hey square circuit, i couldn't leave a comment
I can't enter the coded letters properly to leave my comment. smenita. smenita. smenita. What else can I say?
To recap, here's the call for help, which is to my few, but knowledgable readers:
"Help! Suggestions solicited: I'm teaching a class on American culture of the 1920s and, obviously, I need to address film. But I know next to nothing about film of that time. Can anyone--thinking of you, zp, and your film friends--recommend easily available and representative films of the time that would work well for undergrads? Obviously I'm going to show parts of THE JAZZ SINGER and that Harold Lloyd film SAFETY LAST where he hangs from the clock. What else? Marx Brothers? Pre-code and Hays Office films? Did D.W. Griffith make popular films in the 1920s? Chaplin?"
And here's my response:
You brought out the librarian in me. Combine that with film and . . . I was totally stumped!
My strongest recommendation is The Crowd (King Vidor, 1928) - a silent melodrama (with lots of light comedy mixed in) that satires the American dream, the happy family and the 9-5 job. Great NYC scenes, Coney Island, Niagra Falls, sexual innuendo. Is that a ukelele you're holding? I saw this as an undergrad and I loved it then and love it now.
Chaplin's The Kid (1921) is good period slapstick and sentiment and social critique, and Oscar Micheaux's Within Our Gates (1920) is an interesting "response" from an African-American director to Griffith's Birth of a Nation. It's a lynching story and very moving and suspenseful and based on a novel.
I’ve been taught Keaton’s Our Hospitality more than once, but I find it dull on every level. I like The General better, for formal reasons, good crosscutting and use of train.
Hillman has all of the above.
I think film studies proper sort of ignores US films of the period . . . since most of the films really pale by comparison to other times (a little earlier, a little later) and places (Europe) . . . The following aren't recommendations, more a list of names that might be helpful if you played with IMDb for awhile:
Dorothy Arzner (female director) directed Clara Bow (prolific period hottie) in The Wild Party, a girls' school romance (1929).
Fairbanks and Anna May Wong appeared in Thief of Baghdad (1924) and Garbo in Wild Orchids (1929) if you want to explore an "orientalism" trend. Mary Pickford, Cecil B. DeMille's 10 Commandments (ug), Valentino . . . Anita Loos wrote screenplays, which might work nicely, depending on what kind of writing you are teaching, but I've never seen any of her films . . .
But abroad you have:
Metropolis (Fritz Lang 1927 German)
Pandora's Box with flapper icon Louise Brooks (GW Pabst 1929 German) Both of these directors eventually leave Germany to work in the US . . . and Murnau.
In France (1929), dark, artsy Dane Carl Dreyer made the Passion of Joan of Arc and Dali and Bunuel made Un Chien Andalou.
Eisenstein in the Soviet Union.
Picadilly (1929 Brit) is great, also with Anna May Wong, who works with Dietrich and Sternberg later in Shanghai Express (1932 US).
A little later too, there are the great Sternberg and Dietrich films: Blue Angel (1930 German) and Blonde Venus (1931 US).
And earlier, there are the great Griffith shorts (Corner in Wheat, New York Hat), the awful Birth of a Nation. Way Down East is (1920) OK, I guess. Also earlier are Mabel Normand, Fatty Arbuckle and the exotic siren from Cincinnati, Theda Bara.
So depending on how strictly you are thinking “American” and “1920s” any of these might be useful.
There are people who know a lot more about this period of US film, and they think its a gold mine (for proto-romantic comedies, I think), so happy hunting!
Categories: film, blogging
To recap, here's the call for help, which is to my few, but knowledgable readers:
"Help! Suggestions solicited: I'm teaching a class on American culture of the 1920s and, obviously, I need to address film. But I know next to nothing about film of that time. Can anyone--thinking of you, zp, and your film friends--recommend easily available and representative films of the time that would work well for undergrads? Obviously I'm going to show parts of THE JAZZ SINGER and that Harold Lloyd film SAFETY LAST where he hangs from the clock. What else? Marx Brothers? Pre-code and Hays Office films? Did D.W. Griffith make popular films in the 1920s? Chaplin?"
