Oscar time!

I get good and tired of watching Oscars being handed out to blandly pretty faces with no talent behind them. I haven't even watched the ceremony in years.

However, I would LOVE to see the recipients on November 13. One of them is film historian Kevin Brownlow, who has finally been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his unceasing efforts to have classic films restored.

Brownlow is also the author of The Parade's Gone By, a work on silent film, and has made a number of documentaries of such luminaries as Buster Keaton and Mary Pickford.

Finally, FINALLY, his fine work has earned him a statuette. Read this, Hollywood; his work. Not a talentless botoxed surgery-laden face and anorexic body. His dedication to film, his achievements in having major films restored, and his success in bringing them to the public eye.

A job well done.

San Francisco Silent Film Festival

This festival is coming soon. To take a look at the offerings this year, go to: http://www.silentfilm.org/index.php

Return of the silents

New Zealand is returning a LARGE collection of American silent films to the United States:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/movies/07silent.html

Here's hoping that these films are in, at least, relatively good shape, and can be viewed by us soon.

The Cheat

I found this to be a very interesting film, despite Fannie Ward's over-the-top arm gestures and horrified eyes.

Ward plays a married woman who lives to be seen and admired; we first see her out shopping for clothes and arguing with her husband that she simply won't give up her way of life - which includes not only shopping for horrendously expensive clothes, but keeping company, as they used to say, with an ivory baron (played by Sessue Hayakawa).

This is one of the things that intrigued me - the movie was made in 1915, and a high-society woman is associating with a man of a different race. I'm sure she wouldn't do it if he weren't rich, of course, but the same can be said of many Caucasian men. Even more intriguing, the film was re-released in 1918, and the Hayakawa character was changed from Japanese (as he was in the original) to Burmese.

Why? Because Japanese-Americans objected to the way a Japanese man was portrayed in the film.

This was the same time The Birth of a Nation was raising hell due to its almost unbelievable racism, with a fledgling organization called the NAACP protesting mightily - and with the fullest justification - against the way the black characters were shown.

That's what interests me, apart from the technical aspects of both movies. They both showed non-Caucasian characters in an unfavorable light, and they both received criticism for it. In 1915. Long before the civil rights movement; when the States were still segregated. Even then, there were organizations setting the stage for reform.

Back to the movie, it had some fascinating lighting techniques that Griffith never used, but then, it's not Griffith; it's DeMille. The two leads are a bit much, especially Ward, but Hayakawa is perfect and perfectly cast. Ward and Jack Dean, who played her hard-working husband, were married offscreen the following year; they remained married until his death in 1950. Ward and Dean join the ranks of the Forever Silent, neither of them ever having made a talkie film.

The Hill Park Mystery

I saw this Danish movie at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, Italy, a few years ago. The movie, fortunately, had English titles; not only that, but the names of the characters were also English, as if Copenhagen could be mistaken easily for London.

I love it. It's the same old plot of a reporter getting mixed up in a crime, but in this case, the story is a comedy. Our Hero is no damn good at staying out of trouble, and he's equally inept at keeping a low profile. The comedy really works here, and shows us how funny a movie can be with images rather than words.

I'm glad to be able to inform anyone who's reading this that it's available on DVD:

http://www.edition-filmmuseum.com/product_info.php/info/p29_A-W--Sandberg--Der-goldene-Clown---Zerr-ttete-Nerven.html

For some reason, the link option isn't working here, so I have to post the URL without it.

The other movie on the DVD is one that I haven't seen, but if it has the same standard as The Hill Park Mystery, then I,for one, have no problems owning it. I haven't bought it myself; it's still on my wish list.

If anyone out there does buy it, will you tell me your thoughts on the other movie?

Lumiere

It's almost too perfect that the Lumiere Brothers got into filmmaking in the very early years. Lumiere is French for "light", an essential quality in creating a photograph or moving picture.

I found a few of their shorts on YouTube today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nj0vEO4Q6s&feature=related

I love watching these candid views. You aren't looking at pumped-up, undernourished, botoxed, surgically altered, overly-tanned mannequins dressed up (in modern fabrics sewn by modern machines) to look like the people of 1895. You're looking at 1895 as it really was. A train pulls into a station, and people get on it. A boat arrives at a dock, and the passengers disembark, with some of the men smiling and tipping their straw hats to the camera. A group of men sit at an outdoor table, having drinks. A young boy plays a trick on a man who is watering his garden.

These are the images of 115 years ago, before World War I blasted that sort of life away forever.

Comic influences

No, this isn't about humor. It's about silent actors/characters who have influenced comics. I was surprised to find that silent film still has this kind of influence on popular culture, though most people don't know it.

The character of Superman was based on two wildly popular performers of silent cinema. Harold Lloyd - more specifically, his "Glasses" character - was the inspiration for the character of Clark Kent. The physique of Superman was modeled on the astoundingly fit Douglas Fairbanks.

Silent and sound actor Jack Holt provided the features for Dick Tracy.

ZaSu Pitts was lampooned by voice talent Mae Questel in the character of Olive Oyl; Pitts's nervous, "oh dear" mannerisms were used to great effect.

One of the most surprising, for me, is Conrad Veidt, as Gwynplaine from The Man Who Laughs. This sympathetic 17th-century character, who has had his mouth deliberately carved into a permanent smile by his father's enemies and who is forced to work in a traveling show, provided the look for a famous villain. Let's see - who could that villain have been?

Take a look above.

In case you still don't know - and I admit, the image could show more of his face - the character is the Joker, from the Batman series.