gagman 66
Dear Jeffery
1) I agree.
2) If only silents sold better - it's only a question of money...!
3) I've heard that they plan to include the original track with the Axt-Mendoza score and the sound effects as an alternative to the Carl Davis score.
4) Paramount don't seem to have any interest in bringing out our versions of WINGS or WEDDING MARCH. I've always had an ambition to do THE COVERED WAGON; they have the most beautiful print I've ever seen. But again, they feel it has no commercial value.
5) I think a compromise has been reached.
6) The people who make the decisions in these companies are your sort of age, but unlike you, they have probably never seen a silent film in their lives and have as much interest in them as you have in Differential Calculus.
7) Quite agree. If only it didn't cost so much we could do a lot ourselves, using Kodascopes, Show-at-Homes and even 9.5mm prints. Grapevine brought out a lot of rare titles, but the prints they used were invariably awful. The only thing silents have going for them are the visuals - degrade those and you lose everything. Sunrise Silents , for instance,is putting out wonderful titles in appalling prints - such a waste of effort when with a little discrimination they could be doing us, not to mention posterity, such a favour.
8) I love many talkies too - but remember that bad films were produced at all periods. Audiences for the silents had to endure programme pictures made on Poverty Row. The producers would hire a star for a day, shoot all they needed, then fill the six reels in the quickest way possible. This invariably resulted in desperately dull pictures - they even cranked them faster to fill up the six reels quicker. They were intended for 'transients', meaning people with time to kill between trains, or tramps, willing to pay 5c
for a sleep.
9) I just showed some silents in Ireland and while the audience loved them all, they were particularly impressed by an almost-forgotten French silent called CHILDREN'S FACES (VISAGES D'ENFANTS) which I believe Image put out on DVD over there. highly recommended; one of the finest films about children - and shot in Switzerland. Dir Jacques Feyder. Restored by the splendid Lobster Films in Paris.
10) Glad you approve of HOLLYWOOD and i just hope Fremantle manage to sort out the rights. Incidentally, i think it scandalous that there should still be rights attached to silent films - rights are invariably owned by the wrong people! The Library of Congress should allow everything before sound to fall into the public domain.
Thanks again for your kind remarks - and for your enthusiasm.
Questions for Kevin Brownlow
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KevinBrownlow
- Posts: 36
- Joined: April 10th, 2008, 10:32 am
Sue Sue Applegate
Dear Christy
Thank you for your welcome!
You have asked me a very tricky question. I have to admit that when i hear the term 'Media Studies' I reach for my revolver. So many film teachers transform this wonderfully democratic art into something incomprehensible by devising a new language. Here's an example; The adversary possesses such weaponry as 'a structuralist grid focussed around the frontier's dialectical play of forces embodied in the master binary opposition of the wilderness and civilization.' (Horizons West, Jim Kitses) And that's from a book about westerns! I have been in the film industry for fifty years and I've never met anyone who uses this language. But i have met students who have fled from such lectures in despair. (David Weddle wrote a marvellous article about this problem in the L A Times Jul 13 O3 under the title 'Lights, Camera, Action, Marxism, Semiotics, Narratology.' And Robert Fisk wrote in our English newspaper The Independent (14 May 2005) 'Let us rebel against poisonous academics and their preposterous claptrap of exclusion' ) Why do we need to learn a new language? Isn't English the most expressive language there is? The lack of rigour in American schools may be a blessing in disguise!
I just hope you have been lucky enough to avoid all this nonsense, and that if you become a teacher, you will respect your pupils and talk about films in terms that will not put them off for life.
Now be as rude as you like in your reply; I would be most intrigued to read your comments.
Dear Christy
Thank you for your welcome!
