Pordenone’s 39 Limited Edition will flourish as an online event

[buskeat]

I’m pretty sure the bicycle advertisement was my favorite thing in this program, oddly enough.

The Brilliant Biograph is a collection of 68mm actuality films from 1897-1902, showing scenes of Europe, put together by the EYE Film Institute in the Netherlands. (It's preceded by a short film about EYE which is well worth watching.) Why 68mm? Because we've all seen blotchy, murky old films of that time—but these can be remarkably sharp and clear with near-infinite depth of field, allowing you to make out facial expressions in long shot, or—my favorite—allowing you to read billboards and shop signs of more than a century ago. I guess as an old ad guy, nothing conjures up past worlds to me like seeing how they advertised and sold themselves.

The 55-minute program is divided into five thematic parts, but basically you get scenes of everyday life, you get a lot of point of view shots from different types of vehicles—trains, boats, and to judge by the jerkiness of some of the street scenes, horse carts—and you get a few specialty films, like a delightful scene of jugglers in a restaurant setting, or a scene of traditional dancing in the ruins of Pompeii. There's a funeral with mourners dressed in dark hoods like penitentes, there's a procession of a German military band in WWI uniforms with the spiked helmets. Occasionally you see children playing and can't help but think they'd be just old enough for WWI, middle-aged in WWII. I already said that yesterday's actualities were like a time machine; these are like... a high definition time machine.


The audience leaving one of the Biograph shows.

[Harlett O'Dowd]

In particular, given that the boys' world seems to be race-blind—there are two brothers, black, who are accepted by the white kids without a word, and with almost no race-based humor on the script's part—there's a commonality with the Hal Roach-Robert McGowan Our Gang series that probably means you can't attribute influence from one to the other (both series started in 1922) but that they probably reinforced each other in naturalistic, democratic visions of childhood.

I also wondered if Penrod influenced Roach's Gang in terms of racial inclusiveness. Perhaps anyone who knows the original novels, or the first Penrod film, can chime in.

What made the racial blindness so remarkable is how dismissive the gang is to the sissy character. Even Penrod's father is uncomfortable witnessing the sissy boy being affectionate with his father … and half an hour later, unironically, he is just as physically affectionate towards his own son.

I'm not sure what all that means.

[greta de groat]

In particular, given that the boys' world seems to be race-blind—there are two brothers, black, who are accepted by the white kids without a word, and with almost no race-based humor on the script's part—there's a commonality with the Hal Roach-Robert McGowan Our Gang series that probably means you can't attribute influence from one to the other (both series started in 1922) but that they probably reinforced each other in naturalistic, democratic visions of childhood.

I also wondered if Penrod influenced Roach's Gang in terms of racial inclusiveness. Perhaps anyone who knows the original novels, or the first Penrod film, can chime in.

What made the racial blindness so remarkable is how dismissive the gang is to the sissy character. Even Penrod's father is uncomfortable witnessing the sissy boy being affectionate with his father … and half an hour later, unironically, he is just as physically affectionate towards his own son.

I'm not sure what all that means.

I was really disturbed by this as well. I was surprised and pleased by the racial inclusiveness (plus Eugene Jackson stole the picture as far as i was concerned), but the other "boys club" stuff, especially the hazing, just had me thinking that even though they were little kids they were already being socialized to be dicks. I just ended up not being able to enjoy this.

greta

[boblipton]

In particular, given that the boys' world seems to be race-blind—there are two brothers, black, who are accepted by the white kids without a word, and with almost no race-based humor on the script's part—there's a commonality with the Hal Roach-Robert McGowan Our Gang series that probably means you can't attribute influence from one to the other (both series started in 1922) but that they probably reinforced each other in naturalistic, democratic visions of childhood.

I also wondered if Penrod influenced Roach's Gang in terms of racial inclusiveness. Perhaps anyone who knows the original novels, or the first Penrod film, can chime in.

What made the racial blindness so remarkable is how dismissive the gang is to the sissy character. Even Penrod's father is uncomfortable witnessing the sissy boy being affectionate with his father … and half an hour later, unironically, he is just as physically affectionate towards his own son.

I'm not sure what all that means.

My understanding was that besides Roach's self-told legend about getting the idea by watching kids play, the actual idea was to do something with Ernie Morrison.

