I Was Born, But…

I Was Born, But… (Yasujiro Ozu, 1932)

Two young brothers become the leaders of a gang of kids in their neighborhood. Their father is an office clerk who tries for advancement by playing up his boss. When the boys visit the boss' house with their father, they discover that their dad has been making a fool of himself to please his boss, who's son is an outwitted member of the boys' gang. The brothers' revolt claiming that hierarchy should be based on ability, not on social background.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Note : this review is a contribution to The Silent Cinema blogathon hosted by In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood and Lauren Champkin.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)

Dr. Caligari's somnambulist, Cesare, and his deadly predictions.

La Roue

Note : this review is a contribution to The Silent Cinema blogathon hosted by In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood and Lauren Champkin.

La roue (Abel Gance, 1923)

Sisif, a railwayman, and his son Elie fall in love with the beautiful Norma (whom Sisif rescued from a train crash when a baby and raised as his daughter), with tragic results.

Tabu (1931)

Tabu (F.W. Murnau, 1931)

The final film of the German master F. W. Murnau, Tabu is a tale of love and dedication of two lovers. Co-written with Robert J. Flaherty, the film was supposed to be an entire collaboration between the two directors. However, after directing the opening sequence Flaherty was relegated to writing and later would be selling his part of Tabu to Murnau for 25 000$. It blends the documentary approach of Flaherty’s masterpieces and the plotted love stories of Murnau’s classic vision of storytelling. Added to all this, Murnau died of a car accident a few days before the premiere of the film.

Those are the gossips around the film but as a whole, Tabu is the last masterpiece of the director who offered such landmarks as Nosferatu, The Last Laugh, Faust, and Sunrise. Mastering again montage, storytelling, and the silent film medium, Murnau demonstrates a lesson of filmmaking. With almost no cards between scenes, and a few indications by the few letters, the plot is clearly told by the construction of images and the smart editing.

Murnau’s story is quite simple and very Germanic in its approach. This is a timeless plot of impossible romance and the rigidity of destiny decided by the Gods. This is the kind of tale that the Grimm brothers could have written and it is easy to relate to. Indeed timeless and also universal to have lovers facing the fate and having to transgress laws and rules to be together.

I can honestly state that I am a fan of Murnau’s films and I have seen Nosferatu at least a dozen times. His grammar, his themes, and his influence is vast and huge. It was a pleasure to watch all his films on the list. Of all his directing credits Tabu might be in the ones I esteem the most. Along the aforementioned Nosferatu, Faust, and Sunrise we are in the major leagues. No wonder, Andrew Sarris in his American Cinema, ranked Murnau as one of the Pantheon directors alongside John Ford, Robert J. Flaherty, D.W. Griffith, Jean Renoir, and many other pioneers of the Art that is Cinema.
Tabu being the final film from a director that left us too soon proves that he still had gas in the tank and lots of films. However, History has proven that great Silent film directors could have a hard time with their passage to talkies. Look at D.W. Griffith who struggled to get work once sound was introduced to motion pictures. Since, Murnau was more at his ease with silent film this could have tainted his recognition amongst the greats.

The Unknown

The Unknown (Tod Browning, 1927)

A criminal on the run hides in a circus and seeks to possess the daughter of the ringmaster at any cost.

Destiny aka Behind the Wall

Destiny aka Behind the Wall (Fritz Lang, 1921)

In the Expressionistic frame story, in which human lives are each represented by a candle, Death grants a woman three chances to save her lover, if love can triumph over death. The three stories within the story each occur in a setting that is nominally historic, but really in the realm of fantasy: an adventure tale with a Persian setting out of the Arabian Nights, a Renaissance Venetian romance, and a largely comic story set in China.

The Docks of New York

The Docks of New York (Josef von Sternberg, 1928)

The story involves an incredibly strong ship stoker named Bill (George Bancroft) and the beautiful prostitute named Mae (Betty Compson), whom he saves from drowning. She was attempting suicide as she had no money, almost no clothes and felt remorse about her life up to then. He steals some clothes for her and invites her out for a "good night".

Safety Last!

Safety Last! (Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, 1923)

Harold Lloyd’s most popular and well known movie has recently received one of the most prestigious treatments : a Criterion collection release. This classic Silent comedy is famously recognized for its star climbing on the façade of a 12 story building and hanging in the air from a huge clock. 