You have asked me a very tricky question. I have to admit that when i hear the term 'Media Studies' I reach for my revolver. So many film teachers transform this wonderfully democratic art into something incomprehensible by devising a new language. Here's an example; The adversary possesses such weaponry as 'a structuralist grid focussed around the frontier's dialectical play of forces embodied in the master binary opposition of the wilderness and civilization.' (Horizons West, Jim Kitses) And that's from a book about westerns! I have been in the film industry for fifty years and I've never met anyone who uses this language. But i have met students who have fled from such lectures in despair. (David Weddle wrote a marvellous article about this problem in the L A Times Jul 13 O3 under the title 'Lights, Camera, Action, Marxism, Semiotics, Narratology.' And Robert Fisk wrote in our English newspaper The Independent (14 May 2005) 'Let us rebel against poisonous academics and their preposterous claptrap of exclusion' ) Why do we need to learn a new language? Isn't English the most expressive language there is? The lack of rigour in American schools may be a blessing in disguise!
I just hope you have been lucky enough to avoid all this nonsense, and that if you become a teacher, you will respect your pupils and talk about films in terms that will not put them off for life.
Now be as rude as you like in your reply; I would be most intrigued to read your comments.
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KevinBrownlow
- Posts: 36
- Joined: April 10th, 2008, 10:32 am
Miss Goddess
Thank you!
I would have a hard time picking 'the most interesting' because the silent film veterans were the most remarkable people I have ever met. I select Abel Gance because he made my favourite silent film, NAPOLEON, even though he may not have made anything subsequently of comparable quality. Going to his house was like meeting a great French author, like Victor Hugo. He had books everywhere and slogans stuck on his wall to keep his spirits up. He was fantastically eloquent. A handsome man, he looked as a great artist should, and while he could lecture you with great intensity, he could puncture any pomposity with a joke. He was very endearing in that way and I cursed at my limited French (I always had to take an interpreter). He had cupboards full of unrealised scripts. One always came away from a meeting with Gance exhilarated and enthusiastic about this extraordinary art we work in.
Thank you!
I would have a hard time picking 'the most interesting' because the silent film veterans were the most remarkable people I have ever met. I select Abel Gance because he made my favourite silent film, NAPOLEON, even though he may not have made anything subsequently of comparable quality. Going to his house was like meeting a great French author, like Victor Hugo. He had books everywhere and slogans stuck on his wall to keep his spirits up. He was fantastically eloquent. A handsome man, he looked as a great artist should, and while he could lecture you with great intensity, he could puncture any pomposity with a joke. He was very endearing in that way and I cursed at my limited French (I always had to take an interpreter). He had cupboards full of unrealised scripts. One always came away from a meeting with Gance exhilarated and enthusiastic about this extraordinary art we work in.
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Ann Harding
- Posts: 1246
- Joined: January 11th, 2008, 11:03 am
- Location: Paris
- Contact:
Mr Brownlow! I was just reading your wonderful description of Abel Gance. You NEED to make a documentary about the man! 
I have seen many Gance talkies which are incredibly over-the-top, probably in keeping with the man himself.
This is SO discouraging to read that silent films are not taken seriously by studios and decision makers.....
I really hope you can get some support from some company or TV channel. 
I have seen many Gance talkies which are incredibly over-the-top, probably in keeping with the man himself. This is SO discouraging to read that silent films are not taken seriously by studios and decision makers.....
I really hope you can get some support from some company or TV channel. -
KevinBrownlow
- Posts: 36
- Joined: April 10th, 2008, 10:32 am
Avalon
Dear Jennifer
I am thrilled to know that my book had such an effect on you. If you have an original edition, send me your address and I'll mail you the Additions and Corrections pages that appear in the Univ of Calif edition.
I wish I knew how to advise you; I got into this career by accident. I set out to be a feature film director - and didn't make it. Not a path I would recommend for you! While there are quite a few outlets for articles on silent films, few of them pay...and those that do, pay very little. If you have a good knowledge of the period, perhaps you could offer lectures to film schools - especially the archive school at Eastman House. But this, too, is a difficult route.
In any case, i wish you luck.
Dear Jennifer
I am thrilled to know that my book had such an effect on you. If you have an original edition, send me your address and I'll mail you the Additions and Corrections pages that appear in the Univ of Calif edition.
