Silent Films

[C0C0]

recently i've been intrigued by some, but can anyone recommend any cool / great ones...i know this might be a stretch lol =x

[airfrogusmc]

recently i've been intrigued by some, but can anyone recommend any cool / great ones...i know this might be a stretch lol =x

These would be a great start.

Nosferatu

Metropolis

Battleship Potemkin

City Lights

The General

[chromesquared]

Dont really know if this qualifies as its not trad movie fare, but...

- Koyaanisqatsi

Also, I havent seen this, but its in the same vien and I dont think it has dialogue either.

- Baraka

N.

[C0C0]

yeah, i recently saw metropolis which is what inspired me to learn more

[masuerte]

Only silent films I know well and love (and have been exposed to) are comedies.

My fave actor from then is Buster Keaton. Look up "the General" and such @ IMDB.com

[airfrogusmc]

Only silent films I know well and love (and have been exposed to) are comedies.

My fave actor from then is Buster Keaton. Look up "the General" and such @ IMDB.com

Yeah the General is great. One of my favs. Check out Nosferatu then watch Taxi Driver and you'll clearly see the infuence this film had on Scorsese.

[canice]

metropolis

fatty arbuckle movies, he did slapstick.

you can also find compilations of the lumiere bros' short test clips, they are fascinating if you like photography.

[kidicarus]

A few recommendations:

If you're interested in abstraction, look into the films of Stan Brakhage. The Criterion Collection put out a great two-disc set of his short films a few years ago.

Maya Deren's silent films influenced generations of film makers.

I would second those who recommend Buster Keaton's films. Even beyond the comedy, they're really great, way ahead of their time. Much has been written about Keaton's singularly expressive face.

I also like short pieces by Hollis Frampton and Martin Arnold, to name a few, though they may be harder to come by. Try your university library.

[fndmybetterhalf]

baraka is probably one of the best silent films ive seen...one of those eye-opening films

[KM80]

I haven't watched a lot of them but I really liked Faust and the Cabinet of Dr Caligari.

[mspark]

Nosferatu......

[white_giraffe]

dali, can't remember the name of the film...the one where there's a shot of a cow's eye being slit.

edit: oh it's called un chien andalou

[red]

[stillthehorror]

it's been mentioned before, but i'll cosign on "city lights", deren's "meshes of the afternoon", and buster keaton's shit.

[Fuuma]

Look for films by the following authors:

- Bunuël

- Ozu

- Ruckmann

- Brother lumières

- Ray (as in Man Ray, the photographer)

- Feuillade

- Méliès

- Chaplin

- Griffith

- Von Stroheim

- Mizoguchi

- Dreyer

- Lang

- Keaton

- Gance

- Murnau

- Eisenstein

- Clair

- Vigo

[mspark]

Heavy heavy shit. Totally fucked up.

[denimdestroyedmylife]

i've got this box set

essential early cinema

extremely watchable

great price for 5 discs

[C0C0]

are there are any good contemporary silents??? i will definitely be searching for these classics or just waiting to see if they're on amc lol

[Corbin Law]

Dont really know if this qualifies as its not trad movie fare, but...

- Koyaanisqatsi

Also, I havent seen this, but its in the same vien and I dont think it has dialogue either.

- Baraka

N.

i double reccomend koyaanisqatsi

i saw it live with phillip glass

one of the greatest movies ever.

[white_giraffe]

my favorite: dziga vertov man with a movie camera

[keagan]

Andy Warhol's early films where really good. My favorite is probably "Sleep". Really hard to find without paying $166.00.

Luis Bunuel's un chien andalou. Anything by Bunuel is worth watching.

[sycamore no more]

Totally agreed chromesquared, Baraka was a pretty interesting film.

[snugglepony]

Dont really know if this qualifies as its not trad movie fare, but...

- Koyaanisqatsi

Also, I havent seen this, but its in the same vien and I dont think it has dialogue either.

- Baraka

N.

they're both beautiful films, but sound is of paramount importance here... the -quatsi trilogy is basically a long-form collaboration between godfrey reggio and phillip glass; baraka isn't nearly as high-brow in concept, but the score nevertheless sets the mood.

they're also both non-narrative, fwiw...

i guess i'd never think of either of these were someone to ask for a list of silent films, but highly recommended viewing!

EDIT: the last thing i'd add is that one should absolutely see both powaqqatsi and naqoyqatsi in addition to koyaanisqatsi.

[amadoriv]

"Sunrise" by Murnau. see it with the classic soundtrack. the reworked one kills it imo.

[genemachine]

BEGOTTEN is the creation myth brought to life, the story of no less than the violent death of God and the (re)birth of nature on a barren earth. Astounding and baffling critics and audiences alike, BEGOTTEN was named one of the Ten Best Pictures of 1991 by Time Magazine. Time's Richard Corliss wrote: "Nobody will get through BEGOTTEN without being marked... BEGOTTEN is a spectacular one-of-a-kind (you wouldn't want there to be two), filmed in speckled chiaroscuro so that each image is a seductive mystery, a Rorschach test for the adventurous eye." In production notes for the film, director Merhige commented, "Each shot in the film went through hours of preparation to achieve the look you will experience when viewing... the etheral "pulse" that hypnotically permeates the film. It took over ten hours to re-photograph less than one minute of selected takes."

What is "Begotten"? It is roughly eighty minutes of a black and white movie showing scenes of mutilation, madness, and murder. The whole thing deals with a sort of primordial or futuristic creation/death ritual carried out between the gods and mankind, or at least I think it does from the few articles I have read about the movie. Probably the easiest scenes to discern are the opening ones, where the camera reveals a twitching creature with a substance disturbingly comparable to blood pouring out of its mouth. With some sort of razor, the being cuts open its own abdomen (in chunky detail) in order to give birth to a new life form. This new goddess and a weird creation coughing up what looks like a piece of meat go forth to encounter shambling primitives who eventually beat these creatures to death. The whole film moves at a snail's pace, with many of the later scenes nearly impenetrable to the eye even on a DVD transfer.

you can watch the whole movie chopped in parts on youtube