And here's my response:
You brought out the librarian in me. Combine that with film and . . . I was totally stumped!
My strongest recommendation is The Crowd (King Vidor, 1928) - a silent melodrama (with lots of light comedy mixed in) that satires the American dream, the happy family and the 9-5 job. Great NYC scenes, Coney Island, Niagra Falls, sexual innuendo. Is that a ukelele you're holding? I saw this as an undergrad and I loved it then and love it now. Chaplin's The Kid (1921) is good period slapstick and sentiment and social critique, and Oscar Micheaux's Within Our Gates (1920) is an interesting "response" from an African-American director to Griffith's Birth of a Nation. It's a lynching story and very moving and suspenseful and based on a novel.
I’ve been taught Keaton’s Our Hospitality more than once, but I find it dull on every level. I like The General better, for formal reasons, good crosscutting and use of train.
Hillman has all of the above.
I think film studies proper sort of ignores US films of the period . . . since most of the films really pale by comparison to other times (a little earlier, a little later) and places (Europe) . . . The following aren't recommendations, more a list of names that might be helpful if you played with IMDb for awhile:
Dorothy Arzner (female director) directed Clara Bow (prolific period hottie) in The Wild Party, a girls' school romance (1929).
Fairbanks and Anna May Wong appeared in Thief of Baghdad (1924) and Garbo in Wild Orchids (1929) if you want to explore an "orientalism" trend. Mary Pickford, Cecil B. DeMille's 10 Commandments (ug), Valentino . . . Anita Loos wrote screenplays, which might work nicely, depending on what kind of writing you are teaching, but I've never seen any of her films . . .
But abroad you have:
Metropolis (Fritz Lang 1927 German)
Pandora's Box with flapper icon Louise Brooks (GW Pabst 1929 German) Both of these directors eventually leave Germany to work in the US . . . and Murnau.
In France (1929), dark, artsy Dane Carl Dreyer made the Passion of Joan of Arc and Dali and Bunuel made Un Chien Andalou.
Eisenstein in the Soviet Union.
Picadilly (1929 Brit) is great, also with Anna May Wong, who works with Dietrich and Sternberg later in Shanghai Express (1932 US).
A little later too, there are the great Sternberg and Dietrich films: Blue Angel (1930 German) and Blonde Venus (1931 US).
And earlier, there are the great Griffith shorts (Corner in Wheat, New York Hat), the awful Birth of a Nation. Way Down East is (1920) OK, I guess. Also earlier are Mabel Normand, Fatty Arbuckle and the exotic siren from Cincinnati, Theda Bara.
So depending on how strictly you are thinking “American” and “1920s” any of these might be useful.
There are people who know a lot more about this period of US film, and they think its a gold mine (for proto-romantic comedies, I think), so happy hunting!
Categories: film, blogging
posted by zoe p. at 5:05 PM
4 Comments:
and von Stroheim's Greed, based on Norris's McTeague. I haven't seen this, but like Stroeheim and it comes highly recommended.
yes, Greed is a memorable one... also Steamboat Bill Jr., my favorite Keaton. If you want to approach it differently, Shadow Magic is a film about an American moving picture entrepreneur who goes to early 20th century China to sell the idea of the moving picture to a multigenerational culture that is at once resistant,fearful,overwhelmingly curious . One of my all-time favorites. Also Singin' in the Rain, while made much later, does tell the story of the first talkie. Please note I am no film expert, just an amateur watcher whose statements should be double-checked.
everything i know about silent film i learned from singin' in the rain. one of my all time favorites and, like Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. a very "meta" reflection on film technology.
I love The Crowd--it's in my top 5. Don't forget Murnau's Sunrise and Tabu! So beautiful, so sad.
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