Bob

[Mike Gebert]

In his introduction to Where Lights Are Low, Jay Weissberg seems a little embarrassed that Sessue Hayakawa, Japanese, plays a Chinese man. I believe in the Anthony Quinn Rule (you can play anything if you're Anthony Quinn), but what seems more problematic in 2020 is that it's a story about Chinese, which means, by definition, it will be about "white slavery" (kidnapping women to force them into prostitution). Nevertheless, this 1921 film, directed by Colin Campbell (a rare exception to the notion that everyone in early Hollywood was young; he had a decade and a half even on D.W. Griffith), is a corker and a solid action vehicle for the incredibly handsome Hayakawa.

He plays a Chinese prince in love with a commoner; his wily uncle, opposed to a marriage not arranged by himself, sends him to America to study western ways (he appears to mainly learn to play craps), while he takes the commoner gal and sells her into white slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown. Hayakawa discovers this and puts a down payment on her (we are meant to believe that a white slaver will hold a gal for three years without putting her to work), but in the meantime, she is lusted after by a Chinese gangster (Tôgô Yamamoto, who would return to Japan and work for Ozu and Shimizu), and well, that's all going to lead to trouble.

Obviously, nothing profound, but it's quite well done, from handsome, atmospheric settings (I couldn't tell if Chinatown was the real thing or the backlot, but that in itself is a tribute) to very well staged and edited action scenes for the time. Of the cast, one Gloria Payton as the commoner gal is about as Asian as Katharine Hepburn in Dragon Seed, but Hayakawa is of course dashing as ever, and Yamamoto (who looks like a Japanese Josh Brolin) is surprisingly modern in the way he underplays his gangster to make him more menacing. (Chang Bong Lo didn't have to move fast for anybody.) The print, decent enough, turned up in Belgrade and was restored in Japan, and has Serbian titles; the estimable Phil Carli provided the score.

Preceded by a Thanhouser comedy short starring a different Colin Campbell, Toodles, Tom and Trouble, which had some outrageous gags as a man thinks a dog has run off with his baby (it's just a doll, so it comes to all kinds of horrible ends in front of him, finally getting blown to bits on a mining site!)

[Histogram]

According to the notes, "In addition to the story, the set of San Francisco’s Chinatown was not convincing, even though it was inspired by Arnold Genthe’s photographs of old Chinatown from the late 1890s." I thought it was kind of convincing, mainly due to location-style encumbrances that would usually be more carefully controlled in studios -- like fog and glaring street lamps high overhead. (The latter was a bit ironic, given the title "Where Lights Are Low".) However, I wondered about the dirt streets. Could be possible in 1920's San Francisco Chinatown, but I'm not so sure. Seems more likely in the 1890's.

[Mike Gebert]

Maybe it takes place in the 1890s—I don't remember anything that would prove otherwise (cars, phones, pictures of President Harding).

[Histogram]

There are cars in some of the hustle-and-bustle street scenes.

[Mike Gebert]

Well, there you go. Yeah, sounds like they liked the look of Chinatown in the research, never mind what it looked like in the 20s in reality.

There's one picture here from 1900 that clearly shows cobblestones:

https://timeline.com/in-pictures-the-ma ... 9745d53443

[missdupont]

The Chinese Palace Hayakawa and his family live in is actually Yamashiro's in Hollywood. Also, the character actress Mrs. Louise Emmons, who often played old hags and strange old birds, has a small role in the film as one of Chang Bo Lo's side women.

[Mike Gebert]

I wondered both if they used a real location for the gardens and so on, and who that scary hag was! Turns out I've seen her dozens of times... including in False Faces a couple of weeks ago.

[missdupont]

For those who want to know more about the background of Mrs. Emmons, here's a short video I did for the Niles Essanay Silent Film Festival this summer, with stills mostly provided by Mike Hawks.

[Harlett O'Dowd]

I liked Where Lights Are Low well enough, though there were plot holes you could drive a truck through.

I was also puzzled by those dirt streets in Chinatown and expected the finale to feature an earthquake … then I saw those more modern cars.

[Histogram]

You mean, for instance, after graduating from college, when he needs to raise $10,000 in a hurry so he can purchase his girlfriend, he gets a job washing dishes? Maybe he received a big bonus for being surrounded by snotty waiters.

[Salty Dog]

Just got done watching Toodles, Tom and Trouble, and I have to say, maybe it would've worked as an actual cartoon, directed by Tex Avery, say, but as a live action film I did not find it funny at all, but maybe I am too much of a dog lover. I won't give any spoilers, but the ending in particular was pretty awful. And yes, I know it was supposed to be ridiculous, but it just didn't work for me. Now I am trying to watch the feature, but I see the close captioning, which I have set for English, doesn't seem to be able to get them to work. I don't think I can watch the whole film this way.