I wish I knew how to advise you; I got into this career by accident. I set out to be a feature film director - and didn't make it. Not a path I would recommend for you! While there are quite a few outlets for articles on silent films, few of them pay...and those that do, pay very little. If you have a good knowledge of the period, perhaps you could offer lectures to film schools - especially the archive school at Eastman House. But this, too, is a difficult route.
In any case, i wish you luck.
Hello Mr Kevin Brownlow.Thank you for visiting this site! Ever since I started taking an interest in silent cinema, I have been a big fan of your work.
I have watched your documentary Cinema Europe. I thought it was brilliant, but I missed an episode about Russian cinema. I heard you wanted to make it, but were unable to. My question is, What were the problems then, and would it be possible to make it today, with the proper financing?
Synnove
I have watched your documentary Cinema Europe. I thought it was brilliant, but I missed an episode about Russian cinema. I heard you wanted to make it, but were unable to. My question is, What were the problems then, and would it be possible to make it today, with the proper financing?
Synnove
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KevinBrownlow
- Posts: 36
- Joined: April 10th, 2008, 10:32 am
CoffeeDan
1) the moviegoing public adored silent pictures, but they also adored radio and when they realised that the two could be combined, paradise! However, had the studios had the courage, silents could have continued alongside talkies for a long time. But too much had been invested and so silents were mocked. Those that had been brought up on silents never lost their affection, but many were persuaded that they were old hat and ridiculous. When I started my interest in silent films in the early 1950s, people told me they were 'ludicrous, badly photographed, badly acted antiques'. They belonged to the generation that just missed silents, but had been affected by this propaganda.
2) That's a fascinating observation. You'll notice that the earlier films tend to be around five reels. The later films tend to be eight to ten. The earlier films run between 16-20 frames a second. The 1920s films mostly ran around 24. Nowadays, projectionists have to guess the speed and those with respect for the period tend to run them too slow. A couple of frames too slow can add a reel or two to a long feature. I remember WINGS being shown at our National Film Theatre in London, at the so-called 'standard' speed for silents of l6 fps ,and it lasted forty minutes longer than it had in 1927! It was v-e-r-y slow.
Oh, D W Griffith's films had to be projected slower than almost anyone else's - why I do not know. Triangle changed their speed during the production of INTOLERANCE and so three stories run at 18 fps while the Modern Story - the first to be shot - goes at 16! Very odd.
But most mainstream American silents of the 1920s can safely be projected at 24,; even if they were shot slower, people got used to the slightly accelerated pace and complained when in talkies - shot and screened at a rigid 24 - actors seemed to be floating in slow-motion
Continental pictures, projected around 20fps, were (and indeed are) much slower than American films. The Americans used to lop three reels out of German pictures as a matter of course. I could never understand this; surely the German producers wanted their films to make as much money as American films? But no, I was told. German audiences liked to spend a whole evening at the cinema and they preferred the steady pace. in which case, why did the queues wrap themselves around theatres playing Hollywood movies?
It must be remembered that going to a first-run theatre was a Big Event; you got live prologues and comedies and cartoons and newsreels and you staggered out after three hours or more. Movie-goers poured on to Times Sq and Broadway in such numbers the police had to divert the traffic. Audiences proved again and again they loved movies almost uncritically. One director told me he felt that people would be happy watching 1,000 feet of Norma Talmadge in an armchair. The longer a picture lasted, the happier some people were. You can read exhibitors' reports on silent pictures from theatre managers protesting against all sorts of things, but pace was seldom mentioned.
Now, sacrilege; I believe that some silent films should be released on DVD in two versions - a condensed version and the full original. I saw THE WIFE OF THE PHAROAH by Lubitsch in Germany, restored by the Munich Film Museum - a brilliant film, and an outstanding restoration. But the pace is so terribly slow that the film will probably never be made available. However, if people saw a reduced version and realised how astonishingly well shot it is, some of them may be tempted to watch the entire thing.
Then again, silent films will always seem slower because audiences were not accustomed to 30-second commercials and didn't pick up dramatic points as fast as we do today after more than a century of moving pictures.
