Silent Film Canon?

[gscottrobinson]

I know many people have their own "Top 10" or "Top 100" list of silents, but is there anything close to a formalized list of top silents? I know silentera.com has decent list, but it would be nice to see the equivalent of the AFI top 100 or Time's top 100 just for silents - something that requires multiple film scholars/critics to develop.

Thanks in advance.

gsr

[Rodney]

Is this just so that people can spend more time arguing over what should be on the list than they do watching movies?

I think there are plenty of lists of good films out there, and what you "should" watch varies completely depending on what it is you're expecting to gain from the exercise. It used to be you were supposed to watch BIRTH OF A NATION and BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, and I maintain that anyone who had just seen those two films would have no clue what silent film was really like (and may not be motivated to watch more).

I would not give anywhere NEAR similar lists if I were asked:

• What silent films were important in the development of the American cinema art?
  
  What silent films were important in the development of the American movie industry?
  
  What silent films are notably experimental, creative, or beautiful?
  
  Which silent films are good examples of movies made in the 1920s?
  
  What silent films would be entertaining or meaningful to general audiences today?
  
  What silent films were most popular to general audiences when they were released?
  
  What silent films reveal the social milieu, prejudices, morals, and other concerns of the time they were made?
  
  What silent films do I consider to be great movies?

Making lists is an interesting start to discussion, but suggesting that there should be a "canon" implies that there's an authoritative body somewhere capable of deciding what's canonical, and there's really no such thing. If you want an AFI list, pull off the silents from all the lists they've published, and there you are -- but you'll be missing all of the films that aren't on DVD, which excludes a number of great films. Or you could just pick a random selection of available films, and there's likely to be something interesting about them. For instance, watch everything on the Mont Alto "recordings" page, and you'll have seen a very interesting and provocative selection of films from many genres and countries (though you might get tired of the music after a while).

[gscottrobinson]

Points taken - and in truth, I'm not a fan of canonical lists in film or literature - for other reasons actually. In this case, I'm doing some writing on intertitles and American film aesthetics and it would be helpful if I was working with someone else's list rather than a selection of my faves or a list I just developed. Honestly, I would pick them off the AFI list - there just aren't that many.

gsr

[Rodney]

For American film intertitles, you could pick three Mary Pickford films that show the development of the art form and how they're used from the early days to the polished end of the era. THE NEW YORK HAT (1912) has the early use of intertitles as "chapter titles," where they announce what's to happen, but not what's being said. SUDS (1920) demonstrates "art" intertitles, the "chapter" type titles have painted, animated backgrounds, the dialog intertitles are more plain, and there's an amusing sequence using alternate handlettered gothic characters during the fantasy sequence (you want the American release, the U.K. version has more modern replacement titles. Both are on the Milestone DVD). Then for the bland but efficient dialog titles that were most typical of the late 1920s, check MY BEST GIRL (1927).

For more outliers of interesting but atypical intertitles I'd recommend the Harold Lloyd shorts for their cartoon "puns," and THE SOUL OF YOUTH for intertitles with filmed action in the backgrounds.

[Mike Gebert]

I think Rodney makes a really good point-- the so-called classics were often extreme outliers, chosen for reasons that meant something to early film critics: leftism (so many of the early critics were English socialists or American leftist intellectuals, hence the supreme position of Soviet film), anti-studio sentiment (hence the high position of people who were chewed up by the studio system, eg., Griffith, Stroheim, Welles, etc.), or they seemed to be cinema art because they were like art in some already-validated form (Caligari was like painting, Intolerance was like a fugue, Soviet editing was like Hegel, Chaplin was Pan).

What all these viewpoints have in common is that they dismiss the popular, studio product of the day, in other words, what WAS the movies to 90% of people. A history of film that has room for Maya Deren but not Clara Bow seems bizarrely out of kilter with most peoples' experience of the medium but would fit right in on most library shelves.

So I don't have a list per se, but I have a suspicion of lists which I would say encourages one to worry less about seeing THE major films and more about being in touch with this popular art as a popular art and understanding how it was shaped by stars, by genre, by box office, and how these everyday concerns more often produced real art than attempting to produce art ever did.

