, and crazy visuals. It's not a film to understand, it's a film that you let wash over you and don't know how to feel afterwards. In other words, it was the perfect kind of weirdness for the bad boys of silent film accompaniment, The Alloy Orchestra. And they did a tremendous job. 

Total Running Time: 431 minutes

My Total Minutes: 428,906

Jason goes to Silentfest--Day 2

I missed the matinee shows because I had to work my day job, but I was up for the 7:00 show, BODY AND SOUL (1925.) It's a strange film from the super-independent African American director Oscar Micheaux, and featuring the imposing Paul Robeson in dual roles. Primarily, he's a fiery preacher...kinda. Really an escaped convict posing as a preacher and strong-arming the owner of the local speakeasy. He also plays the con/preacher's honest and good twin brother, Sylvester. And that can be confusing. Among his many evil deeds, the central one is tricking a trusting mother into leaving him alone with her daughter. And since it's the 1920's, the only explicitly shown misdeed is stealing their savings and making the daughter take the blame for it. Which eventually leads to her complete ruin. And then a strange extra ending, because the original ending was too dark. Like I said, a strange movie. I'm not sure I completely got it.

DJ Spooky made his SF Silent Film Festival debut with a cool jazzy mix and Guenter Buchwald on the violin.

And then we ended the night with THE INFORMER (1929.) It was introduced Bryony Dixon from the BFI, who described it as a proto-noir. But forget that, there's nothing "proto" about this. For my money it's full on noir, even if it's a decade early and on the wrong continent. A meeting of Irish revolutionaries (known simply as "The Party") turns into a shootout and unfortunately ends with the accidental killing of the chief of police by one Francis McPhillip. Now the Party has to denounce him and he has to leave or he'll endanger them all. But he sneaks back to see his mother. Which results in Gypo Nolan thinking he's come back to see his girl Katie (lovely Lya de Putti.) So a misunderstanding and romantic jealousy leads to Gypo becoming an informer and getting Francis killed. So now the party turns on him.

This was one of those films made at the start of the talkie era, and a sound version exists (it was also remade by John Ford in 1935, and now I have to see that version.) In the introduction, Bryony Dixon talked down the talkie version, and it seems like it's just as well. Because the silent version was excellent, with style, deceit, and danger, like all good noir.

And equally excellent were the trio of Stephen Horne, Guenter Buchwald, and Frank Bockius providing the score.

Total Running Time: 191 minutes
My Total Minutes: 428,476

Jason goes top Silentfest--Opening Night

While Docfest rocks on at the Roxie, I'm spending the weekend at the Castro with SilentFest. I'll see you Monday, my Docfest friends!

The opening night film was Harold Lloyd's THE FRESHMAN (1925.) Guilty confession, I spent most of the day thinking I had seen this one recently and could just copy my recent review. It was only just before the film started that I realized I was thinking about Buster Keaton's take on going to college, COLLEGE (1927.) And they have their similarities, but also their individual charms. In Lloyd's case, it's all about his sweet naivete. While Keaton is the bookworm who only gets into sports to get the girl, Lloyd is determined to be the popular guy on campus, and just happens to find the girl on the way. He idolizes and emulates the star of a popular movie, THE COLLEGE HERO, even imitating the jig he dances when introducing himself to anyone, and insisting that people call him Speedy. While people pretend to befriend him, they're really all laughing at him and taking him for a high-spending sucker (and the source of ice cream for the whole campus.) Eventually, the only way to salvage his reputation and become a campus hero is to win the big football game, which is kind of hard when you're only the water boy. Pretty hilarious, and a fun way to kick off the most intense film weekend of the year.

And accompanying the film was The Berklee Silent Film Orchestra, made entirely of the brightest students from the Berklee School of Music. This is their third year at the festival, with a new crop of composers and musicians every year. And it's fantastic to see their wide-eyed enthusiasm (sometimes I forget what it's like to behold the glory of the Castro movie palace for the first time) and then for them to deliver a top-notch performance that perfectly matches the film.

Then it was off to McRoskey Mattress company for the after party. A few drinks, a little food, chatting with a lot of one-weekend-a-year friends, and finally I had to take the BART home for a little sleep.

Running Time: 76 minutes
My Total Minutes: 428,285

Jason goes to a Day of Silents

We started with something a bit near and dear to my heart, a program of Chaplin at Essanay. This was his second studio, after one year at Keystone. And included a stint in the town of Niles, now part of Fremont, CA, where there is a silent film museum dedicated to the Essanay studio...and it happens to be my new hometown (I timed it, it's an 18 minute walk from my apartment to the museum!)

HIS NEW JOB (1915): The main Essanay studio was actually Chicago, and this is the first movie Chaplin made for Essanay and the only one he made in Chicago (a combination of weather and the business demeanor of studio co-head George Spoor drove him back to California.) Starting out at Lockstone Studios (a sendup of his former employer, Keystone) Chaplin makes a typically hilarious mess of things backstage. It also features his first appearance with famous cross-eyed comedian Ben Turpin (allegedly the first person to ever take a pie in the face for comedy) and an early background appearance by Gloria Swanson (who auditioned for the female lead but was rejected by Chaplin.)

