What is your favorite dramatic silent film?
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Iridescent_Phantom — 9 years ago(January 05, 2017 04:22 AM)
A very difficult task, considering the contenders (
Phantom of the Opera, Greed, The Last Laugh, Broken Blossoms, Sunrise
.)
So, I'm going to recommend checking out
The White Sister
(1923), directed by Henry King, with a beautiful musical score by Garth Neustadter and Joseph Carl Breil that will bring tears to your eyes.
Lillian Gish believes her love (Ronald Colman) has been killed in the war and enters a convent. Of course, he returns, but what they do with that old warhorse of a plot will keep you to the end. Granted, the movie is overlong and could have used some editing. It is Gish who remains luminous throughout, holding everything together and cementing her position as the greatest actress of the silent screen.
Helen Hayes and Clark Gable replaced Gish and Colman in the 1933 remake, a much less effective movie in which sound removes the dreamlike charm that makes the original so captivating.
It will never appear on any best 10 list of the era, but it has certainly deserves a lot more attention than it has received over the years, and if it isn't my #1 choice, it is very near the top.
We are the makers of music and we are the dreamers of dreams. -
CanterburyTale — 9 years ago(January 05, 2017 04:57 AM)
There are so many wonderful options, it is difficult to make a definitive choice. Sunrise has already been mentioned, and rightly so, as it is a beautiful film. I also thoroughly enjoyed Pandora's Box, The Man Who Laughs, A Cottage On Dartmoor, Asphalt, PiccadillyFor sheer nightmarish power, I would go for The Cabinet Of Dr.Caligari,but
I will have to go for a tie between Prix De Beaute (Miss Europe), and Street Angel. Beautiful storytelling, and sublime leading performances.For me,Silent actresses didn't get any better (or more heartbreaking) than Louise Brooks and Janet Gaynor.
"Barney SloaneThat's my new nameMy old one's a little more Italian." -
Marshamae — 9 years ago(January 05, 2017 05:01 AM)
I'm not a huge fan of silents and much prefer the comedies.
However despite the many challenges( racism, very bad, biased historical perspective ,etc.) Birth of a Nation is staggeringly beautiful. If you care about film at all, I can't see how you could leave it out, or fail to see the mastery of the camera ,film, and film acting.
Sunrise runs it a close second, but I really haven't seen enough silent dramas.
It was a toss-up whether I go in for diamonds or sing in the choir. The choir lost. -
Iridescent_Phantom — 9 years ago(January 05, 2017 05:17 AM)
Birth of a Nation
justly deserves the praise it has received as a landmark of pre-1920 cinema. Later epics may have been larger in scope (
Intolerance, Ben Hur
) but none of them have that heady combination of 19th Century romanticism and racism that plays out like an unrelenting delirious dream.
We are the makers of music and we are the dreamers of dreams. -
amyghost — 9 years ago(January 05, 2017 11:49 AM)
Oh, that's a good one.
Greed
would get my top pick as being a drama that holds together incredibly well for its longer than usual running time for a silent filmthe drama holds the attention from start to finish, no wasted moments (makes you long to know what the full uncut version would have been like)but
He Who Gets Slapped
is a bleak little masterpiece, to my mind easily among Chaney's best work.
(I sometimes wish that writer/adapter Leonid Andreyev's chilling existential horror story
Lazarus
had been made into a silent film as well. Gives me chills just picturing what that might have been like.)
50 Is The New Cutoff Age. -
FranLovesBetteD — 9 years ago(January 06, 2017 03:11 AM)
Broken Blossoms
was the first silent movie I fell in love with, and it will always have a special place in my heart.
But many years passed by since I first watched it (now I own it on DVD), and despite I love Lillian Gish very much indeed, Pola Negri has become my #1 actress from that era. I'd say my most favorite of her dramatic movies is
Barbed Wire
.
Animal crackers in my soup
Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop -
Iridescent_Phantom — 9 years ago(January 06, 2017 04:47 AM)
Napoléon (just watched the new restoration)
I was able to download the movie from YouTube. This is going to be heretical for a lot of people, but I prefer Carmine Coppola's warmer and more emotional score over Carl Davis's combination of classical and original music.
Davis is a brilliant composer, the foremost when it comes to scoring silent movies , but it would have been prohibitive for him to write an entirely new score for a seven hour film. Still, it's great to be able to have this new edition of a truly monumental motion picture.
We are the makers of music and we are the dreamers of dreams. -
Iridescent_Phantom — 9 years ago(January 06, 2017 06:13 AM)
The YouTube download, alas, cuts the triptych into separate segments. A real disappointment. Now that I know it's on dvd, I'll order it.
We are the makers of music and we are the dreamers of dreams. -
Oleg123 — 9 years ago(January 06, 2017 06:08 AM)
I can't name 1, nut here's a list of my favorite 20s directors with films I liked the most. I removed comedic directors
From outside of 20s - Griffith (I only liked one of his 20s films (Orphans), liked most of his 10s features. need to see more from 20s, and Feillaide with his terrific Fantomas and Vampires).
From 30s dramatic silents - Dovzhenko's 'Earth' is on the top, and I also liked some Japanese films
Fritz Lang (Metropolis, Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, Die Nibelungen: Siegfried Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge)
King Vidor (The Crowd, Big Parade, Bardelys the Magnificent, Showpeople)
Erich von Stroheim (Wedding March, Greed, Merry Widow, Foolish Wives)
Fred Niblo (Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, Mysterious Lady, The Mark of Zorro, The Temptress)
Joseph von Sternberg (The Last Command, The Docks of New York, Underworld, The Salvation Hunters)
F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu, Sunrise, Last Laugh, Finances of Great Duke)
G.W. Pabst (Pandora's Box, Joyless Street, Diary of a Lost Girl, The Treasure)
Sergei Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin, October Strike, Staroe I Novoe) -
TheGoodMan19 — 9 years ago(January 06, 2017 07:25 PM)
Pandora's Box. Louise Brooks' Lulu is possibly the greatest female performance of the Silent Era. Fantastic ending.
Sunrise. Great from beginning to end.
La Roue. Great cinematography, great direction. I liked it better than Abel Gance's other masterpiece Napoleon. Not a happy movie and not to everyone's taste.
The Artist. The question wasn't limited to the Silent Era.
NH's:
The Crowd
Ben-Hur
The Last Laugh (sans hokey ending)
City Lights
Mare Nostrum
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Battleship Potemkin
Your future's all used up.