[Arndt]

I think Rodney makes a really good point-- the so-called classics were often extreme outliers, chosen for reasons that meant something to early film critics: leftism (so many of the early critics were English socialists or American leftist intellectuals, hence the supreme position of Soviet film), anti-studio sentiment (hence the high position of people who were chewed up by the studio system, eg., Griffith, Stroheim, Welles, etc.), or they seemed to be cinema art because they were like art in some already-validated form (Caligari was like painting, Intolerance was like a fugue, Soviet editing was like Hegel, Chaplin was Pan).

What all these viewpoints have in common is that they dismiss the popular, studio product of the day, in other words, what WAS the movies to 90% of people. A history of film that has room for Maya Deren but not Clara Bow seems bizarrely out of kilter with most peoples' experience of the medium but would fit right in on most library shelves.

So I don't have a list per se, but I have a suspicion of lists which I would say encourages one to worry less about seeing THE major films and more about being in touch with this popular art as a popular art and understanding how it was shaped by stars, by genre, by box office, and how these everyday concerns more often produced real art than attempting to produce art ever did.

I understand where you are coming from there. Often the outlandish choices of critics also serve an ulterior purpose, such as self-aggrandizement. "Look at me: I discovered this/ I am the only one who truly understands that/ I rise above the banal tastes of the masses...".
But in deploring this phenomenon I think there is a danger of also dismissing the good work critics have done in sorting quality from tripe. I don't think following popular taste alone is an avenue I would want to go down. If you look at the popular favourites in literature, music, film etc. through the ages I am sure you will find a lot more truly bad product than in the lists of even the most snobbish critics. Just look at the biggest box office draws of the last few years!
So following the masses might be satisfying in terms of truth - this is what people liked to see at this time - but I often find it not very satisfying in terms of beauty - meaning it is not what I like to see today.
I suppose you have to look at both sets of criteria and keep an open mind.

[Mike Gebert]

Yes and no. The great corrective to the first wave of (leftist, anti-Hollywood, validated-by-other media) critics was the new wave from France, who found art in studio workmen like Ford, Hawks, Lang, Preminger, etc. After that, our picture was far more balanced, to include the people who worked within the system.

Still, the shadow cast by those early critics is so vast that I think it obscures as much as it reveals. We still see the universe revolving around Griffith, who I think blots out the light from all the other, often more accomplished filmmakers; we still see Caligari as revolutionary and essential when Lubitsch's comedies were just as visually exaggerated; we still grant a heavyhanded Soviet potboiler presumptive art status we deny to a 20th Century Fox one by Jean Negulesco. Give them credit for shaping our initial understanding of film, but recognize how much they still distort it, too.

[silentfilm]

Here's the Intertitle-o-rama, with tons of intertitle listings to choose from.

Here is the Silent Era website's top 300 list. It is voted on by visitors of the site.

Remember that for a film to be popular on any list, it has to be available to a large number of people to see on TCM or DVD.

[Arndt]

Yes and no. The great corrective to the first wave of (leftist, anti-Hollywood, validated-by-other media) critics was the new wave from France, who found art in studio workmen like Ford, Hawks, Lang, Preminger, etc. After that, our picture was far more balanced, to include the people who worked within the system.

Still, the shadow cast by those early critics is so vast that I think it obscures as much as it reveals. We still see the universe revolving around Griffith, who I think blots out the light from all the other, often more accomplished filmmakers; we still see Caligari as revolutionary and essential when Lubitsch's comedies were just as visually exaggerated; we still grant a heavyhanded Soviet potboiler presumptive art status we deny to a 20th Century Fox one by Jean Negulesco. Give them credit for shaping our initial understanding of film, but recognize how much they still distort it, too.

I think there are some really anoying tendencies of art (including film) critics. One of these is laziness, which means they all copy shamelessly from each other. Therefore they perpetuate opinions without going back to the works that could prove these opinions wrong. This leads to these opinions eventually becoming dogma, as generations of critics seem to be in perfect agreement, when really they just could not be bothered to look for themselves.
Another one of these annoying tendencies is that critics always try to find lines, movements, influences and other such sweeping developments in the history of art, ever since Vasari in his LIVES OF THE ARTISTS invented the whole business of art history. There always has to be an idea dreamed up by one artist, developed by another and brought to fruition by yet another one.
This is a very restrictive way of looking at the history of art. It leads to gross distortions and exaggerations of the importance of certain artists.
But having said that I still think Griffith would have been a monumental figure without these phenomena. I just re-watched INTOLERANCE. There is no doubt in my mind.