A NIGHT AT THE SHOW (1915): Chaplin plays dual roles, based on his pre-film days in the Fred Karno music hall troupe. As Mr. Pest, he's a well-to-do drunken lout, stumbling and annoying everyone. As Mr. Rowdy in the balcony, he's equally if not more drunk, and causing even more mayhem. Incidentally, Chaplin's "inebriate" acts were inspired by his own father, who died of alcoholism. Like many comedians, his comedy often came from a dark place. Anyway, as a parade of awful, awful acts come across the stage, Mr. Pest and Mr. Rowdy cause hilarious havoc on the performers, the audiences, and even each other.

THE CHAMPION (1915): Made right in Niles, this is Chapin's early boxing picture (way before CITY LIGHTS) where he uses the old horseshoe in the glove to go from a hungry tramp to knocking out the champ. It includes the pairing with his pet bulldog Quapaw Lord Orry and a cameo by G. M. Anderson (The "A" to Spoor's "S" that gives the studio the name Essanay, and most famous as Broncho Billy) as a fan ringside during the title fight. Excellent.

And the Day of Silents Continued...

SO THIS IS PARIS (1926): Ah, Ernst Lubitsch and the Lubitsch touch. Georgette lives in Paris with her effete actor husband Maurice. Across the street is the stuffy Dr. Paul Giraud and his wife Suzanne. Suzanne spends all day reading romance novels about Arabian sheiks. When she catches a glimpse of bare-chested Maurice in costume, she is smitten, but plays it off to Paul as being offended. When Paul goes over to give them a piece of his mind, he finds that Georgette is actually an old girlfriend. And so mutual affairs begin, each hiding from the other. Each finding proof of infidelity, but each unable to confront the other without exposing their own infidelity. A hilarious comedy of manners and cheating partners that nobody--nobody!--can do better than Lubitsch. It's exactly what he's famous for.

And the Day of Silents Continued...

STRIKE (1925): Just before he made BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, Sergei Eisenstein made this fiery political film about oppressed factory workers under czarist Russia. But not just the strike, it's about the underhanded spies working on behalf of management who sow discord and riots. The initial excitement over presenting communal demands grows into tiring starvation and infighting. It's not just a story of the excitement of revolution, but the exhausting, fractious work of keeping it going. Eisenstein was definitely a fan of the crowd as the hero, so to western audiences used to a singular protagonist, it can be a little hard to follow. But it's still fantastic.

And the Day of Silents Continued...

First up, Flashes of the Past: A review of historic events from 1910 to 1925. From Pathé News, it's exactly what it sounds like, a compilation of news stories spanning 15 years.


DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHERS (1919): This is a truly remarkable film, and a revelation. A pro-gay rights story from 1919. From the work of Prussian doctor Magnus Hirschfeld, it's a direct rebuke to Germany's Paragraph 175 law, which explicitly forbid male homosexual acts as well as other perceived sexual aberrations. Paul Körner (Conrad Veidt, just before he became an international star with THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI) is a famous violinist. His same-sex attractions are stirred by his new adoring student Kurt Sivers (Fritz Shulz.) Their relationship is chaste, but affectionate, and does not go unnoticed by Paul's former lover Franz Bollek (Reinhold Schünzel) who blackmails them to keep it a secret. Magnus Hirschfeld makes an appearance as a doctor and sexologist, imploring that their relationship is natural and nothing to be ashamed of or to punish them for. But that's not enough to stop this from being a sad, sad story.

And the Day of Silents Continued...

THE LAST COMMAND (1928): Josef von Sternberg, Emil Jannings, what more needs to be said? Jannings plays a former Russian general, now defeated and living in poverty in Hollywood trying to get work as a movie extra. His director (William Powell) happens to be a former revolutionary who defeated him. Powell recognizes him, but Jannings does not. And the film set will be a continuation of his torture, punishment, and humiliation. But will also lead to one of the most brilliant portrayals ever on film, even if it kills him.

And the Day of Silents Continued...

SADIE THOMPSON (1928): We started the day with a tiny cameo of Gloria Swanson, and ended with her in the starring role. Sadie is a prostitute, on the run from the law (from San Francisco, in fact!) and arriving in Pago-Pago to start a new life...or to continue her old one. She's of course popular with the local Marines, and especially with Sergeant Tim O’Hara (Raoul Walsh.) But she's less popular with the local missionary and reformer Davidson (Lionel Barrymore.) That is, until his hypocrisy reveals itself. Wonderful acting, and beautiful rain-drenched cinematography (it was based on Somerset Maugham's novella "Rain.") A great way to end the night!

And the Day of Silents...finally ended.

Total Running Time: 497 minutes
My Total Minutes: 439,166