Shooting Stars (1928), directed by A. V. Bramble and Anthony Asquith. “A must-see for all silent film fans,” so says the liner note from KINO KORBER, and you know what! This is a reliable comment. Everything from the cinematography to the sets to the editing to the acting even to the story is first-rate. The moving crane shot near the beginning of the film is nothing short of astounding, especially for 1928. The camera, peering from on high, follows the action as a couple of actors walk through studio sets, the man following the woman and we see various film sets and ongoing work in a bustling studio. In other words, much of the film deals with the making of movies and it does this with loving attention to detail. We see directors at work instructing actors, cameramen rolling film, lighting persons handling lights, set people arranging furniture and flowers, actors pretending to be on horses when they are just on wooden structures pulled along rails. All this is fascinating. Then we have the story of two married actors whose marriage is in trouble because the woman, Mae Flowers (Annette Benson) is having an affair with another actor not her husband, Andy Wilks (Donald Calthrop), a comedian in the Charlie Chaplin vein. Mae’s husband is Julian Gordon (Brian Aherne), and he is a cowboy in films. Julian and Mae are making a movie called Prairie Love, and Mae slyly puts a real cartridge in a gun that one actor will use to shoot Julian in a scene about to be shot. Of course, things go seriously wrong and do not work out as Mae had hoped. The action gives us an insight into the rather vain lives of celebrities; we often see them preening themselves, looking in mirrors, or posing for the public. The intent is, perhaps, to remind us of scandals that unsettled Hollywood in the 1920s, scandals that involved such actors as Fatty Arbuckle and Olive Thomas. Then we have the mysterious deaths of Thomas Ince or William Desmond Taylor. In short, Shooting Stars would have been provocative stuff in 1928. It remains a testimony to the excellence of silent cinema.

The Flapper (1920), directed by Alan Crosland. This is one of the ill-fated Olive Thomas’s final films. She died after taking a poisonous concoction by mistake in a Paris hotel room when she was just 25. In The Flapper, she plays 16-year-old schoolgirl ‘Ginger’ King. Ginger has a rebellious streak and a fancy for an older man, Richard Channing (William P. Carleton). She finds herself in trouble after, on her way home from boarding school, taking a side trip to New York where she falls in with a couple of shady characters. She also adopts the “flapper” fashion and in the process popularizes the term for the next decade. The first half or so of the film has some impressive winter scenes, especially the ones focusing on winter sports: skating, skiing, tobogganing, and even ski jumping. Then we have the winking moose head affixed to a wall in one scene; what this is doing in the film is beyond me. Also endearing are the inventive intertitles with their clever art work. All in all, this domestic comedy is amusing and entertaining. Its focus on the expectations for young women is also worth the viewing. 

 

The Haunted Castle (1921), directed by F. W. Murnau. If I listed my ten favourite directors, Murnau would be one of them and he would appear near the top. Nosferatu, The Last Laugh, Faust, Sunrise, City Girl, Tabu – these are magnificent achievements. The Haunted Castle comes just before Nosferatu and it is Murnau getting ready for those later films. Something of a murder mystery, The Haunted Castle moves slowly. Everything moves slowly here from the characters to the story. The acting involves much swooning. The “Anxious Man” offers some comic relief, but mostly we have much swooning. What is, however, noteworthy are the sets and compositions. The interiors with hallways, doors, stairs, and large rooms are excellent. The KINO restoration of this film is stunning in its clarity and tones from auburn to blue to familiar black and white. The story also has a couple of dream sequences that gesture toward expressionism. What matters is what we see. The story is slight and, perhaps, obvious. At the centre of the story is a bit concerning what we see not being what we see, and this serves as a nice comment on the film itself.

 

The Phantom Honeymoon (1919), directed by J. Searle Dawley. Picking up on the popularity of spiritualism at the time, this film is a darn fine ghost story. Told in a series of flashbacks, and with a final sequence that shows the phantom couple touring the world in their phantom car, this is a film with flare and energy. The duel that results in the death of the bride groom involves a snake rather than swords or pistols. The location is a cavernous castle. The characters are lively, and early on we have an imaginative bit with the two lovers riding on the back of the car of the cad who perpetrates the murder of our hero. The special effects are impressive for a film made in 1919, and the narrative, using both analepsis and paralepsis, is sophisticated. The frame has a ghost debunker, Professor Juno P. Tidewater, travelling Europe with two nieces, and happening upon Belmore Castle, known to be haunted. He meets the Hindu caretaker, Sakes, and listens to Sakes recount the history of the castle’s haunting. The ins and outs of the story are intriguing, to say the least. This film is a forgotten gem.

