*smalldrumroll*

[glinda]

Hello! I'm glinda and I'll be your host this week. I'm planning on posting about silent cinema tomorrow so I thought I'd garner your thoughts on the subject.

How do you feel about cinemas doing live musical accompaniments to silent film showings? An essential part of the proceedings? Take it or leave it? Utterly pretentious and off-putting?

Also restoration of silent films, which films are you longing to see restored to their former glory and which should have been left to moulder? Should they try to restore the original colour choices (tinting and toning etc) or is early colour experimentation best forgotten in favour for a crisp black and white?

Comments

[laughingrat]

Hi Glinda! *waves*

It's tough to say which movies deserve restoration and which don't. I see a lot of folks saying that, say, silent dramas are objectively horrible, but you know, that all depends on the individual and the aesthetics of their time, right? So Beyond the Rocks might not be my idea of a totally-believable drama, but I'm awful glad they restored it, because it allowed me to see a world I wouldn't have otherwise seen.

We have a great organist who plays live accompaniment for the silent feature each year during our classic movie series here--I've never heard him go wrong. He bases the tunes on the action and on the songs of the day, and it's great stuff. I've also heard less-successful live musical interpretations...but you know, as long as it's done in good faith, with a sincere effort to work with the film, I'm willing to give it a fair hearing. :-D

I love tinting!

What do you think about this stuff? :-D

[onyxlynx]

Musical accompaniment is to be preferred to the audience talking through the movie.

I do hope that as many of them can be restored get restored--there's a lot of history there. So much has already been lost.

I, unfortunately, was first brought to silent movies on television, where they not only had musical accompaniment but narration/commentary, and as a result have only not-slept (in a theater!) through Phantom of the Opera, probably because the companion nudged once or twice.

My loss.

[kareila]

I like live musical accompaniment because that's How It Was Done In The Day. Canned soundtracks are okay too, as long as they're tasteful.

I've only seen two well-known, long-form silents - Metropolis and Battleship Potemkin (both with live performance of the original scores in at least one instance). So I'm really not qualified to opine on what other films should be restored! And I didn't even know about early experiments in color - I thought all colorized classic films were the fault of Ted Turner. :)

[sid]

My parents once upon a time belonged to a Theatre Organ Association, and they took me with them to see Phantom of the Opera. I enjoyed the concert before the movie (although not as much as the true believers did) and was just thrilled watching the movie itself. I frankly can't remember how much the organ music contributed to my enjoyment, it was so long ago. But I do happen to believe that just listening to live music is a treat in itself, so I would definitely vote for "essential."

A few years ago I was startled to discover a 1922 silent starring Anna May Wong that's IN COLOR. A very early color process, obviously, but it isn't just tinting. It's an odd, but lovely thing to experience. 'The Toll of the Sea' at YouTube!

[glinda]

(really belated comment response, I know, I'm sorry)

I really didn't know anything about early colour experiments until I saw Phantom of the Opera which is full of tinting and then randomly there's a scene in the middle in what is clearly fledgling Technicolor and was internally going "who has attacked this film with colour!" Only to be researching something entirely different about the film and find out that no, it was original colour.

[glinda]

(ridiculously belated comment response, sorry)

I came into the genre via an obsession with early sound cinema and german expressionism in cinema so I suppose I have a predisposed affection for the aesthetics of a certain subsection of silent cinema. There was a big tv series here (Silent Clowns) on Silent Comedies

[laughingrat]

I came into the genre via an obsession with early sound cinema and german expressionism in cinema

Yes, me too! It's really what I lean towards the most. Even if Conrad Veidt, at that age, really looked like he needed to be gently sat down and given a pie, the poor creetur. But seriously, there is something about that stuff that really speaks to me.

[laughingrat]

Wish you coulda seen Phantom with live orchestra, which we had here in Columbus a few years ago. It was really thrilling, in part because everything but the film itself was live, and alive--the place was jammed to the rafters, and the orchestra on stage with the screen just above them. It was amazing.

I totally cut myself off there by leaning on the wrong button

[glinda]

here, have the rest of the comment...

(Hi Rat, ridiculously belated comment response, sorry)

I came into the genre via an obsession with early sound cinema and German expressionism in cinema so I suppose I have a predisposed affection for the aesthetics of a certain subsection of silent cinema. There was a big tv series here (Silent Clowns) on Silent Comedies and they showed a Laurel and Hardy film with live accompaniment, and it was so much more alive than the versions I'd seen growing up with canned soundtracks (which were funny but this was so much funnier). So after that I tried to see as many silent films with live accompaniments as I could and found that a whole swathe of films I had previously had no attention for suddenly came alive in front of my eyes. So I'm a big fan of seeing them with live music.

I've seen some really interesting re-scorings of silent film (I actually had an assignment at uni that had us do just that to The Golem...that wasn't a traumatic experience at all) and some really weird canned soundtracks (The Great White Silence is very odd, it has the creepiest version of Amazing Grace I've ever heard.) but I definitely prefer live accompaniment if I can get it.

I love tinting too! I find early Technicolor a bit creepy though I'm not sure why.

[glinda]

there is something about that stuff that really speaks to me.

There's something so very compelling about that whole area of film. The aesthetics, the storytelling, the historical and mythical influences and subtext, the political subtext - which really I can't think about too hard or I want to cry. I have a notebook somewhere full of notes from when I was rather obsessed with that whole area. Hours of research on stuff I'm never going to write articles about because most people just look at me strangely when I talk about it.

Also I suspect that I must look like a fan of the genre, because people come up to me randomly at parties and talk to me about the genius of Murnau and I in turn ramble about Lang's use of sound in M right back at them. It's all a bit odd.

[laughingrat]

Are you no longer a fan, really? Or are you differentiating Fannish from general enthusiasm? I'm a total geek for early German films, even though, like you say, there was some troubling stuff. 'Course there is just about everywhere, in art. *sigh*