elag <elag@cloud9.net> wrote in message news:<3F066371.15889405@cloud9.net>...
[snips]
> Parry wrote:
> > Anyway, attempting a survey of all the decapitations in
> > movies and literature would be quite an undertaking. Alas, I have
> > other utterly pointless projects to attend to first.
>
> The good thing about being a Filmmaker is that every project has a point
> if you just attach it to some future film springboard. Currently I'm
> watching as many silent films as possible; the point of which only I can see.
>
> Any suggestions?
I've seen only maybe three dozen silent features, and many shorts, but
have found most of them very affecting, as if their lack of colour and
noises give their imagery a more direct and intimate impact, like
being visited by ghosts. In a respect, the increasing verisimilitude
of films -- via colour, dialogue, sound effects -- takes them further
from dreams, and the current enthusiasm for special effects seems to
me to distance them from all human concern.
It's also a lost art, for a film done like that now would seem very
self-consciously stylized. There's a Canadian director named Guy
Maddin who tries, using iris shots and stilted action, but I've never
been able to sit through more than twenty minutes of one of his
movies. Tati's films were low on dialogue, which gave them a
deceptively "silent" feel. Sometimes the influence of silents burble
up in interesting ways. Coppola's Dracula relied on old-fashioned
in-camera effects, which I really liked. What I feel are James
Cameron's best movies are structured like the chase films one finds in
silents (I've suggested this unpopular theory here previously).
I once made a 16mm film that had sound/dialogue but also intertitles
that looked like silent film cards. I wasn't trying to be retro or
anything, it just seemed like an appropriate device. The cards would
comment on or confuse the action, and were good for making abrupt
transitions. When a scene was stopped by a title card, the action
could resume anywhere. I was probably taking after "O Lucky Man,"
which had title cards. Another time I crudely re-edited an 8mm copy of
a silent film and made a soundtrack for it from a Popeye the Sailor
album. It was almost watchable.
What sort of approaches do you think you could take? Perhaps just
filming with the intention of projecting the final result without
sound? Or are there other aspects of silents which appeal to you?
-- Parry
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