3) yes, presentation of big silent pictures was often spectacular. David Gill and I interviewed director Arthur Lubin for our documentary on D W Griffith because as a kid he had dropped cannonballs along wooden runways to suggest the sound of distant gunfire for the San Diego presentation of THE BIRTH OF A NATION. He was just one of several special effects men. CHANG, the Cooper-Schoedsack drama-documentary, had 6 foot thunder drums behind the screen which went into action when the screen enlarged for the elephant stampede. Exhibitors were always trying to turn silents into sound films! WINGS was so successful that in 1929 it was equipped with an RCA Photophone track consisting of the sound of aeroplane engines and machine guns - and run double head - separate from the picture - to thrilled audiences. (The orchestra was still pounding away in the pit).
1) the moviegoing public adored silent pictures, but they also adored radio and when they realised that the two could be combined, paradise! However, had the studios had the courage, silents could have continued alongside talkies for a long time. But too much had been invested and so silents were mocked. Those that had been brought up on silents never lost their affection, but many were persuaded that they were old hat and ridiculous. When I started my interest in silent films in the early 1950s, people told me they were 'ludicrous, badly photographed, badly acted antiques'. They belonged to the generation that just missed silents, but had been affected by this propaganda.
2) That's a fascinating observation. You'll notice that the earlier films tend to be around five reels. The later films tend to be eight to ten. The earlier films run between 16-20 frames a second. The 1920s films mostly ran around 24. Nowadays, projectionists have to guess the speed and those with respect for the period tend to run them too slow. A couple of frames too slow can add a reel or two to a long feature. I remember WINGS being shown at our National Film Theatre in London, at the so-called 'standard' speed for silents of l6 fps ,and it lasted forty minutes longer than it had in 1927! It was v-e-r-y slow.
Oh, D W Griffith's films had to be projected slower than almost anyone else's - why I do not know. Triangle changed their speed during the production of INTOLERANCE and so three stories run at 18 fps while the Modern Story - the first to be shot - goes at 16! Very odd.
But most mainstream American silents of the 1920s can safely be projected at 24,; even if they were shot slower, people got used to the slightly accelerated pace and complained when in talkies - shot and screened at a rigid 24 - actors seemed to be floating in slow-motion
Continental pictures, projected around 20fps, were (and indeed are) much slower than American films. The Americans used to lop three reels out of German pictures as a matter of course. I could never understand this; surely the German producers wanted their films to make as much money as American films? But no, I was told. German audiences liked to spend a whole evening at the cinema and they preferred the steady pace. in which case, why did the queues wrap themselves around theatres playing Hollywood movies?
It must be remembered that going to a first-run theatre was a Big Event; you got live prologues and comedies and cartoons and newsreels and you staggered out after three hours or more. Movie-goers poured on to Times Sq and Broadway in such numbers the police had to divert the traffic. Audiences proved again and again they loved movies almost uncritically. One director told me he felt that people would be happy watching 1,000 feet of Norma Talmadge in an armchair. The longer a picture lasted, the happier some people were. You can read exhibitors' reports on silent pictures from theatre managers protesting against all sorts of things, but pace was seldom mentioned.
Now, sacrilege; I believe that some silent films should be released on DVD in two versions - a condensed version and the full original. I saw THE WIFE OF THE PHAROAH by Lubitsch in Germany, restored by the Munich Film Museum - a brilliant film, and an outstanding restoration. But the pace is so terribly slow that the film will probably never be made available. However, if people saw a reduced version and realised how astonishingly well shot it is, some of them may be tempted to watch the entire thing.
Then again, silent films will always seem slower because audiences were not accustomed to 30-second commercials and didn't pick up dramatic points as fast as we do today after more than a century of moving pictures.
3) yes, presentation of big silent pictures was often spectacular. David Gill and I interviewed director Arthur Lubin for our documentary on D W Griffith because as a kid he had dropped cannonballs along wooden runways to suggest the sound of distant gunfire for the San Diego presentation of THE BIRTH OF A NATION. He was just one of several special effects men. CHANG, the Cooper-Schoedsack drama-documentary, had 6 foot thunder drums behind the screen which went into action when the screen enlarged for the elephant stampede. Exhibitors were always trying to turn silents into sound films! WINGS was so successful that in 1929 it was equipped with an RCA Photophone track consisting of the sound of aeroplane engines and machine guns - and run double head - separate from the picture - to thrilled audiences. (The orchestra was still pounding away in the pit).
