http://www.theauteurs.com/topics/344/comments
On another note, sunrise and erich von stronheim films come to mind
Nosferatu, anything by Buster Keaton, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (original, German Expressionist version)…
early Lumiere and Edison actualities—Melies magical cinema-Griffith of course!
The big 4-Chaplin-Lloyd Langdon Keaton
Cabiria-Intolerance The General-The Kid
The Golem-Lon Chaney sr
Stroheim King Vidor De Mille-John Ford Raoul Walsh early experimental-Richter Man Ray etc
list goes on and on,,,,,,,,,,,,
Desert Island Silent Films:
- Renoir’s “Little Match Girl”: wonderful (few people know this one)
- a selection of Melies
- Griffith’s “Broken Blossoms”
- Murnau’s “The Last Laugh”
- Dreyer’s “Passion of Joan of Arc”
- Pabst’s “Pandora’s Box”
- Chaplin’s “City Lights”
- Pudovkin’s “The End of St Petersburg”
- Maddin’s (2006) “Brand Upon the Brain”
passion of joan of arc….yes!
It’s difficult for me to pay attention to silent films when I’m watching them on my computer. I have this attention span thing which relates to sound I think.
That being said:
Guy Maddin- “Brand Upon the Brain”
the really early (think Edison) stuff- I know Netflix has a disc full of that
“It”- forget who directed it, but Clara Bow is worth watching
Vertov- “Man with the Movie Camera”
Sunrise: A Tale Of Two Human! Abel Gance’s Napoleon! Pare Lorentz’s The Plow That Broke The Plains & The River
Oh my god! Forgot! ANYTHING by Buster Keaton and Max Ophuls! These men freed cinema from its boring tripod. (At least in my version of cinema history they did.)
The Phantom Carriage is great, M. I’m eager to see anything by Sjöström.
I saw Mästerman by Victor Sjöström in a theater with live accompaniment and that experience pretty much changed the way I think about silent cinema.
My favorite, however, is Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc. A masterpiece!
Harold Lloyd silents like Safety Last! and Girl Shy. I find I prefer his persona more than Keaton’s ironically because Keaton’s has just so much more grace and athleticism even while masked in stoicism. Lloyd is so gangly that he always seems a step away from catastrophe, thus making the films more tense and funny.
Flesh and the Devil and the Temptress with Garbo are revelations. I finally understood what Norma Desmond was talking about in Sunset Blvd.
Echoing others here, my favorite is the The Passion of Joan of Arc by Dreyer.
I am including the works of Jan Svankmajer into this thread, I feel they merit discussion.
But I am partial to Chaplin and Laurel & Hardy myself.
Comedy does not reflect the human condition is at once did.
Sunrise by F.W. Murnau is my favorite silent film!
I love Pabst’s “Pandora’s Box”. As long as it is, it always goes by far too quickly, and there isn’t a wrong note in the whole film. For whatever reason, I always watch it around Christmas; perhaps the visual coldness of the first and last acts prompt that. The backstage scenes in the theatre never cease to fill me with delight, and are proof that the old chestnut “There’s always something new to see” is still true, even in an eighty- year old movie.
I love Chaplin’s Gold Rush. Charming, funny, and sad at the same time.
Yes, THE GOLD RUSH. And THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC. But also INTOLERANCE, NAPOLEON. Murnau’s SUNRISE and THE LAST LAUGH. THE GENERAL. Eisenstein’s OCTOBER. THE CROWD and UN CHIEN ANDALOU.
Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS, F.W. Murnau’s FAUST, (can’t recall who) THE GOLEM are all great silent movies
un chien andalou YES
I think my two favorite silent films are Metropolis and City Lights.
I want to speak up for the work of Lon Chaney. Everybody knows about Phantom and Hunchback but I recently saw two early films of his from a Turner Classic Movies disc, The Ace Of Hearts and Laugh, Clown, Laugh that reemphasize what an amazing actor he was. Both films were old-fashioned melodramas where he had an unrequited love for the heroine and killed himself at the end as a result, but there was such humanity and grace in his performances that he elevated these pictures into genuine tragedy
Chaplin’s “Sunnyside”
Oscar Micheaux’s “Body and Soul”
G.W. Pabts’s “Pandora’s Box”
Oh, and by the by, “City Lights” is, technically speaking, not a silent film; it’s actually considered to be his first sound film.