 

Bestia (The Polish Dancer, 1916), directed by Alexander Hertz. This is an early Pola Negri film, made in Poland in 1916 and released early the following year. The film has one rather dramatic and passionate dance sequence, but mostly it is a melodrama about a young woman who desires independence, runs off with her boyfriend, takes the boyfriend’s money, finds employment as a model and then as a cabaret dancer, finds love with a married man (she does not know he is married), thinks to marry this man, learns the truth, is murdered by her former boyfriend, and meanwhile the married man separates from his wife and she dies. This is not a comedy. The film is shot well and for the most part the scenes play well. Pola Negri is interesting. The early scenes in which the young woman’s father berates her for staying out late are powerful. All in all, this is a competent early film, but nothing out of the ordinary.

 

Hypocrites (1915), directed by Lois Weber. Weber is one of the first women film directors of note. Before she entered the film industry, she was a street evangelist, and her time delivering the gospel serves her well in Hypocrites, a film that focuses on two clerics, one from the Middle Ages and one in modern times. The medieval monk Gabriel (Courtenay Foote) sculpts a beautiful naked woman and presents it to the monastery and the outside community as the “naked truth.” The people kill him for creating this salacious statue. The modern cleric, known as the Abbot (Herbert Standing), preaches a sermon on hypocrisy and tries to tell the people in his congregation the naked truth. Here the naked truth is allegorized in the figure of a naked woman (17-year-old Margaret Edwards) superimposed on the film. This is, perhaps, the first time that film showed full frontal nudity. In any case, the Abbot does not fare much better than his medieval counterpart. One member of his congregation calls for him to be fired, a member of the choir reads a newspaper, the Abbot confiscates the newspaper, and he dies holding this newspaper while sitting inside his church. This is, apparently, scandalous as the final shot of the film indicates. Throughout the film we have much allegorizing in the manner of, say, a John Bunyan. Truth as an unclothed woman is as daring as we could ask for, and Weber’s handling of a dual story is firm and accomplished.

 

Wine of Youth (1924), directed by King Vidor. This film has three Mary’s, grandmother, mother, and daughter. The focus is on the daughter, although the mother and grandmother have their moments. Young Mary (Eleanor Boardman) is a flapper, out to experience life in ways the older generation(s) cannot comprehend. She spends her time partying and fending off the advances of two suitors. The thing the older generation finds most disturbing and incomprehensive is Mary’s desire to “experiment” before she gets married, rather than after. Mary refuses her parents’ command that she stay home and live a normal life; she goes for a camping trip with two suitors so she can decide which one of them will make the most reliable husband. On the camping trip, Mary sees the value of a grounded family life like the one she has with her mother, father, and brother. She returns home early to discover that what she thought was a happy family life is no such thing. Her mother and father detest each other. All of this is pretty heady stuff for 1924, and the message is important. I only wish the ending had not found a way of circumventing the impact of what has gone on before. It seems clear that Mary’s parents really do not like each other, and yet at the end we are to believe they have mended fences and are ready to start over.

 

The Show-Off (1926), directed by Malcolm St. Clair. This is a comedy about a blow-hard, a man who is always talking and talking and blathering about what a fine fellow, what a successful fellow he is. He is loquacious to a degree. This motor-mouth man is Aubrey Piper (Ford Sterling), a piker who ends up having to pay the piper. Aubrey’s girlfriend is Amy Fisher (Lois Wilson). Her family, father, mother, and brother, do not, to put it mildly, much care for Aubrey. Anyway, Aubrey and Amy get married, Amy’s father dies, the Pipers move in with the Fishers, and Aubrey just about ruins the household. The film has a wild car-driving scene that results in Aubrey going to court and having to pay a thousand dollar fine. His brother-in-law, Joe (Gregory Kelly), pays the fine with the money he was going to use to finance his invention of a material that prevents rust from forming. Family finances are in a shambles and they are going to lose their house. All appears bleak. Looking on is the girl next door, Joe’s girlfriend Clara (Louise Brooks). She steals every scene in which she appears. Also noteworthy is Claire McDowell as Mom Fisher. Her facial expressions are very natural; she does not display the excessive gestures that some silent acting elicits. This is an amiable, if predictable, comedy/melodrama. You can find an excellent copy of the film on YouTube.