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KevinBrownlow
- Posts: 36
- Joined: April 10th, 2008, 10:32 am
drednm
Dear Ed Lorusso
One way wlould be for American archives to form a co-operative to make such films available. They do a wonderful job with TREASURES OF AMERICAN ARCHIVES - did you see the latest, with splendid films by Wm Desmond Taylor,(SOUL OF YOUTH), Victor Schertzinger (REDSKIN - partly in Technicolor) and even De Mille's GODLESS GIRL? But there are masses of others just waiting for a philanthropist on the scale of Andrew Carnegie to create a DVD library of outstanding but forgotten films. I would start with UCLA's fabulous collection of Kodascopes from the John Hampton Silent movie theatre. These we owe to David Packard's generosity. Alas, he is not particularly interested in silents - his period starts with sound. Nonetheless, he has saved hundreds of rarities and it wouldn't cost that much to bring them out in simple, unadorned versions. Bob Gitt has restored quite a few of them. But as always you run into legal problems - the very studios which destroyed the films retained the rights and their lawyers would make life as difficult as they can because that's their job. Let the lLbrary of Congress proclaim an amnesty - think of the titles which would pop out of private collections!
Dear Ed Lorusso
One way wlould be for American archives to form a co-operative to make such films available. They do a wonderful job with TREASURES OF AMERICAN ARCHIVES - did you see the latest, with splendid films by Wm Desmond Taylor,(SOUL OF YOUTH), Victor Schertzinger (REDSKIN - partly in Technicolor) and even De Mille's GODLESS GIRL? But there are masses of others just waiting for a philanthropist on the scale of Andrew Carnegie to create a DVD library of outstanding but forgotten films. I would start with UCLA's fabulous collection of Kodascopes from the John Hampton Silent movie theatre. These we owe to David Packard's generosity. Alas, he is not particularly interested in silents - his period starts with sound. Nonetheless, he has saved hundreds of rarities and it wouldn't cost that much to bring them out in simple, unadorned versions. Bob Gitt has restored quite a few of them. But as always you run into legal problems - the very studios which destroyed the films retained the rights and their lawyers would make life as difficult as they can because that's their job. Let the lLbrary of Congress proclaim an amnesty - think of the titles which would pop out of private collections!
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KevinBrownlow
- Posts: 36
- Joined: April 10th, 2008, 10:32 am
Ann Harding
I did make a documentary about him - it will start the TCM Gance retrospective on April 27th (I think). I made it in 1968 and gave it the title (a quote from a co-worker) THE CHARM OF DYNAMITE. Yes, the Gance talkies were very OTT. He told me he made many of them 'with my eyes shut' - i.e. to stay alive.
I did make a documentary about him - it will start the TCM Gance retrospective on April 27th (I think). I made it in 1968 and gave it the title (a quote from a co-worker) THE CHARM OF DYNAMITE. Yes, the Gance talkies were very OTT. He told me he made many of them 'with my eyes shut' - i.e. to stay alive.
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KevinBrownlow
- Posts: 36
- Joined: April 10th, 2008, 10:32 am
Dear Synnove
Thank you...
We were given thirteen episode to cover Hollywood in the silent days. Ten years later, we only got six for the whole of Europe. So our first decision was to jettison Russia - which could do with a thirteen part series all to itself. We also by-passed Spain, because they had just completed a series of their own on their silent era - and there were 13 parts to that, as I remember. Smaller industries like Austria and Poland we also had to by-pass to squeeze in the six that we completed. Yes, a documentary on Russia would be a fascinating project to work on, but I think there are better qualified people to do it than me.
Thank you...