[Professor Echo]

An overview so far:

I've watched everything and am only averaging two solid likes so far, THE BRILLIANT BIOGRAPH and WHEN LIGHTS ARE LOW. But it's still early.

The opening TRAVELOGUE was a nice idea, but I felt it kind of dragged at times and maybe could have lost a couple of the shorts.

PENROD reminded me too much of one of the last gasp MGM Our Gang shorts where they lost all touch with reality and kept putting on shows to support the war effort or something. None of it seemed anything like a real boy's life, even one from a hundred years ago. I had trouble suspending disbelief for most of it. I also hated a certain scene with the dog, which I won't spoil, but it definitely soured me on the film as a whole.

The stream for GUO FENG crashed on me with only a few minutes left and by the time I rebooted, the screening window had expired. I guess I was the last person watching it and they just turned out the lights on me. No matter though because once the exciting novelty of watching a Chinese silent feature wore off, the rest just seemed plodddingly predictable. I also resented the on screen bug throughout the film, but less so once I saw the jumbo one used on WHEN LIGHTS ARE LOW. I wish they didn't feel like these were necessary.

The intros to the films have all been enjoyable and some of the after discussions as well, though is it just me or do some of the musicians suffer from blabbermania? So far I enjoyed the talk with Ned Thanhouser the best.

Finally, if I haven't alienated everyone here already with my less than enthusiastic reception to date, this will probably be considered heresy, but the fact is, I really can't stand solo piano music. In fact, it grates on me like a headache riding a slow freight train. Solo organ or a trio or a quartet accompanying silents are always great, but a soloing piano distracts me to Dreamsville. I've taken to just watching the programs with the sound down and in complete silence. I have a question if anyone here has ever attended the actual festival in Pordenone: Do they usually have a live orchestra for the screenings or is it mostly solo pianos?

All of my b----- and moaning notwithstanding, I'm still excited by the festival and I look forward to participating everyday. I'm not as knowledgeable about silent films as most who post on this forum, but I've been watching them for about 50 years now and the thrill of a new one fading in never ceases to torch my imagination.

[missdupont]

The vast majority of screenings are solo piano accompaniment, sometimes with two/three pieces ensembles like with Stephen Horne, Frank Bockius, and Gunther Buchwald, or an instrument used in the piece, like violin, etc. Orchestra normally only occupies the big weekend screenings.

[Professor Echo]

The vast majority of screenings are solo piano accompaniment, sometimes with two/three pieces ensembles like with Stephen Horne, Frank Bockius, and Gunther Buchwald, or an instrument used in the piece, like violin, etc. Orchestra normally only occupies the big weekend screenings.

Thank you, Miss D. Very interesting.

[Salty Dog]

So I have been fiddling around with the close captioning issue and was even in touch with the tech support folks at Pordenone, who were very nice, but I am still having issues.

Here is where I stand. I have a fairly old computer, and it's not the fastest, and does not stream well. Most of the time when I try to run a video on the desktop, it keeps stuttering and breaking up, and is very hard to watch. That is certainly the case on the MyMovies.it site, which is hosting this event.

So mostly I watch video on the TV on my Amazon Fire Stick. I have 2 browsers installed, Firefox and Silk, the default Amazon browser. Both of these will play the stream on this website smoothly, looks and sounds great, but I cannot turn on the English CC. They just won't appear. I can turn off and on the Italian CCs, but not the English ones. When I spoke to the tech support folks, they recommended using the Chrome browser. Now that doesn't come officially with the Fire stick, but I tried installing it by sideloading it and so far I couldn't get it to work correctly. But it doesn't even matter actually, because the problem doesn't seem to be the browser, it seems to be the Fire stick. I say this because if I watch the same film (Where Lights Are Low) on the Firefox browser on my computer, it plays choppy and stutters like chrome, but on the other hand, the CCs go off and on correctly. So I am at a loss here. I will see if the same thing happens with the next feature.