[Harold Aherne]

The technique I use when watching a picture is, first and most importantly, to ignore most published opinion about it. If James Agee or Pauline Kael happen to agree with me, that's all right, and if they don't, I don't feel somehow less prestigious (and anyway, Kael's reputation lies on her 'long-form' reviews from the 60s-80s, which deal mostly with the films of those years. Films of earlier years, aside from Intolerance &cetera, are treated in her capsule reviews, which I find uninformative, filled with in-group smarminess, and generally worthless).

Film canons ultimately ought to be a private affair. A person's life experiences will cause them to adopt different (but in most cases, still defensible) ideas of what to value in the various art forms, which is why different people might have good reasons for finding Wagner either bombastic or thrilling or both. The same applies to what sorts of movies they find compelling. Certainly I think a person should broaden their life and mental experiences (within reasonable limits) to be able to appreciate a wide spectrum of art, but if such isn't possible we're left to cultivate our own gardens, or canons, and allow others to do the same.

We have reached the point where embracing Howard Hawks and film noir as art is scarcely a daring act anymore. It wouldn't surprise me at all if there were a critical backlash against the Cahiers canon within this generation of film critics or a subsequent one. That doesn't mean that they'll turn straight back only to Chaplin, Flaherty, and Eisenstein, because we've come too far to have such a narrow view of the possibility of pictures. But setting up a canon of anyone can have a sort of narrowing effect on the critical perceptions of the movies. Cecil B. DeMille has never precisely been embraced en masse by either of the critical schools previosuly mentioned, but the recent scholarship on him, as well as the numerous video releases of his silent work, may turn the tide. Until about the early 90s few people thought of 'pre-code' as a genre or, particularly, as a historical time. In broad histories of motion pictures that one found in encyclopedias (as in Arthur Knight's articles for the World Book) the early 30s were exemplified through Mae West and gangsters, and if the code was mentioned at all it was in connection with those trends, not with WB social dramas or Man's Castle, let us say. But research and new availability of those films has widely changed how people think of 'old' movies. And so it goes, and probably will continue to go, with what movies and performers are deemed important. In 50 years, Frank Borzage may have pushed Hawks out of the so-called canon, and we might wonder what those fogies saw in him just as some people now wonder what was so remarkable about Eisenstein.

-Harold

[gscottrobinson]

Here's the Intertitle-o-rama, with tons of intertitle listings to choose from.

Here is the Silent Era website's top 300 list. It is voted on by visitors of the site.

Remember that for a film to be popular on any list, it has to be available to a large number of people to see on TCM or DVD.

I actually had a nice email correspondence a few months ago with the gentleman that runs intertitle-o-rama. Apparently he just does it for fun. His website is quite helpful.

SilentEra is also helpful, but I do have a problem - here goes:

1. All the arguments against a canon or list are well put and I don't disagree. I really didn't mean to get anyone riled up about it. Film studies is a step ahead of literary studies in the way that it steers away from a canon and fixed genre boundaries - and I like that.

2. In this case, I wanted to look at an argument that a colleague of mine made - essentially saying that the dominant critical aesthetic in the early 20th century was against intertitles (seeing them as a sign of poor filmmaking. The result is films like Murnau's Last Laugh with no intertitles at all.) However, despite this feeling, the use of intertitles (both in number and in length) seems to increase as the century continues in the popular films I've seen. So, there's an inverse relationship - critics value one thing, while filmmakers and/or audiences seem to value another.

3. At this point, my evidence is anecdotal - just based on the films I've seen. Therefore, it would be interesting to test this idea with a list that spans from, say, 1915-1926. It would seem like a good idea to look at a list that I didn't design based on my own preferences, just to make it more of a constant than a variable. SilentEra isn't bad, but I'm not sure what the criteria are for appearing on the list.