We were given thirteen episode to cover Hollywood in the silent days. Ten years later, we only got six for the whole of Europe. So our first decision was to jettison Russia - which could do with a thirteen part series all to itself. We also by-passed Spain, because they had just completed a series of their own on their silent era - and there were 13 parts to that, as I remember. Smaller industries like Austria and Poland we also had to by-pass to squeeze in the six that we completed. Yes, a documentary on Russia would be a fascinating project to work on, but I think there are better qualified people to do it than me.
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KevinBrownlow
- Posts: 36
- Joined: April 10th, 2008, 10:32 am
silent screen
Dear Brenda
I was so impressed by the documentary series THE WORLD AT WAR that I wrote a fan letter to the producer, Jeremy Isaacs at Thames TV. He replied saying that by coincidence he had just given all his crew a farewell present - a copy of my book The Parade's Gone By... And he felt there was a series in it. He envisaged a history of Hollywood from the beginning until now (1975). I could cope with the silent era but was not too knowledgeable about the rest. Never mind; Fox saved my bacon. They announced a series called THAT'S HOLLYWOOD - a history of Hollywood from the beginning. Thames were worried; eventually they asked me if I thought there was a series in the silent era alone. Ha!
I knew many of the people from the interviews I had done for the book. Sue McConachy, just off THE WORLD AT WAR, (when as a fluent German speaker she interviewed all the Nazis,) went ahead and talked to the people I hadn't so far met. None of us knew where Viola Dana was. One weekend, I went into a bookshop in Santa Monica, and a young man followed me out. I increased my pace and so did he. I tried as hard as I could to throw him off, but he finally came up and told me that he was from Mexico, he had seen me examine a book on silent films and he had just met....Viola Dana. Was i interested? He was very generous and I often wonder what happened to him. i would like to thank him, because Viola Dana gave us one of the most moving interviews.
Dear Brenda
I was so impressed by the documentary series THE WORLD AT WAR that I wrote a fan letter to the producer, Jeremy Isaacs at Thames TV. He replied saying that by coincidence he had just given all his crew a farewell present - a copy of my book The Parade's Gone By... And he felt there was a series in it. He envisaged a history of Hollywood from the beginning until now (1975). I could cope with the silent era but was not too knowledgeable about the rest. Never mind; Fox saved my bacon. They announced a series called THAT'S HOLLYWOOD - a history of Hollywood from the beginning. Thames were worried; eventually they asked me if I thought there was a series in the silent era alone. Ha!
I knew many of the people from the interviews I had done for the book. Sue McConachy, just off THE WORLD AT WAR, (when as a fluent German speaker she interviewed all the Nazis,) went ahead and talked to the people I hadn't so far met. None of us knew where Viola Dana was. One weekend, I went into a bookshop in Santa Monica, and a young man followed me out. I increased my pace and so did he. I tried as hard as I could to throw him off, but he finally came up and told me that he was from Mexico, he had seen me examine a book on silent films and he had just met....Viola Dana. Was i interested? He was very generous and I often wonder what happened to him. i would like to thank him, because Viola Dana gave us one of the most moving interviews.
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KevinBrownlow
- Posts: 36
- Joined: April 10th, 2008, 10:32 am
Dear Synnove
Noticing you are in Sweden, you'll be amused to know that when our Swedish episode of CINEMA EUROPE was shown in the UK, we got an angry letter from the Swedish wife of a television executive, complaining that Kenneth Branagh's pronunciation of Swedish words was appalling! I hope you saw it with a commentary in Swedish.
Since then, we did an 85 minute documentary on Garbo. Julie Christie did the commentary. We tried harder to get the names right, but again, I hope that if you saw it, it had a Swedish-language commentary!
Noticing you are in Sweden, you'll be amused to know that when our Swedish episode of CINEMA EUROPE was shown in the UK, we got an angry letter from the Swedish wife of a television executive, complaining that Kenneth Branagh's pronunciation of Swedish words was appalling! I hope you saw it with a commentary in Swedish.
Since then, we did an 85 minute documentary on Garbo. Julie Christie did the commentary. We tried harder to get the names right, but again, I hope that if you saw it, it had a Swedish-language commentary!
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KevinBrownlow
- Posts: 36
- Joined: April 10th, 2008, 10:32 am
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Ann Harding
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