[Mike Gebert]

Well, today's program was a dud in my book. La Tempesta in Un Cranio (Storm in the Brain), from Italy, 1921, directed by Carlo Campogalliani, is a frenetic farce about the heir in a family known for hereditary insanity, who's convinced that he's going to lose his marbles too, but then goes through various adventures to show that he won't. The comedian—named Benfenati; this may be his only film, per the IMDB—is mildly amusing early on playing a neurasthenic lost cause, and he can certainly climb energetically like a Lloyd or Keaton, but in about an hour of frenzied action I just didn't see much that rose to the level of a gag, and the notes call it "surreal" when they may just mean "incoherent." Sorry.

It was preceded by a short of which something similar could be said, though I think it was more adroitly made: a 1916 short called Bohemian Castles and Fortresses, which starts as if it were a travelogue—but in fact it was made for the beginning of a stage play, with the lead actor learning that he's due at the theater some miles away, and racing by train, boat and bicycle to get there in time. As the film ends, the play begins. Again, it suggests Lloyd and Keaton as he clambers over roofs and runs at top speed, isn't as good, but wasn't bad.

Finally, the scariest image of the festival was in the film about the Italian archive beforehand—footage of nitrate being boiled or whatever to recover the silver from it. AAAAAIIIIIIIIEEEEEE! Reallllly scary, as Count Floyd would say!

[Mike Gebert]

Sometimes a movie doesn't know what it has, at least by modern eyes. That to me is the case with The Apaches of Athens, a 1930 Greek silent which was rediscovered four years ago, and was presented today with an orchestral score by a full Greek orchestra.

The setting is the working class parts of Athens, where Petros works when he can find work in the fruit markets or similar, has a girl who sells flowers and adores him, and otherwise clowns around with his two pals. Think something like a Greek Seventh Heaven. All this, filmed in the actual streets of Athens, is captivating even when nothing much is going on, simply to see the cobblestone streets, the faces of children engaged in rock fights, and other such neorealist sights.

The issue is, this is actually based on a 1920s operetta, long forgotten outside Greece, and so it has to turn into a Maurice Chevalier movie including a rich family, a plot to pass Petros off as a prince, and other farcical elements—and I felt more than a little robbed of that first movie in order to have the second, even if it is filmed on location in its own way (the Tatoi royal palace, passed off as a nouveau riche mansion). It also becomes more apparent than the actor who plays Petros is... not much of an actor; he looks ill at ease in a monkey suit, passing himself off as a prince (his buddies, in the Frank McHugh and Allen Jenkins parts, are better as the comedy relief). (According to these notes, they were all mainly singers and musicians, more than actors.)

Ah well, it's a very good print, and has a nice score interspersed with authentic music of the period (including, I assume, some of the arias of the original operetta). But I'd have been happier if it had remained a story of the real streets and the working class types who populate them, all of which I found fascinating in its first third.

[boblipton]

Isn't the point of his performance that he looks ill at ease in evening clothes because he has never worn them? Another Matt, Matt Moore has the lead in The Caveman as a real brute of a man forced into a monkey suit, and he looks like he doesn't know how to wear it.... and then, half tamed, is placed back in his workman's clothes and has forgotten how to wear them!

Bob

[Mike Gebert]

It is, but he just didn't seem to have much screen presence at all. (I was reminded, somehow, of the brief movie career of Nick Apollo Forte.) He kind of doesn't act out full scenes—if we're meant to know what he's thinking, we get it in one shot of him, cut to reaction, cut to him again, cut to next reaction....

But maybe someone felt differently about the whole thing, just because I'm knocking these off each day doesn't mean others can't, too! Tell us what you thought, anybody...

[greta de groat]

It is, but he just didn't seem to have much screen presence at all. (I was reminded, somehow, of the brief movie career of Nick Apollo Forte.) He kind of doesn't act out full scenes—if we're meant to know what he's thinking, we get it in one shot of him, cut to reaction, cut to him again, cut to next reaction....

But maybe someone felt differently about the whole thing, just because I'm knocking these off each day doesn't mean others can't, too! Tell us what you thought, anybody...

He kind of reminded me of John Bowers, but with more personality.

greta

[Salty Dog]

I watched the "Apaches" film when I realized I could deal with my stuttering with Chrome on my desktop by lowering the resolution to 540, which looked okay. I would've looked better at a higher resolution, but the smooth streaming on my Fire stick could not give me captioning, so I lived with the lower resolution.

As far as the movie goes, I had no problem with the lead actor, I agree that he wasn't convincing as the Prince because he wasn't supposed to be, but I also agree that the on the streets earthy shooting of the first 3rd or so of the film (and the 2 goofy buddies of the hero) was a lot more fun and interesting then when the operetta plotline kicked in.