4. I would like to keep in America. I was thinking about using the top grossing films from 1915-1926. This would make a fairly objective list based on pure popularity. Plus, it is a relatively easy list to obtain and a reasonable amount of films to see.

gsr

[Penfold]

Yes and no. The great corrective to the first wave of (leftist, anti-Hollywood, validated-by-other media) critics was the new wave from France, who found art in studio workmen like Ford, Hawks, Lang, Preminger, etc. After that, our picture was far more balanced, to include the people who worked within the system.

Still, the shadow cast by those early critics is so vast that I think it obscures as much as it reveals. We still see the universe revolving around Griffith, who I think blots out the light from all the other, often more accomplished filmmakers; we still see Caligari as revolutionary and essential when Lubitsch's comedies were just as visually exaggerated; we still grant a heavyhanded Soviet potboiler presumptive art status we deny to a 20th Century Fox one by Jean Negulesco. Give them credit for shaping our initial understanding of film, but recognize how much they still distort it, too.

I'm not sure how great a corrective the second wave of critics provided; the Cahiers bunch in France and the Free Cinema bunch in Britain were every bit as leftist and anti-Hollywood as their pre-War predecessors who were their teachers; they could add Italian neo-Realism and the British documentary movement into their canon, but their championing of 'Auteurs' - Ford, Hawks, etc - is still as a reaction against the Hollywood system, not a celebration that the system allowed such directors' work to be created. How much you agree with them depends on how much you agree with auteurism, or their canon. It didn't allow for Powell and Pressburger films, for example, as they weren't grounded enough in the grit of daily life for their political sensibilities. And they were still deeply enamoured with the art of the Soviet Union, whether or not it was deserved....that rose-tinted 'All them wheatfields and ballet in the evenings' view of the Soviet Union took a long time to die within the intelligentsia of Europe...

[Penfold]

4. I would like to keep in America.
gsr

In what sense ?? Only US films, or only films popular in the US ??

[Harold Aherne]

2. In this case, I wanted to look at an argument that a colleague of mine made - essentially saying that the dominant critical aesthetic in the early 20th century was against intertitles (seeing them as a sign of poor filmmaking. The result is films like Murnau's Last Laugh with no intertitles at all.) However, despite this feeling, the use of intertitles (both in number and in length) seems to increase as the century continues in the popular films I've seen. So, there's an inverse relationship - critics value one thing, while filmmakers and/or audiences seem to value another.

gsr

In order to respond adequately, I'd have to know what sources your colleague was basing his/her argument on. Anecdotally, however, I can point to evidence that title-free movies were considered a little avant-garde: a 1921 Photoplay review of The Old Swimmin' Hole is not too harsh, but clearly not in favour of eliminating the subtitle. A 1922 interview with Norma Talmadge gives the following quote: "Norma thinks that talking pictures have as little chance of becoming fixtures in popular favor as have colored pictures or titleless films." So there were at least some arguments for eliminating subtitles, but I'm not sure that I'd say they were part of the dominant critical aesthetic. And what does "dominant" mean here? Professional film theorists (such as they were in the early 20s), or Photoplay, which had a far larger readership but was perhaps more on the side of the audiences than the critics?

Certainly critics might have reason to disapprove every "yes" and "no" being made into a title, but not many films I've seen are *that* reliant on captions. And for me they're a major source of enjoyment, both for their illustrations and their frequent irony.

-Harold

[Rodney]

SUNRISE was originally intended to be done without intertitles (hence the cutaways to the husband pushing his wife into the water when they're talking about it), but thankfully, titles were added.

Making a film without intertitles is kind of like writing a shopping list as limericks. It's an interesting intellectual exercise, but it calls attention to itself and is no help to either the film-maker or the viewer since it forces awkward compromises.

In many silent films -- I'm thinking of HER WILD OAT and WHY CHANGE YOUR WIFE -- the witty intertitles are an absolutely crucial part of the film, without which they'd be incredibly boring. And I think that the current lack of enthusiasm about ROSITA is probably at least partly due to the poor translation back into English of the Russian titles -- the originals were quite clever (based on original reviews), and that can make or break a film.

I suspect that Anita Loos' titles for GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES would make an entertaining read even though the film itself is lost.

[silentfilm]

Rodney and I were thinking alike, because I was thinking that Her Wild Oat would be pretty dull without the titles. And Beanie Walker certainly added a lot to the Laurel & Hardy, Charley Chase and Max Davidson comedies without overdoing anything.