 The Sacrifice (1986), directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. This is Tarkovsky’s final film. It is also his most Bergmanesque film. The action takes place in the bleak environment of the Island of Faro, Bergman’s place of residence and location for many of his films. Two of the lead actors, Erland Josephson as Alexander and Allan Edwall as Otto, are members of Bergman’s stock company. The cinematographer is Sven Nykvist who also photographed many of Bergman’s films. The narrative, such as it is, also has the spiritual probing we often have in Bergman’s films. While watching, I thought of both Shame (1968) and Persona (1966). Having made this connection between Tarkovsky and Bergman, I should add that Tarkovsky’s film is clearly of his own making. His use of hallucinatory images, especially nearer the end, and art work and colour are distinctively his own. The story here involves a fifty-year-old former actor celebrating his birthday. Early in the film we hear the unsettling sounds of low-flying jets (I thought of Antonioni), and this sound is a premonition of what transpires later in the film when a television announcer give news of World War 111 beginning. This news, not surprisingly, shatters the birthday pleasantness, and leads to Alexander’s descent into madness. The film gives us a clash of silence and verbiage. Most of the characters are willing to speak at length about such weighty themes as spirituality, performance, mortality, relationships, art, history, and so on, but one character, the young boy referred to as Little Man, does not speak, or speaks very little and hoarsely because of an operation on his neck and (I presume) vocal cords. This young boy’s silence speaks as forcefully as the other characters’ volubility. Finally, what do I think? This is not as impressive a film for me as Tarkovsky’s Stalker, but I do admire the look of this film, a look largely accomplished by Nykvist’s cinematography. The beauty in such minimalist places, outside and inside, I find compelling. And then we have that final image of the burning house, an image, alas, for our times.

 

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (1988), directed by Michal Leszczylowski. There are two kinds of film makers, Tarkovsky asserts, the ones who reproduce the world that surrounds them, and the ones who create their own worlds. Tarkovsky mentions Bergman, Bunuel, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Dovzhenko as examples of the latter. You can guess in which category Tarkovsky fits. This is ostensibly a “Making of…” film, but it is so much more.  Anyone interested in just how films come into being or in the auteur theory or in the cinema and art of Tarkovsky would do well to seek out this film. We see the collaborative nature of film making in action. We also see just how a film can be the result of one person’s vision. The focus here is the making of Tarkovsky’s final film, The Sacrifice. Much of what we see is the work on set, the preparing of scenes and rehearsing of actors, but we also have footage of Tarkovsky speaking to film students and responding to interviews, and an interview with his wife. The footage from the set of The Sacrifice shows just how meticulous Tarkovsky was. He oversees the choice of colours, shapes of furniture, placement of objects such as mirrors or side tables, lighting, and so on. He demonstrates movement for the actors. In short, we see demonstrated Tarkovsky’s idea that cinema consists of bits of time taken from the flow of time and sculpted into an emotional experience for the viewer. This is the best chronicle of how film making works that I have seen.

Mirror (1975), directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Poetry in motion. This film is about family, about history, about time, about war, about mothers and sons, about earth, air, fire, and water, about birds, about mirrors, about dreams, about relationships, about children, about adults, about nature, about the mystery and beauty of things. The narrator is a dying middle-aged man contemplating his past in its personal and more widely historical contexts. What we see is both close to incomprehensible and intensely compelling. As we would expect with Tarkovsky, the film gives us a series of dreams, a series of marvellously resonant and beautiful images. This is film making that aspires to the condition of poetry, and – eureka – achieves this condition. The voice over also delivers a poetic effusion to tickle the fancy. This is filmic poetry, as for example in the shots of the wind in the grass or in the trees or in the bushes, or shots of rain falling heavily, or in a bird taking flight, or in objects slowly rolling from a table because of the wind. The simple act of washing one’s hair is poetic, strange, mysterious, and powerful. Then we have small details such as the quickly caught picture of a poster for Andrei Rublev. The final tracking shot is haunting.

Earth (1930), directed by Alexander Dovzhenko. I am sure Tarkovsky watched this film over and over. It has the pace and solemnity of Tarkovsky’s films. It offers both similarity and contrast to Eisenstein’s great work. Similarity in its focus on people and contrast in its slow burn. The plot is slim, having to do with the coming of collective farming and the class struggle. It chronicles the change from one way of life with landowners and priests to another of collective ownership and a new way of doing without clergy. Forms of ritual are changing. Some accept this gratefully and others resist. The scene of Basil’s girlfriend grieving is remarkable. The central action involves, first the coming of a tractor to the land, and second, a night time dance and then murder of a local supporter of change. But plot is less important here than image. This is a film of images, of faces, of fruits, of fields, of rain and wind, and the making of bread. The film, silent though it is, aspires to the condition of music. Slow and poetic, Earth is essential cinema.