Silent

  • Alfred Lind – Il jockey della morte AKA The Jockey of Death (1915)

    1911-1920AdventureAlfred LindItalySilent
    Il jockey della morte (1915)
    Il jockey della morte (1915)

    An acrobatic woman and a man in a skeleton suit are involved in a gypsy plot.

    Quote:
    A little girl seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Fifteen years after, the true reason comes into light. Her cousin Henri makes up his mind and decides it is time for action. In order to help the girl escaping the vigilant gypsy home of ‘Cirque Bartoli’, both get caught and end up being chased by the gypsies. This hot pursuit – crossing sewage channels, roof tops, mountains and rivers – is an excellent piece of the girl’s extraordinary acrobatic skills and Henri’s bravura.Read More »

  • Vladimir Erofeev – Pamir, krisha mira AKA Roof of the world (1928)

    1921-1930DocumentarySilentSoviet silent cinemaUSSRVladimir Erofeev
    Pamir, krisha mira (1928)
    Pamir, krisha mira (1928)

    Film-maker Vladimir Yerofeyev (1898-1940) was a pioneer of expedition cinema in the Soviet Union, advocating for increased attention and investment in edifying non-fiction films made to win the interest of broad audiences. Pamir. Roof of the World, 1927, is his second feature film, and the first resulting from an expedition (his debut that same year, Za poliarnym krugom [Beyond the Arctic Circle] was a co-edited compilation film). In summer 1927, a trek to the mountainous Pamir region, known as the “Roof of the World”, in present-day Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, was organized by the Sovkino studio in co-operation with the Geological Committee. Yerofeyev worked with prominent geologist Dmitrii Nalivkin and ethnographer Mikhail Andreyev; both scholars had extensively researched the area and contributed to the planning for the crew’s journey.Read More »

  • Karl Grune – Waterloo (1929)

    Karl Grune1921-1930ClassicsGermanySilentWeimar Republic cinema
    Waterloo (1929)
    Waterloo (1929)

    Waterloo is a German made movie that depicts the soldiers of Belgium + The Netherlands; Brunswick; England, Ireland, Scotland + Wales; Hanover; Nassau; and Prussia’s victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.Read More »

  • André Sauvage – Études sur Paris (1928)

    1921-1930André SauvageDocumentaryFranceSilent
    Études sur Paris (1928)
    Études sur Paris (1928)

    Quote:
    This visually magnificent and poetic city symphony of Paris in the late 1920s earned Sauvage the admiration of Jean Renoir and Jean Vigo. Sauvage maps the metropolis through its street life, monuments, ports, and automobile traffic.Read More »

  • Raúl Perrone – Favula (2014)

    Raúl Perrone2011-2020ArgentinaArthouseSilent
    Favula (2014)
    Favula (2014)

    Quote:
    “Hypnotic” is the best word to describe Favula, the latest work from director Raúl Perrone, which comes with a recommendation from none other than Apichatpong Weerasethakul – though he used the more Joe-like epithet, “bliss.” Somewhat of a secret outside of his native Argentina, Perrone has made more than 30 movies, and in recent years has reinvented his cinema, by looking back to the past, and in doing so pointing to the future. Standing apart from any other film made this year, with its magical handmade aesthetic, Favula recalls Méliès, or silent Fritz Lang, but at the same time evokes recent silent, stage-bound aesthetics like Raya Martin’s Independencia. Loosely based on an African fable, and shot employing rear-projections techniques, Favula’s simple events take place mostly in an isolated house and a nearby jungle: a marginal family’s life is interrupted by the arrival of a teenaged girl. On top of the minimalist, pulsating images, Perrone layers a maximalist soundtrack that encompasses both the sounds of the jungle and non-diegetic music (indelible contemporary songs that appeared in his last work, the cumbia punk opera P3ND3JO5). The result is a wholly unique, mythical universe of danger, passion and magic.Read More »

  • Jacques Rivette – Le divertissement AKA The Diversion (1952)

    Jacques Rivette1951-1960FranceShort FilmSilent
    Le divertissement (1952)
    Le divertissement (1952)

    Filmed in Parisian parks and on a terrace, LE DIVERTISSEMENT foreshadows the labyrinthine walks that would be a part of Rivette’s cinema, in which the characters look for, follow and find each other like in a romantic scavenger hunt.
    Quote:
    Rivette’s three shorts—Au quartre coins (“The Four Corners,” 1948), Le quadrille (1950), and Le divertissement (“The Diversion,” 1952)—were found in 2009 after the filmmaker and his wife, Véronique, discovered the 16 mm films when going through his materials. Describing them as amateur, made when the filmmaker was barely out of his teens, the trio have been dubbed “apprenticeship films.”(MUBI)Read More »

  • Lajos Lázár & Paul Sugar – Rabmadár aka Prisoner Number Seven (1929)

    Lajos Lázár1921-1930DramaHungaryPaul SugarSilent
    Rabmadár (1929)
    Rabmadár (1929)

    Synopsis: This crime story centres around Anna, the prisoner, who was drawn into stealing by her lover and that’s what got her in prison. The girl would like to meet Jenő, her sweetheart again. She begs the prison physician until she lets her out for one night. She visits the man, but the womaniser hotel waiter has long forgotten her. He has already coaxed the naive do-all girl, Birdie, courted the chambermaid, and is now planning to rob the cash-register with his new lover, an acrobat. The acrobat falls on the run with an elevator out of order and dies. Anna forgives the disloyal Jenőnek, whom she still loves, but when she learns of Birdie expecting a child from him, she convinces Jenő to marry the girl and then returns to the prison.Read More »

  • René Clair – Paris qui dort AKA The Crazy Ray (1924)

    1921-1930FranceRené ClairSci-FiSilent
    Paris qui dort (1924)
    Paris qui dort (1924)

    A young man, the night watchman on the iconic Eiffel Tower, wakes to find he is alone in the world. Descending from his iron eyrie, all is eerily frozen, apart from a few souls who have escaped a mad scientist’s immobilising ray. The streets of Paris briefly become a Garden of Eden to play in, as the friends indulge in their new-found liberty. Like Powell and Pressburger’s A Canterbury Tale, this is a film to be carried in the heart.Read More »

  • Richard Eichberg – Großstadtschmetterling AKA City Butterfly (1929)

    Richard Eichberg1921-1930DramaGermanySilent
    Großstadtschmetterling (1929)
    Großstadtschmetterling (1929)

    Quote:
    Made at the height of Anna May Wong’s fame in Europe, Pavement Butterfly was a coproduction between Germany and Britain and filmed on location in Nice, France. In this silent film, Wong plays a dancer in the French Riviera who, after her act takes a deadly turn, finds refuge in the arms of a young painter.Read More »

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