Just like bad acting, bad photography and bad editing, poorly written titles (or too many of them) can really kill a film's rhythm or make it tedious. The titles are an easy target, because you don't have to be a critic to notice that the titles are ridiculous. On the other hand, you might think that a film is hard to understand, but not realize that it was because of poor editing or direction.

As a great example, compare the silent version of Laurel & Hardy's initial talkie Unacustomed As We Are with the sound version. The sound version is hilarious, but the silent version is a lot of reading, which kills some of the jokes.

[boblipton]

I have been considering this question for quite a while, and here, I believe, is the answer. It should apply to everyone who wishes to respond, so I am not putting my name after it this time.


Any list of the canonical best silent movie or ten best silent movies or 100 best silent movies or whatever number you choose to apply is a ridiculous idea.

Any list that differed in any wise from the list I would compose is flawed because the aesthetics involved are flawed in any way they differ from mine. Any list I would compose would be useless, because tomorrow I might see something that would be better than any other movie I had ever seen -- in fact, I hope I do -- and anyway you, with your flawed taste -- it must be flawed, since it differs from mine -- would not find such a list instructive. You might like Ham & Bud or late Semon or the movies of Norma Talmadge -- all of which have their points but are often horrid. You might fail to appreciate G.A. Smith or Feuillade, since they are often crude, but incredibly inventive.

I forgive you for not appreciating that I am the sole objective standard of what is good and bad in silent movies -- indeed, the sole objective standard for good and bad in the entire universe. That failure is inevitable since you have a flawed perception. All you can do is to figure things out for yourself. See everything you can and keep an open mind. If you are given to coming up with lists, you will, of course, come up with a ridiculous list, which you may, if you choose, argue over with other people who keep such lists. It's pointless, since any such list will be wrong because it would not be my list, and I wouldn't do such a list, but it may amuse you.

Of course, that would mean you must see everything that you have an opportunity to, and make up your own mind about things. I urge you to do so. It will help you develop an aesthetic that is closer to mine, the one, true objective aesthetic standard of the cosmos. It will, alas, never be mine, but them's the breaks.

[gscottrobinson]

First,

Thank you from the quote from Norma Talmadge - I think that is fascinating.

I have to do some digging through my books to come up with the sources that she had cited, but I can attest to a few anti-titlers that I had saved from another project:

1. Vachel Lindsay, American Poet and early film theorist - in The Art of the Moving Picture (1915), he notes that “the ideal film has no words printed on it at all, but is one unbroken sheet of photography” (10).

2. Of course - F.W. Murnau - in “Films of the Future” (1928) he wrote “The silent film will remain and develop into its perfect form, a film without a single written line” (27).

3. Finally, the ultimate advocate of intertitle intolerance: VO Freedburg's The Art of Photoplay Making. (1918):

Nature abhors a mixture of species and therefore does not allow hybrid animals to perpetuate themselves by reproduction. The history of the development of aesthetic taste shows the same abhorrence for hybrid art. Hybrid art is not pure and therefore cannot endure as art. [..] The photoplay as an art form consists of a composition of pictured motions. And since words are neither pictures nor motions they would seem to have no place in the photoplay. (166)

There are a few others, but I'd have to do more digging, and I'm old and tired.

You've convinced me that "dominant aesthetic" is too strong. But as I look through earlier (critical) texts, I don't see much in favor of titles.

Personally, they are one of my favorite parts - that is why I'm interested in this question.

I think you are arguing that that the minimalist-title model was probably more ingrained in scholarly, avant-garde, or high-art critics/auteurs, while titles where accepted as a useful (even positive) convention in more mainstream cinema. Does that sound right?

As to your other question - Made in American studios. Honestly, there are so many variables when considering this question that it seems like one way to set a constant.

Thanks for the detailed feedback.

gsr

In order to respond adequately, I'd have to know what sources your colleague was basing his/her argument on. Anecdotally, however, I can point to evidence that title-free movies were considered a little avant-garde: a 1921 Photoplay review of The Old Swimmin' Hole is not too harsh, but clearly not in favour of eliminating the subtitle. A 1922 interview with Norma Talmadge gives the following quote: "Norma thinks that talking pictures have as little chance of becoming fixtures in popular favor as have colored pictures or titleless films." So there were at least some arguments for eliminating subtitles, but I'm not sure that I'd say they were part of the dominant critical aesthetic. And what does "dominant" mean here? Professional film theorists (such as they were in the early 20s), or Photoplay, which had a far larger readership but was perhaps more on the side of the audiences than the critics?

