Movie Extra: The "Back to the Beginning" Edition

We all do it at least once in a while. We go to the theater, put down our ten bucks (or whatever it is these days; I haven't been in much too long), go inside, and sit and watch moving pictures projected onto a screen. The pictures, and the sound that goes with them, makes us laugh or cry, or both; make us cheer or boo and hiss; at any rate, if they're done right, those moving pictures (which, of course, don't move at all but simply create the illusion of motion) entertain us.

We don't generally stop to think, though, that there was a first time - the first time that people put their money down and went inside and watched pictures projected on a wall move. But there was such a day, in Paris, on December 28, 1895. That was the day the Lumiere brothers showed ten snippets of film, none over 50 seconds long. Each clip was a simple "slice of life" scene - workers leaving a factory, two blacksmiths at work, one horseback rider showing another how to do trick riding, a baby fishing for goldfish in a fishbowl, a man sneaking up behind a gardener and stepping on the hose he was using to water plants, several people playing in the ocean:



Seeing those short clips, it's sort of amazing to think that this new form of entertainment ever went anywhere. The Lumiere brothers - Auguste and Louis - weren't trying to tell a story with these clips, but had just been playing with materials from the family business; their father ran a photographic business. The next year, the brothers took their show on the road to London, Montreal, New York, Buenos Aires, and Bombay.

One of those present at the first showing in Paris was Georges Melies, an illusionist, who saw past the specific content of those ten short films to the possibilities for creating illusions and telling stories. One of his first films, made in 1896, was "The Haunted Castle", which was first shown on Christmas Eve of that year, just a few days short of a year since he had been present at the Lumiere brothers' first showing. And there Melies was, already trying to tell a story and producing special effects:



True, the film was only just over three minutes long, but the moving pictures were already beginning to show their potential. And also already starting to explore genres that still entertain audiences today: the horror film (although this one wasn't very frightening) and the vampire film. As with so many early films, "The Haunted Castle" was presumed to be lost for many years until a copy was found in the New Zealand Film Archive in 1988. Melies made 531 films between 1896 and 1913, including the landmark "A Trip to the Moon" in 1902.

Others also took up the challenge, and the art of filmmaking advanced to where it is today. Yes, there are probably way too many slasher films and chase films and sparkly vampire films. But there are also surpassing works of art, and it all started on that evening in 1895. Yes, there were others who were working at the same time, and even earlier, but the Lumiere brothers were the first to solicit a paying audience to look at the films they had made, thus setting the template for the movie-going experience we all enjoy to this day, 118 years later.

Movie Monday: The I Try to Make a "Desert Island Movie Discs" List Edition

Some people count sheep when they can't sleep. Some people take sleeping pills. Or drink warm milk...or something a little stronger.

I make lists. That usually works.

However, one night last week when I couldn't sleep, I started trying to put together a list of which ten movies I would take along if I was going to be stranded somewhere for a considerable length of time and could only take a limited number with me. It's sort of a variation on "Desert Island Discs". I do the same sometimes with songs, albums, books, author's collections, that kind of thing.

That usually works.

However, with the movie list, I started arguing with myself mentally and ended up laying there at least another hour and a half before I could make my mind shut up enough so that I could go to sleep, having come to the conclusion that a list of ten was impossible.

It started out easily enough, with three irreplaceable films: "A Hard Day's Night" (1964), "The Right Stuff" (1983), and "The Day The Earth Stood Still" (the original, from 1951; I haven't seen the new version). And then there is the original, Boris Karloff, version of "The Mummy" (1932), which has, as I'm sure I've said here before, has been a favorite since I first saw it when I was all of five years old.

So far, so good, right?

Well, yes. But things started going downhill from there.

I decided that there had to be a Steve McQueen film on the list. "Bullitt" (1968) came to mind. Wonderful movie, great chase scene. But then I thought about "The Thomas Crown Affair" (also 1968, as it turns out). I love that movie, too. And then there's "The Cincinnati Kid" (1965). Also very good. But then there's "Junior Bonner" (1972), starring McQueen, Robert Preston, and Ida Lupino, and directed by Sam Peckinpah. It's one of the most underrated films of the Seventies, in my opinion, and I've loved it ever since I first saw it in the theater when it was first released.

Okay. I couldn't pick, so I set that aside for awhile and attacked the list from another direction.

Silent movies. I really would want to have one of those along, and there are some silents that I've really enjoyed. I've written here before about "The Unknown" (1927), starring Lon Chaney and Joan Crawford, and directed by Tod Browning. It's an amazing little (it only runs 50 minutes or so) horror film. But then there is "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (1928), and of course "Phantom of the Opera" (1925), also starring Chaney. Carl Theodor Dreyer made "Vampyr" in 1932 and it isn't really a silent film, but it was Dreyer's first and contains little dialogue, and so I always think of it as a silent. And then "Metropolis (1927) comes to mind. Again, how to choose?

