Silent

Light Industry wrote:
In 1926, André Gide set sail from Bordeaux to French Equatorial Africa and the Belgian Congo with Marc Allégret, his 25-year-old former student and lover of nearly a decade, who was brought on the trip officially as Gide’s “secretary.” Gide had been inspired to visit Africa by reading Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and planned his itinerary with Allégret as something of a recapitulation of Conrad’s fictional expedition. Travelling for thousands of miles by railway, river, and foot, through areas that today comprise the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Chad, and Cameroon, the pair spent time with colonial agents and indigenous communities. Both Gide and Allégret produced important records of their epic journey. Gide kept diaries that he quickly published in two volumes, Voyage au Congo (1927) and Le Retour du Tchad (1928), while Allégret took some seven hundred photographs and shot the film Voyage au Congo: Scènes de la Vie Indigène en Afrique Équatoriale, one of the earliest feature-length ethnographic documentaries to be made on the continent.Read More »

Quote:
A 1989 American low-budget, nearly silent movie directed by and starring Charles Lane. The film was shot in black and white and tells the story of a young African American man raising a small child after her father is murdered. The film is inspired by “Tiger Bay“ (1959) and partly Charlie Chaplin`s 1921 feature “The Kid“. The film was televised by PBS as well as saw limited exposure on VHS and cable television in the 1990sRead More »

Navy captain Avanti Planetaros is inspired by his astronomer-father to travel through outer space to reach other worlds. He becomes an aviator, and, along with the young scientist Dr. Krafft, the driving force behind the construction of a spaceship. Despite opposition from the mocking Professor Dubius, Planetaros gathers a crew of fearless men and takes off. During the long voyage, the crew becomes restless; a mutiny is narrowly avoided. Finally they reach Mars, and discover that the planet is inhabited by a people who have reached a higher stage of development, free of disease, sorrow, violence, covetousness, sexual urges, and the fear of death. Avanti falls in love with Marya, daughter of the Prince of Wisdom, the head of the Martians. Marya shares his feelings, and decides to return with him in order to bring the wisdom of the Martians to the backward Earthlings.Read More »

CinemaSerf, IMDB wrote:
Bruno Decarli (“Count Greven”) is quite good here, as the nobleman who likes to collect works of art. When in Java, he alights on a mystical totem and decides he has to have it – despite the objections of the local priest (Conrad Veidt) whom he swiftly despatches. That’s not the end of our holy man, however, as he haunts his killer with portents of impeding doom… Veidt looks superb as the spirit; his (heavily made up) facial features – always hugely effective – are lit with added poignancy and the direction from Robert Wiene builds a good degree of tension as the denouement, quite literally, looms.Read More »

Synopsis
In Gossette (1923), Dulac experimented with and designed a number of special lenses and prisms to produce a variety of effects and multiply the expressive means which translate the characters’ visions and mental states. She also reversed class and gender roles, as she made the female character Gossette come to the aid of Phillipe de Savières, falsely accused of murder, in order to save his name.Read More »

Quote:
Martha, a peasant woman expecting a child, experiences the fears typical of a woman in her condition. Encouraged by a neighbor, she decides to venture out into the world and join the working class fighting for a better future.Read More »

Wikipedia wrote:
Folly of Love (German: Unfug der Liebe) is a 1928 German silent comedy film directed by Robert Wiene and starring Maria Jacobini, Jack Trevor and Betty Astor. While several of Wiene’s previous films had met with mixed responses, Folly of Love was universally praised by critics. The film was made at the Marienfelde Studios of Terra Film. It was Wiene’s last silent film.Read More »

Paul Korner is a homosexual musician who falls in love with his protégé Kurt. Unfortunately, the two are seen walking hand in hand by the blackmailer Franz. Though Paul agrees to Franz’s demands at first, it gets out of hand and he ends up refusing to pay which has dire consequences for the lovers.Read More »

The great French filmmaker René Clair crafted this elegant sepia-toned profile of Paris’s iconic landmark almost forty years after the Eiffel Tower took its first bow (at the 1889 Exposition Universelle). It clearly still fascinates and awes in this loving and playful tribute. LA TOUR takes the viewer first up and then down the mighty structure while also acting as a tribute to its eponymous designer, Gustave Eiffel. The film initially burrows into blueprints and photographs of the earliest stages of its construction ahead of the opening of the World’s Fair but Clair’s film revels in the completed structure itself, reverently scaling its heights and accompanying tourists on up through the various levels toward the topmost landing. Read More »