But anyway, this was the first Greek silent movie I've ever seen. I haven't even seen many Greek talkies when you get down to it. So who can complain about that?

I look forward very much to Abwege tomorrow and Laurel or Hardy on Saturday, and am also interested (though I admit not as much) in the Mary Pickford film coming up.

[Mike Gebert]

Like most here I long knew Brigitte Helm for exactly one film—Metropolis. Only in the last couple of years have I seen her in others—Gold, L'Argent, The Love of Jeanne Ney and now Abwege (Astray/The Devious Path), directed by G.W. Pabst in 1928, between Jeanne Ney and Pandora's Box. I think she's one of the most striking actresses of the era, with somewhat extreme features (mainly a long aquiline nose that makes her look like a Valkyrie) and a tall, slender body which she uses in striking ways, writhing like a snake and whipping her head to reveal her profile like an art deco hood ornament. (I'm pretty sure I used all those descriptors in writing about Gold or L'Argent.)

She has plenty of writhing and whipping around to do in Abwege, a starring role for her and a notable performance for its era, even if not quite as iconic as Brooks' for Pabst. She's the wife of a workaholic lawyer (Gustav Diessl), and bored at home by the insensitive clod, she dallies with a newspaper sketch artist and goes to a decadent nightclub, where she not only flirts with a boxer but winds up doing cocaine with a woman who drove her own husband to suicide with her wicked, unfaithful ways. Horrified by her newfound decadence, she races home to Diessl... but he's such a clod who makes Ashley Wilkes look like Errol Flynn that he can't figure out how to get laid with his own wife, and the next go-round sinks even deeper. I honestly didn't know if this was going to end as tragically as Pandora's Box, or pull back in the end with knowing, Lubitschean humor.

It's a smart, sympathetic picture of married people who can't get out of their own way to find happiness with each other, which reminded me at times of Kubrick's take on an oblivious couple in Eyes Wide Shut—not entirely surprising when you consider that its source, Schnitzler's Traumnovelle, had been a bestseller just two years before Abwege.

Besides Pabst's surehanded and sly direction (there's a shot of the artist kissing Helm's hand in a ruffled sleeve, which is possibly the most sexually suggestive shot in any silent film), the virtues include stylish art direction (Otto Erdmann and Hans Sohnle) and cinematography (Theodor Sparkuhl), which is beautifully served by FilmMuseumMünchen's restoration, most of which comes from the camera negative and looks shot yesterday. Insinuating music by Mauro Colombis suited the film's tone very well.

[Roseha]

I just saw Abwege and enjoyed it as well. I agree that the film looked beautiful, and was also very impressed with Brigitte Helm’s acting. I hadn’t yet seen her apart from Metropolis myself, but I will have to get to that copy of L’Argent that I bought.

For those having trouble, I was able to watch on my Ipad though the site insisted that I not use Chrome and switch to Safari, which worked. I had managed to forget that the English cc was available so when I saw it in the reduced window I restarted after 50 minutes so I could follow the titles from the beginning. D’oh.

[Salty Dog]

I enjoyed Abwege, it was a beautiful print, well directed and photographed, good score, and Brigitte Helm gave a marvelous performance as did many of the supporting cast and there was a great weimar atmosphere. Had some issues with the storyline, and the characters were kind of annoying at times. But really glad to have seen this film.

[Salty Dog]

The one thing I thought about as I watched this film that I did not mention in my previous post is that I found an interesting comparison to Brigitte Helm's performance in this film and Louise Brooks' in Pabst's next 2 films. In a way they were the opposite of each other, in that Brooks was very deadpan, showing very little emotion, almost a sphinx, whereas Helm was vividly emotional and totally expressive of everything that was going on with her face and body. And yet in one way they were similar, in that their performances both feel very modern in ways that a lot of silent film performances do not.

[Harlett O'Dowd]

The one thing I thought about as I watched this film that I did not mention in my previous post is that I found an interesting comparison to Brigitte Helm's performance in this film and Louise Brooks' in Pabst's next 2 films. In a way they were the opposite of each other, in that Brooks was very deadpan, showing very little emotion, almost a sphinx, whereas Helm was vividly emotional and totally expressive of everything that was going on with her face and body. And yet in one way they were similar, in that their performances both feel very modern in ways that a lot of silent film performances do not.

Yes, while watching this, I was thinking it was a warm-up to PANDORA, and that Pabst obtained the anti-Helm in casting Brooks.