Tweet Best of 2011

Best Waiting Period in 2011:
Waiting for another edition
of Treasures from American Film
Archives since that seems the
only chance I'll get to see the
1919 version of Valley of the Giants
with Wallace Reid.

Best Exhibition of a Restoration in 2011:
Wings - 1928
(I googled Wings. I got the hockey team
Detroit Red Wings, the 90's television show,
the post Beatles Paul McCartney rock group
and a dozen different places in my area
to buy hot wings. The 1928 classic was
not even on the first page.)

Best News of an Exhibition of a Restoration in 2011:
Kevin Brownlow's restoration of Abel Gance's Napoleon
will play at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, California
March/April 2012.

Best Use of Silent Film Technique in 2011:
The Artist

Best Use of Blu-ray in 2011:
The films of Buster Keaton.

[Christopher Jacobs]

Best Use of Blu-ray in 2011:
The films of Buster Keaton.

Kino earns kudos for its devotion to getting Keaton out in HD, as well as giving a few PD classics the transfers they deserve. However, to Kino's entire 2011 additions to its Keaton collection on Blu-ray, I'd add as a tie Paramount's Blu-ray collector's set of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, not so much for the cutesy design or memorabilia reproductions but for the combination of both a superb HD transfer of the film, and making the effort to have all of the bonus features also in HD, including the silent version of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and even its bonus features, rather than rushing them through or just porting them all over from the last DVD in standard-definition (while retaining the fine audio commentaries from the DVD for both the sound and silent versions). I'm hoping the imminent WINGS Blu-ray will live up to the care put into THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, and that sales will justify more classics from Paramount, until recently the least-represented studio with classics on Blu-ray.

A close second, if not a three-way tie, would be the outstanding complete 5-season set of "The Twilight Zone" on Blu-ray in 2011 (and actually on sale this week from Amazon), truly a labor of love with spectacular visual results, illuminating commentaries, and a number of interesting bonuses.

And The Criterion Collection's steady stream of eclectic Blu-rays in gorgeous transfers with interesting supplements certainly deserves an honorable mention.

Best Odd Description of a NitrateVillager
in 2011:

In Richard Schiekel's review of The Artist
he refers to fans of silent films as
"a shrinking band of cultists".

"Let my contempt for this exercise be interrupted by a serious thought. Silent movies were not simply movies that didn’t talk. They are at many levels a lost art—a subject, now, for a shrinking band of cultists. Personally, I don’t particularly mourn them, and sometimes I am still strangely moved by the elegance of the mighty effort that went into their tongueless attempt to communicate with us............."

Although I was being facetious in my initial assessment
of The Artist, I will reserve analysis until I actually
view it.

Best Odd Description of a NitrateVillager
in 2011:

In Richard Schiekel's review of The Artist
he refers to fans of silent films as
"a shrinking band of cultists".

"Let my contempt for this exercise be interrupted by a serious thought. Silent movies were not simply movies that didn’t talk. They are at many levels a lost art—a subject, now, for a shrinking band of cultists. Personally, I don’t particularly mourn them, and sometimes I am still strangely moved by the elegance of the mighty effort that went into their tongueless attempt to communicate with us............."

Although I was being facetious in my initial assessment
of The Artist, I will reserve analysis until I actually
view it.

Nothing done by Richard Schickel is a "best" of anything. He is frankly, a jerk, a lame film historian, and a middling critic. The fact that he can say something like the above removes any credibility from his opinion about films in general.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Mike Gebert]

His short little book (in that BFI series) on Double Indemnity is excellent. On the other hand I remember a certain film historian telling me about visiting another very famous film historian when the latter had been sent a galley of Schickel's Griffith book, and the two of them playing a game of opening it randomly and seeing how long it took to spot an error on that page.

In any case, this seems more like old media grump carping at new media forms for existing than anything silent film related.

[Mike Gebert]

Best of 2011!

Okay, to return to that topic, here are my faves for 2011:


BEST SILENT ON TV: Laila

I know this was also a DVD release, but I watched this Norwegian outdoors drama on TCM and was quite enchanted. "Naive charm" seems the word for it, it's visually exciting yet sweet and endearing. More about it here.

