Scott Lord on the Silent Film of Greta Garbo, Mauritz Stiller, Victor Sjostrom as Victor Seastrom, John Brunius, Gustaf Molander - the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film........Lost Films in Found Magazines, among them Victor Seastrom directing John Gilbert and Lon Chaney, the printed word offering clues to deteriorated celluloid, extratextual discourse illustrating how novels were adapted to the screen; the photoplay as a literature;how it was reviewed, audience reception perhaps actor to actor.
Greta Garbo and Victor Sjostrom
Monday, January 30, 2023
Scott Lord Silent Film: The Eclipse (Georges Melies, 1907)
Stanely J Solomon, in his volume The Film Idea, attribures George Melies with being a film pioneer, "The following film techniques were popularized- and some perhaps invented by Melies: double exposure, stop motion, fast motion, slow motion, animation, fades and dissolves."
Silent Film
Geroge Melies, A Trip the the Moon
Saturday, January 28, 2023
Scott Lord Silent Film: LIllian GIsh in Orphans Of The Storm (D.W. Griffith, 1921)
The photographer of the film was Hendrik Sartov. When seen by Norwegian director Tancred Ibsen, "Orphans of the Storm" was one of the films included in is decision to go to Hollywood, albeit none of the scripts he wrote while there were realized.
William Everson, in his volume American Silent Film, perhaps sees the significance of "Orphans of the Storm" lying perhaps in tits improtance to us more than as a steppingstone for D.W. Griffith. He writes, "While it did well, Orphans of the Storm was not the box-office blockbuster that Griffith expected and needed badly. Because it was neither a financial landmark nor an aesthetic advance over his previous films, it is usually dismissed by historians (even the few responsible one's) as representing 'Griffith in Decline'." Everson reports that after the premiere, which he spoke at and which was attended by Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Griffith cut "the more harrowing scenes" from the film, including close-ups of vermin crawling over Dorothy Gish and shots from the execution scene. And yet, Everson is certainly correct that the film showcases the directorial skills of D.W. Griffith. Everson continues, "The detail shots in battle scenes (troops moving into formation, close ups of pistols being loaded and and fixed) gave them a documentary quality which mde them explicable as well as ezciting."
D.W. Griffith
Silent Film
Intolerance
Scott Lord Silent Film: One Exciting Night (D. W. Griffith, 1922)
The photographer to the film “One Exciting Night” was Hendrik Sartov.
After having directed Carol Dempster in “One Exciting Night” (Eleven reels), D.W. Griffith, by then having become a producer for United Artists, followed in 1922 by directing Dempster in the film “The White Rose” (twelve reels) with actress Mae Marsh.
Silent Film
Silent Film
Silent Film
Silent Film
Thursday, January 26, 2023
Scott Lord Swedish Silent Film: Synd (Gustaf Molander, 1928)
Swedish silent film director Gustaf Molander had in fact been at the Intima Theatern from 1911 to 1913.
In regard to the film “Synd”, Forsyth Hardy writes, “The Merzback influence had helped to scale down the Strindberg drama into a thriller.” In his volume Scandinavian Film, Forsyth Hardy, while outlining that there had been a turn to a more theatrical style in cinema just prior to the advent of the sound film and, for economic reasons, an attempt to make films that could be exported, mentions that there had been a departure from the tradition of the Golden Age of Swedish silent film that conversely gained little recognition outside of Sweden. Paul Merzbach had become head of the script writing department and produced films directed by Gustaf Molander that were, according to Hardy, “superficial rootless products”.
Starring in the film “Synd” (Sin, 1928) were Lars Hansonand Elissa Landi. The cinematographer of the film was Julius Jaenzon with Ake Dahlquist as assistant camerman.
Gustaf Molander
Gustaf Molander
Scandinavian Silent Film
Lars Hanson
Wednesday, January 25, 2023
Scott Lord Swedish Silent Film: Revelj (George af Klercker, 1917)
Directed by George af Klerker in 1917, the film "Revelj" starred actresses Mary Johnson, Lily Croswin and both Gertie Lowestrom and Gerda Bjorne in the first film in which either were to appear onscreen. The film was photographed by Carl Gustaf Florin and the screenplay was written by Carl Svensson-Graner. That year Swedish silent film director George af Klerker also directed actress Mary Johnson in the film "The Suburban Vicar" (Forstadprasten), in which she starred with Concordia Selander and Lilly Graber. During 1917 George af Klercker also directed the film "I Morkets Bojor" one of the only two films in which actress Sybil Smolova had appeared. "Vagen Utter", in which George af Klercker had a year earlier during 1916 had directed Sybil Smolova, is presumed to be lost, therebeing no surviving copies of the film. Scandinavian Silent Film Silent Film Silent Film
Tuesday, January 24, 2023
Scott Lord Silent Film: Intolerance; Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages...