Certainly critics might have reason to disapprove every "yes" and "no" being made into a title, but not many films I've seen are *that* reliant on captions. And for me they're a major source of enjoyment, both for their illustrations and their frequent irony.

-Harold

[Penfold]

First,



As to your other question - Made in American studios. Honestly, there are so many variables when considering this question that it seems like one way to set a constant.

gsr

Excuse me if, seen from this side of the pond, that seems incredibly isolationist, when silent film, of all the art forms, was in its time pretty universal.
For instance, although after WW1 an American audience may never have seen much in the way of British silent cinema, it was seen elsewhere in what was the Empire, and in the rest of Europe; prior to WW1 British films were seen and appreciated in the States, as were films from Scandinavia and Italy. Compiling a US-only canon seems to be wanting to rewrite film history from a US perspective again, just when the more enlightened US silents buffs are recognising the values of, for instance, A Cottage on Dartmoor, The Passion of Joan of Arc, and The Last Laugh.
If you want to cut down on the variables, restrict your canon to features, or exclude comedy, or to the twenties only. I wouldn't agree with those either, but they are, I would suggest, as valid as your decision to exclude the rest of the world.

[gscottrobinson]

Oh man.

First, note post #1. My question was - does a "canonized" list exist? I didn't think so, but I thought it was worth checking around. I certainly wasn't proposing to make one - which I also stated in post #3. I really was just looking for a way to look at a series of films without compiling my own list.

Second, I have more access to non-DVD American films since I live close to Hollywood.

Third: I lived in London for a long time and would probably move there for the heath care if someone would just hire me. I just finished working for half a year on a project on British director Cecil Hepworth - so yes, I'm aware of life outside the states and I'm not trying to rewrite film history.

Fourth, and this is the important one: I'm researching an idea, just fumbling around a bit with it, based on a conversation I had with a British friend. I like hearing from others because it raises new questions. If I did work with it and used American films, I imagine that would be clearly stated in the title somewhere. Using your logic, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film is an attempt to rewrite film history at the expense of everyone but Germany.

gsr

[dr.giraud]

I think there are some really anoying tendencies of art (including film) critics. One of these is laziness, which means they all copy shamelessly from each other.

Current example: Baz Luhrmann's AUSTRALIA. I am genuinely mystified that this has received the critical drubbing it has. On almost every level, it's better-made than his previous films. The story has the sweep and feel of an epic, something missing from failed recent epics like, say, COLD MOUNTAIN, or Ang Lee's awful RIDE WITH THE DEVIL, which seems to be on AMC everytime I click by. It's also incredibly shallow, but that's the filmmaker's m.o. So the same critics who rushed to fawn over MOULIN ROUGE dump on AUSTRALIA. Whatever. It's fun.

[WaverBoy]

I still don't get the fawning over MOULIN ROUGE, which was an overproduced fake musical for gnats. I would seriously be surprised to discover a shot in that film that lasts more than three seconds. AUSTRALIA certainly couldn't be any worse than that, I would hope. I didn't like ROMEO PLUS JULIET either. I do remember liking STRICTLY BALLROOM, though. I might have to pull that one out again sometime.

[rollot24]

AUSTRALIA certainly couldn't be any worse than that, I would hope.

I actually liked AUSTRALIA. It has very little of what I call the "Benihana School of Editing". I went in expecting it to be a way over the top, no subtlety allowed, kind of movie. I didn't take it remotely seriously and had a great time.

[dr.giraud]

I actually liked AUSTRALIA. It has very little of what I call the "Benihana School of Editing". I went in expecting it to be a way over the top, no subtlety allowed, kind of movie. I didn't take it remotely seriously and had a great time.

The juiced-up, fast-editing stuff was used to burn through A LOT of exposition at the beginning of AUSTRALIA, in a totally fun way. Then, somehow, Luhrmann managed to restrain himself (and his editor) for the rest of the film. Like you said, it's fun.