As if it wasn’t bad enough – your husband’s banging a flapper from the city while you’re serving a roast made for two to you and you alone – now the bitch has gone and convinced him to drown you in the river!
This is the basic premise of “Sunrise, a Song of Two Humans.” It’s an absolutely hopeless scenario tempered by wonderfully composed “could-only-be-directed-by-a-German” camera shots and a magical “could-only-be-funded-by-a-Hollywood-studio” set. I love this film.
And it’s so much more than the basic premise. It’s lovely. No wonder it’s been called the Citizen Kane of silent films. I was forcing myself through silents until this film. This one was just different and poetic.
I have very distinct fears about marriage and having just gotten engaged the idea of two humans whose marriage has hit rock bottom is most terrifying. But this film gives me hope that even on the darkest night in the lives of two humans there is always the promise of sunrise.
Considered by many to be the first documentary, “Nanook of the North” (1921) follows Nanook “The Bear” as he leads his family across the ice floes of Hudson Bay. As chief of his Inuit band and a fearful hunter, Nanook represents an idealized version of masculinity for all the post-war, jazz age men of leisure looking to live vicariously through his adventures.
Nanook’s war is one against the elements. He fights with harpoon and spear to tame and exploit the “mysterious barren lands.” I was struck by the use of the term “barren” because of its association with the womb. Water (the most feminine element) has turned to ice here. A place where nothing can grow. A place that, not unlike the west in westerns, must be tamed, mastered, and colonized. The story is typically post-colonial and a bit – dare I say it?- boring.
Shot to watch:
The director chooses to focus extensively on the sled team revealing his sympathy for these poor animals. In a series of linked shots – the dogs sit stoically outside Nanook’s igloo in the middle of a gale and are almost completely buried by drifts of snow. Shudder.
When they’re not hanging out waiting for the train to arrive, the actresses of silent comedy tend to sit quietly in their skirts on the outskirts of the action powerless to alter their fathers’ decisions and dependent on the kindness of strangers. Nonetheless, because men will do anything for the love of a good woman (including act like complete idiots slipping on their own banana peels and pouring drinks down their pants – you know how it goes ladies), it’s the women who ultimately drive all the action.
In “City Lights” (1931) Chaplin’s love interest is a blind woman who cares for her destitute grandmother and a caged bird that is almost certainly allegorical. For a comedy, this film is actually quite poignant especially at its’ honest and uncertain ending where we are left wondering if letting the bird out of its cage has irretrievably damaged its spirit and ultimately broken the heart of our tramp hero.
I much preferred Buster Keaton’s “Sherlock Jr.” (1924) with its’ laugh-out-loud timing and Keaton’s fabulous portrayal of an inept “crime crushing criminologist.” Entrances and exits are beautifully executed and reminiscent of the stage. This similarity is by no means accidental. The film examines the movie as a medium allowing audiences to delight in being in a theater while watching on-screen theater goers who in turn watch a movie in which Keaton literally becomes entangled. The distinction between the reel and reality is blurred by special effects for both the viewer and Keaton’s character creating a real affinity between us and this flawed man. Oh, and did I mention? In this one, the girl saves the day. Eat that, locomotive!
I want to resurrect this blog with an apt entry on silent film femmes since I’ve been silent here for so long now. I’ve always wanted to watch the earliest movies created because – well - what if I die and never watched them? You know? So I went waaaaay back into the vaults and watched “The Arrival of a Train” (1895), “A Trip to the Moon” (1902) and “The Cheat” (1915), amongst other less notable films. (Don’t waste your time on a rarebit fiend – nuf said).
Two silent femmes command the era and I had hoped to compare Lillian Gish to Mary Pickford but I made the mistake of accidentally selecting “The Taming of the Shrew” (1929) to compare to “Birth of a Nation” (1915). Shrew is way out of Nation’s league and a real comparison is impossible for the following reasons:
1. Shrew is a talkie (oops – bad Pickford choice) and Birth is silent
2. Birth is an historical account of the KKK while Shrew is a Shakespearean comedy
3. “Birth of a Nation” is the grandfather of film. I literally set Shrew up to fail.
And so I can’t yet compare these two actresses. However, I can say that I think Shrew is an excellent example of the origins of slapstick and the extension of silent movement into the talkie era. Flamboyant gesticulation and overemphasized double takes actually did make me laugh. I still want to track down Pickford’s “Sparrows” to get a better sense of her talents.
Birth offers so many beautiful subtleties that it’s worth taking the time to watch it – over the course of a few days. One shot stays with me from the film – Elsie (Gish) hops onto a box lying in the yard before pursuing her brothers into the house. No reason. Just a little gesture. Lovely.
Ginger Rogers’ fabulous feathered gown complements Astaire’s cheeky character in the over the top Top Hat. As is usually the case with musical comedies, the couple falls in love despite themselves, the plot is tenuous and maddening at best and the sets (in this case Venice, Italy) are but skeletal frames for, what else, the dancing! Emotions exchanged by the tap of toes across the floor and the tenderness with which Fred pulls Ginger out of a triumphant dip are reason enough to watch this film. The dialogue is snippy and waltzes through the screenplay in a way which made me laugh in spite of myself.
Quotable quote:
“You mean to sit there and tell me that that girl slapped your face in front of all those people for nothing?”
Ragged and gnarled and stooped like a wind-bent tree,
Her basket full of combs and pins and laces?
Of course I took her poisoned gifts. I wanted
To feel her hands combing out my hair,
To let her lace me up, to take an apple
From her hand, a smile from her lips,
As when I was a child.”
Delia Sherman ~Snow White to the Prince~
Watching this classic again was like going back to my childhood but this time I noticed that the “happily every after” is, after all, a reference to the afterlife.
Billy Wilder strips Marlene Dietrich of much more than her pantsuit leg in A Witness for the Prosecution. Dietrich relinquishes her role as the quintessential femme fatale to reveal a tamer, more vulnerable version of the sexy German vixen. Crisp and smart, Dietrich’s character Mrs. Christine Vole is called to testify as a witness for the prosecution at her husband’s murder trial.
Throughout, Dietrich’s character is seemingly polarized by the significantly less enticing and comedic Miss. Plimsoll the nurse whose function appears to be limited to her failing struggle to deny our hero the Barrister Robarts of his personal vices while he presents his defense. And yet here is the crux of the film – a woman must be either a nuisance or a murderess unless she sacrifice herself for a man’s sins. In contrast, her counterpart can only support a woman’s crime if it fits within his concept of justice – consider Detective Spade’s ultimate decision in Huston’s Maltese Falcon.
Nonetheless, an excellent Sunday afternoon diversion!
Quotable quote: “I am surprised the testament did not leap from her hands…”