Nosferatu

Nosferatu (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1922)

A classic canon of Films with a major F and one of the earliest instalments of Horror in movies, Murnau’s Nosferatu has inspired, influenced, been copied, and idolized. This review won’t try to repeat the thousands of analysis and critics it already been praised and sang. However, this critic who is now writing at the third person, ranks it as one of his personal favorite films. Not just Silent films but films in general. It even was on this critic’s ballot for the 2012 Sight and Sound Poll. But BFI didn’t asked me to cast my votes so I won’t be bragging much about it.

The Phantom Carriage

The Phantom Carriage aka Körkarlen (Victor Sjöström, 1921)

This article is part of a series of self- imposed movie reviews set in the participation of this film critic to the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die Club. It is an attempt at catching up the reviews that I’ve missed in my recent period of inactivity in the blogosphere.

This landmark in Swedish Cinema, recently released in Blu-Ray as part of the Criterion Collection, is one of the primary works of Horror films, Fantasy, and psychological studies. The whole ghost story and Death taking the souls of the deceased is a theme that is directly linked to Ingmar Bergman’s masterpiece The Seventh Seal. Also, the director of The Phantom Carriage starred in Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, has been revealed has been a great influence on Bergman and many others that followed. It is also a very Swedish theme of the visiting ghost that can be easily connected with August Strindberg’s writings that often involved ghosts. 

The Wind

The Wind (Victor Sjöström, 1928)

Only by being on Mediafilm's masterpiece list, this Silent film masterpiece was one of the film I deeply desired to watch since many years. Moreover, it is from one of the most notable Silent Film directors Victor Sjöström or as credited in the film Seastrom. Sjöström actually changed the spelling of his name for its phonetically sound and be more "Americanized". Since he is Swedish, it would be  more literal English to be called Seastrom instead of Sjöström even if it's the same pronunciation. He wasn't the only European director who came from Europe to work in America with the big stars and the big studios. Famous names like Josef von Sternberg, Erich von Stroheim, F.W. Murnau, were some of the biggest names to have ever worked into Silent films. Many of their movies are considered as masterpieces. It is the same case for Sjöström and his sumptuous The Wind.

Opening with a famous train sequence where Letty (Lillian Gish) from Virginia is going to live with her cousin in West Texas, a place where the wind blows all the time. While on the train, she meets an engaging gentleman name Roddy (Montagu Love) who tries to convince her that moving there is actually an error and that she should continue with him. The train opening strangely reminds the first scenes of Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man where a man from the East and the city goes to the West. Arriving at destination, Letty meets up with her cousin but his wife Cora (Dorothy Cumming) doesn't like Letty and clearly is jealous of her. Our protagonist have no choice but to marry Lige (Lars Hanson), a man that disgusts her and that she didn't love. However, a test will convince Letty to see her husband in a different way and she will rethink her life choices.

It is really not often that a pure talent of storytelling is right before your eyes. In the case of Sjöström it is more than pure talent: this is a case of artistry. The brilliant composition of the film and the directing of the structured plot make The Wind one of the major Silent films. Sjöström uses a simple and very sober mise en scène for his film and the special effect of superposition of images gives to Letty's visions a superbly unsettling effect that Lillian Gish performs with one of the greatest performances by any actor from her time.

Thorough her career and her long life, she died at 99 years, Lillian Gish received lots of praised first by her first director D.W. Griffith then by her peers, even François Truffaut in his tribute to her and her sister Dorothy with is dedicate in La nuit américaine. Just to name a few of her greatest performances: The Birth of A Nation, Broken Blossoms, and The Night of the Hunter, were all masterpieces and she managed to be as good with Silent films as with talkies. Nonetheless, in The Wind she was at the top of her game, the intensity of Sjöström's film needed all the fragility, ethereal beauty of the dame, her quick adaptation to the many changes in the attitude and state of mind of Letty and her fall into insanity until her complete recovery in almost one take and a continuous shot.

She was a prisoner of the desert and her containment was even worse she was obliged to marry a boorish man that only disgusts her. Until a great sand storm washed away the ghosts of her past and open her eyes to the man she never let herself appreciate. Then she found everything she was looking for in the hell she thought she was. Like a wild stallion she delivers herself from the holds that made her miserable.