BEST TALKIE ON TV: The Story of Temple Drake

Well, I haven't actually watched it yet. But I'm excited to have this scandalous precode version of Faulkner's Sanctuary recorded and I'm sure it's going to be worth the very, very long wait (first read about it in the late 70s or early 80s, I'm sure). Better get on it before the TiVo wipes it, I guess...


BEST SILENT ON BLU-RAY: The Buster Keaton shorts from Kino

There are multiple candidates— and that in itself is cause for rejoicing— and I would nearly name The Phantom Carriage instead, a film I'm not even that fond of, but which looks so good on blu-ray; People on Sunday would be another, surely. But let's face it, for sheer transcendent entertainment value, and the quality of the best prints in the set, this one is just delight from beginning to end, the greatest and most intellectual of comedians in his most adventurous and ingenious work... and his youth.

BEST TALKIE ON BLU-RAY: The Killing/Killer's Kiss

Happy to have The Killing, a very good film, in such quality, but the real revelation, from spot-checking it, is Stanley Kubrick's borderline-amateur film Killer's Kiss, an exercise in style over budget in which every shot looks like his Look magazine photos. This is a case where I think stunning visual quality in blu-ray has made an entirely new film out of something which on other levels, is merely a good early try from someone of promise.


BEST SILENT ON DVD: Landmarks of Early Soviet Film/The Cigarette Girl of Mosselprom

Slowly the picture of Soviet film broadens beyond Eisenstein and dialectical montage. These two releases— the first from Flicker Alley and containing films like The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks and The House on Trubnaya Street, the second from Kino— join titles such as Bed and Sofa, Outskirts, Miss Mend and others in doing that good work. Now we just wait for that Eclipse Fedor Ozep set...

BEST TALKIES ON DVD: Laurel & Hardy Essential Collection

The perfect Laurel & Hardy set, perhaps not quite, not that I think they ever needed perfection the way Keaton (with his visual grace) or Lloyd (with his prosperously middle-class production values) do, but a relief and joy to have in good shape after so long, absolutely. If you disagree, allow me to play my kids' laughter over the phone for you as they watch them.


BEST LIVE PERFORMANCE OF A SILENT: Lord Jim, Cinesation

Many candidates this year, including Mont Alto playing for Sunrise in Chicago and the Music Box's presentation of Clash of the Wolves with Dennis Scott on organ and Susan Orlean in attendance, but what made this one stand out was 1) it was a film unknown to me which completely impressed as a serious and grownup adaptation of the Conrad novel, and 2) usually Phil Carli gets to play these pounding exotic-location melodramas, but Ben Model got this one and delivered every bit as fine a performance (and likewise on The Cop, for which he played proto-noir silent piano).

[Mike Gebert]

This kind of died on the vine, so I'm going to revive it... anyone else care to spell out some best ofs for 2011? Doesn't have to follow my categories, of course— do it however you want.

Best Silent Film Series:
AMPAS' Summer of Silents

Best Outdoor Silents
Silents Under the Stars

Best Live Silent Film Accompaniment
Will Ryan and the Cactus County Cowboys with THE COVERED WAGON--a comedy country and western group joined by pianist Dean Mora giving a rollicking good time. Matti Bye Ensemble with THE GREAT WHITE SILENCE at the SFSFF.

Best Silent Film Programming
UCLA's Festival of Preservation, including screening and question and answer with Diana Sera Cary, Baby Peggy herself.

Best Silent Film Related Program
John Bengston's presentations on Harold Lloyd filming locations

Best Silent Film Exhibit
Thomas Gladysz' great exhibit at the San Francisco Public Library

From the other side of the Pound, here are my best of 2011!

Best Silent DVDs 2011:

Capellani Boxset from Pathé (4 DVDs)

Best silent film music on DVD in 2011:

Stephen Horne (piano and flute) for Salomy Jane (1914), Mantrap (1927) and Last of the Line (1914)

Best silent broadcast on TV in 2011:

Das Weib des Pharao (1922, E. Lubitsch) with Eduard Künneke's superb orchestral score.

Best live screening in 2011:

The Gold Rush (1925, C. Chaplin) with Carl Davis conducting Chaplin's score.