Musicals.

I like musicals, which those of you who read here regularly probably already know. There would need to be at least one of those on the list. "Singin' in the Rain" (1952) is a favorite. So, God help me, is "Mary Poppins" (1964). But, so is "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever" (1970) and "Funny Girl" (1968), both Barbra Streisand films. Another Julie Andrews musical, "Victor Victoria" (1982), is also definitely on the list of possibilities. Less traditionally, among the alternatives for a place on the list would have to be "Tommy" (1975) and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (also 1975).

It went on like this, with different categories of films. Dramas. Comedies. Westerns. Science fiction. Well, there is already one science fiction film on the list, but there are so many more good science fiction films that I could potentially want on the list as well. You can probably see why I gave up. And I won't go on with more examples of my thinking that night, because this is already getting to be a longish post.

But I do have a question for all of you. If you were making a list of the ten (or fifteen, or twenty) films you would want with you if you were going to be stranded somewhere for awhile, which ones would you take? Leave your list in the comments.

Movie Monday: The Silent Edition

People don't really pay much attention to silent films these days. To be truthful, there are people now who won't even watch black and white films. It's got to be in color, with lots of loud explosions and chase scenes and casts of thousands (even if most of the thousands are computer-generated these days, rather than being actual human beings).

On the other hand, an argument can be made in favor of black and white, silent films. This is one of those arguments, one of the best:



That is a scene from Carl Theodor Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (1928), and it is amazing. I had read about this film for years and didn't believe the hype. Then, a few years ago I got to see the film in a showing on Turner Classic Movies. It was late at night. I didn't think, going in, that I would be able to stay awake for the whole movie. And then it began, and I was entranced. I can't really describe the film. You have to see it.

I'd been interested in silent films even before I saw "The Passion of Joan of Arc", but it was mostly an historical interest. I would have rather read about the silents than watched them. I mean, really. A lot of silent films are odd to watch after seeing films as they are today. But some of that sometimes has to do with technical issues, including films that are shown at different frame-per-second rates than they were filmed in, which can make the movement in them look unnatural. Additionally, the acting can look, well, silly; exaggerated and melodramatic. Part of that is the convention of the time, and part of it is probably the natural exaggeration of stage acting, which was where many film actors came from. This includes Maria (or Renee, depending on the source you consult) Falconetti, who played Joan in Dreyer's film.

Although Dreyer's next film, after "The Passion of Joan of Arc", was a sound film, it was made very much like a silent film, with little dialogue and with dialogue cards as were used in the silents. That film was "Vampyr" (1932), a horror film that is just as amazing in its own way as was "The Passion of Joan of Arc". Vampyr, with it's visual effects and story (taken from a Sheridan Le Fanu story), is a unique visual experience. Notable for the time, it was shot entirely on location rather than in the controlled environment of a studio:



Another of my favorite silent films is one I happened on quite by accident, again late one night on TCM. I started watching, intending to just watch for a little while and then go to bed. I ended up watching the whole film not that it was that long, just over an hour. This was "The Unknown", from 1927, directed by Tod Browning and starring Lon Chaney, Sr. (not to be confused with his son, Lon Chaney, Jr., who, among other roles, played the Wolf Man several times in various films).

If you recognize Browning's name, that's probably because he also directed "Dracula" (1931) - yes, that one, with Bela Lugosi - as well as the cult film "Freaks" (1932). And, if you don't recognize Lon Chaney's name, you've been missing out on some of the classics of silent film, with "The Phantom of the Opera" (1925) and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1923). But those are just the most remembered of some 162 films (according to IMDB), some of them lost and only one of them a sound film, and that a remake of an earlier silent film he had starred in.

The thing about "The Unknown" is that it is incredibly dark. It is the story of Alonzo the Armless, and that's all I'll say about that because I want you to see it, and to experience it the way I did, knowing nothing about the film. Chaney's performance in the film might seem melodramatic to those of us used to seeing acting in today's films, but Burt Lancaster, not a bad actor himself, has called this performance by Chaney "the most emotionally compelling" performance ever put on film. And Joan Crawford, who starred opposite Chaney in "The Unknown", has been quoted as saying that she learned more about acting from watching him work on this film than from any other experience in her career.

Really. Go see a silent film. You can find some of them in their entirety on YouTube, including both "The Unknown" and "The Passion of Joan of Arc".