David Bordwell sees cinematic history as a "Basic Story" and that within this approximation, D.W. Griffith is attributed with having invented "cinematic syntax". This syntax is apparent in what Raymond Spottiswoode referred to as the "grammar of film", or shot structure and perhaps in what is expanded later into semiotics and the "grande syntagmatique". While crediting Edwin S. Porter with the use of crosscutting two simultaneous actions, Bordwell notes the crosscutting of four historical periods (seperate storylines, which thematically merge) in Griffith's film Intolerance, filmed thirteen years later. Scholar Phillipe Gauthier sees crosscutting as a programmed languague and dismisses the need to view D.W. Griffith as its inventor, but rather as his "method of film construction", which having previous existed, he "developed and systemized", specifically that editing used in chase scenes and last minute rescue scenes to meet the exingencies of his narrative technique. While properly evaluating the work of D.W. Griffith and the canonical structuring of editing through a "suspensefull call for help, the proximity of the threat and the last minute rescue", Phillipe Gauthier finds early examples of the origins of film technique neglected by earlier prominent film historians. The director of the 1908 Pathe film "A Narrow Escape", if nothing else, certainly does quite often cut on the action of the character leaving the frame.
Author Stanley J. Solomon, in The Narrative Structure of the Film, from his volume The Film Idea eescribes the use of simultaneuous threads of action to climax thematically, "The last two reels (of the total thriteen in extant circulating versions) are among the most exciting sequences in all cinema. As the four stories head toward their conclusions, Griffith begins to cut back and forth much more quickly than he did earlier- mainly without the interference of the image of the rocking cradle...delaying the outcome of each story and building up a tremendous amountof suspense." Solomon looks to Iris Barry often. Iris Barry herself, author of D.W. Griffith, American film master, notes "Intolerance" directed by D. W. Griffith as being seminal. "The film Intolerance is of extreme importance to the history of the cienema." She singles outshots that use only part of the screen's area, tracking shots and rapid crosscutting as techniques used by Griffith in extraordinary combinations with his camera angles.
Stanley J. Solomon in turn finds a thematic continuity in the film, "The four stories demonstrate the cause and effect relationship between individual acts and broadly calamitous events....That concept held in that the peculiarly suggestive medium of film, visual information should consist of fragments which, when carefully chosen and sensitively edited, would produce the idea of a completed action."
Both Lillian Gish and Paul Rotha write of Griffith having found lines in a poem by Walt Whitman that were to connect the stories thematically, Gish appearing at intervals throughout the film to contrast the dramatic quickening of the pace of the film and lending it a symbolism, "Intolerance was, and still is, the greatest spectacular film." Motion Picture World during 1916 popularized the film as bringing Griffith to a pantheon by subtitling its review with, "Griffith Surpasses Himself by a Spectacular Masterpiece in Which All Traditions of Dramatic Form are Successfully Revolutionized." Paragraph subtitles were to include, "Original Method of Construction", "Human Interest in Abundance" and "Marvelous Spectacular Effects".
In her book entitled Screen Acting, Mae Marsh explains the differences between the acting required for each camera distance. She begins with telling us that during a long shot facial expressions register indifferently and need to be compensated by body movement. She allows that most dramatic action is filmed in three quarters legnth, from the face to the knees, intermediate shots that require both facial expressions and body movement.
It is thought that the later films of D. W. Griffith, including "The White Rose" (1923) with Mae Marsh, more elaborately presented theme as being intertwined with the drama in which the characters were situated. D. W. Griffith
Victor Sjostrom
Friday, January 20, 2023
Scott Lord Silent Film: Mary Pickford in 100% American (Arthur Rossen)
It is certain that the beginnings of the star system had made Mary Pickford an attractive commodity by 1918 when we had reluctantly taken part in the continuance of an unexpected war- the quote may point to the historical context and extratextural discourse that is a dynamic of that star system. A starsystem that has been called "a culture of celebrity", the silent film era has kept some of its first impressions as long lasting, albeit some were fleeting, authors often making comparisions between fixed points in the firmament, especially when introducing the newest foreign arrival, in as much as an actress was now considered "Sweden's Mary Pickford", or when there was a common theme between Gish, Pickford and Mae Marsh. Although far from the earliest example of film criticism, the quote is from a volume titled The Film Answers Back, an historical appreciation of the cinema. Authored by E.W. + M.M. Robson, it was published in 1939. Oddly, the review of the films of the actress begins to address, not gendered spectatorship, but her femininity within the expectations drawn by a woman on the screen and how it related to being a Suffragete. Notwithstanding, it was that Mary Pickford by then was sought after and Parmount Press Books from 1917 describe her having sold Liberty Bonds as a result of a request from United States Secretary McAdoo, her wearing the insignia of an honarary colonel. The pressbooks announced, "Famous Artcraft Star Stops All Film Activities When Call Comes To Help Country and Flag by Selling Liberty Bonds". Prior to the short 100% American, Mary Pickford released the full legnth feature film "Johanna Enlists", adapted by Frances Marion from the short story The Mobilizing of Johanna, published in 1917.
Wednesday, January 18, 2023
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