Hey M. Fellow silent cinema buff here. David Lee already posted the URL to my thread that I started about this, so I won’t repeat ALL of my favorites, but my three favorite silent films are Dreyer’s THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC, Dziga Vertov’s MAN WITH THE MOVIE CAMERA (those two are also on my all-time top ten list) and Victor Sjostrom’s THE WIND.
I haven’t seen THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE, but I’d love to. Aside from THE WIND, the only other Sjostrom film I’ve had the opportunity to see is HE WHO GETS SLAPPED, which was pretty great, too. His adaptation of THE SCARLET LETTER is supposed to be great, and anything Lillian Gish is in is bound to be worthwhile, so that’s another one I’d love to see.
“Greed” is without a doubt one of my favorites of any kind.
sunrise , intolerance , the general , greed , the passion of joan of arc , i was born but…., a page of madness , the wind , modern times , three bad men ,the lodger , the last laugh , metropolis , city lights , earth , broken blossoms , the oyster princess , the marriage circle , mother , the navigator , seven chances , steamboat bill jr. , sherlock jr. , our hospitality , the gold rush , the kid , easy street , potemkin , four sons , napoleon , nana , way down east
you all have it right with Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, one of the most intensely emotional films, the brilliant use of ECU’s as well as the stark contrast of Black and White, the fact that none of the actors used make up which really gave the close ups a certain level of emotional and psychological depth, as well as Falconetti’s performance… it’s all FANTASTIC! however I am amazed that I didn’t see more votes for Lang’s Metropolis… one of the BEST films of all time, stunning visuals and a brilliantly metaphorical storyline! also I second Melies as well as the Man with the Movie Camera, and a bunch of the other films listed, man I really feel at home on this site!
As far as Lang… I gotta go with “Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler” and “Destiny”
Then there’s the usuals: “City Lights”, “Faust”, “Pandora’s Box”, etc.
I second all of the Dreyer talk… that’s an incredibly powerful picture.
I’m dying to see Fantomas! Or any of the Feuillade serials, really…
Murnau, Borzage, Lang, Feuillade, Dreyer, Griffith, Chaplin, Keaton.
I’d like to see both The Phantom Carriage and The Little Match Girl. I also want to watch more Buster Keaton — I think he’s amazing, one of the first really smart, unsentimental, modern directors. Haxan is good too, a remarkable mix of Breughel-esque Gothic art and sleek, almost documentary-like modernism. I have shortlisted many of the Russians, not so much Eisenstein as Pudovkin, Dovzhenko and Dziga-Vertov.
Watching The Birds on TV last night, I was impressed by how the scene where the gas station blows up is practically like a little silent movie! Apart from the intermittent bird cries (which could be simulated in a music accompaniment) it’s really just faces telling the story.
You know, technically, City Lights and Modern Times aren’t true silents (though that itself is a hazy term); they each have a recorded, synchronized soundtrack.
Just thought I’d be a nerd and point that out.
Here’s a top 10:
The Camerman’s Revenge (Ladislaw Starewicz, 1912)
Les Vampires (Louis Feuillade, 1915)
Nosferatu, the Vampire (F.W. Murnau, 1922)
Greed (Erich von Stroheim, 1924)
The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Lotte Reiniger, 1926)
Ménilmontant (Dimitri Kirsanoff, 1926)
The General (Clyde Bruckman & Buster Keaton, 1927)
Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)
The Wind (Victor Seastrom, 1928)
Un chien andalou (Luis Buñuel, 1929)
… actually I guess that’s 11… I’ll let it slide because ther are two shorts. :)
M.
I haven’t seen a thread for this so I’ll start one.
What are your fav. silent films.
My first choice would be Victor Sjostrom’s The Phantom Carriage! Utterly brilliant!!!! Has anyone seen it??
Others:
Haxan, Metropolis, siren of the tropics, and fantomas.