Silent

  • Hanns Schwarz – Die Wunderbare Lüge der Nina Petrowna AKA The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrovna (1929)

    Drama1921-1930GermanyHanns SchwarzSilentWeimar Republic cinema
    Die Wunderbare Lüge der Nina Petrowna (1929)

    Imdb wrote:
    Extraordinary Soap Opera
    12 August 2009 | by GManfred (Ramsey, NJ)

    I am not a fan of Soaps. Too often they are predictable and boring and descend into bathos -‘Womens’ Pictures’. But this picture was so spectacular in all respects that I was taken aback by its sheer accomplishment. Critic Kenneth Tynan said that one must ‘suspend one’s disbelief’ to take part in the movie experience. If that is the case, this picture became real; it was not a play on the screen performed by mere actors.Read More »

  • Roland Lethem – Le Vampire de la cinémathèque (1971)

    1971-1980BelgiumExperimentalRoland Lethem

    Quote:
    The 1001 transformations of a woman into a witch and vice versa.

    Boris Lehman wrote:
    When Roland Lethem says, referring to Le Vampire de la Cinémathèque (1971), a tribute to Joseph Plateau, the brilliant inventor of the phenakistoscope, that ‘you have to let yourself be sucked dry by the film’, most viewers immediately close their eyes, shout their disapproval, break their seats and leave the theatre furious and frustrated. They cannot see because they are not free, and as Philippe Bordier said, ‘because they have shit in their eyes’.Read More »

  • Enrico Guazzoni – Agrippina (1911)

    1911-1920Enrico GuazzoniEpicItalySilent


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    Summary:
    After the death of Claudius, Agrippina announced Nero the heir to the throne, which leads to despair of the true heir – Brittanicus.
    Not daring to oppose Agrippina, Senators declare Nero the emperor.
    Agrippina is against of an affair of Nero and Poppaea.
    Agrippina threaten Nero that if he neglect his wife Octavius, she will give the throne to Brittanicus.
    The threats of Agrippina had their effect. Brittanicus is poisoned.
    Perversity of Nero is insatiable and he gives his trusted man, Anicetus a terrible order.
    Agrippina is looking for salvation, but the indomitable hatred of Emperor Nero decides the fate of Agrippina…Read More »

  • Yasujiro Ozu – Otona No Miru Ehon – Umarete Wa Mita Keredo AKA I Was Born, But… (1932)

    1931-1940ComedyJapanSilentYasujiro Ozu

    Otona no miru ehon – Umarete wa mita keredo / 大人の見る繪本 生れてはみたけれど

    PLOT: Two young brothers become the leaders of a gang of kids in their neighborhood. Ozu’s charming film is a social satire that draws from the antics of childhood as well as the tragedy of maturity.Read More »

  • Victor Sjöström – The Scarlet Letter (1926)

    Drama1921-1930SilentUSAVictor Sjöström

    In Puritan Boston, seamstress Hester Prynne is punished for playing on the Sabbath day; but kindly minister Arthur Dimmesdale takes pity on her. The two fall in love, but their relationship cannot be: Hester is already married to Roger Prynne, a physician who has been missing seven years. Dimmesdale has to go away to England; when he returns, he finds Hester pregnant with their child, and the focus of the town’s censure. In a humiliating public ceremony, she is forced to don the scarlet letter A – for adultery – and wear it the rest of her life. Dimmesdale is encouraged by the church fathers to demand of Hester the person with whom she sinned.Read More »

  • John S. Robertson – Annie Laurie (1927)

    1921-1930DramaJohn S. RobertsonSilentUSA


    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Plot: The story of the famous battle between the Scots clans of Macdonald and Campbell, and the young woman who comes between them, Annie Laurie.Read More »

  • John Ford – Mother Machree (1928)

    1921-1930DramaJohn FordSilentUSA

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    PLOT SUMMARY and OTHER INFORMATION
    from Waldo’s announce

    Reels one, two and five — all that survives, unfortunately, of this late silent film by John Ford, though it’s enough to suggest that it might have been a major work. The story, supposedly based on the sentimental Irish ballad, is a blend of “Sylvia Scarlet” and “Stella Dallas,” about a single mother who joins a traveling circus (lead by Victor McLaglen) to support her child, only to eventually lose him to a rich couple. She meets her son (Neil Hamilton) years later when she’s employed as a domestic, and now he’s a swaggering young society man. Does she reveal her identity to him? We’ll never know, since the end of the film is missing. What you do get is one heck of a storm sequence in the first reel, filmed by Ford in the high expressionist style he was then absorbing from FW Murnau.Read More »

  • Orestis Laskos – Dafnis kai Hloi AKA Daphnis and Chloe (1931)

    Classics1931-1940GreeceOrestis LaskosSilent
    Dafnis kai Hloi (1931)

    Lamonas, a shepherd, discovers a baby boy nursing from a goat and takes him in as his own, naming him Dafnis. Around the same time, another shepherd, Dryantas, finds a little girl and names her Chloe.Read More »

  • Abel Ferrara – Nicky’s Film (1971)

    1971-1980Abel FerraraShort FilmSilentUSA

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    “IMDb” wrote:

    A young woman is lying asleep on a bed. Her boyfriend, Nicky, gets up, looks out a window, and sees two men in black clothing standing outside by a car… waiting. Disturbed by this, Nicky makes a phone call and explains his predicament to someone on the other line.

    Nicky meets with a bearded man sitting at a desk outside in a snow-covered junkyard about his situation. Nicky looks around at the desolate snowy landscape.

    At Nicky’s house, Nicky sits at his kitchen table when a large man, accompanied by a woman who treats him deferentially, and another man. After an inaudible conversation, apparently about Nicky’s situation, the two men and woman leave. But the second man in the background says something to Nicky before leaving. Nicky looks out his window and again sees the two men waiting by a car. Nicky grabs a kitchen knife and places it under his belt. Nicky runs outside where he is apparently shot by the waiting men, and falls to the ground… dead. The final image shows Nicky’s girlfriend, still lying in bed asleep.Read More »

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