Why Silents?
Why watch silent films in these high-definition, surround-sound, digitally-enhanced times? The answer is simple: the best silent comedies are still hilarious, the best silent dramas and documentaries still tell us something about human emotions, about how people lived, loved and hoped in earlier times and different social conditions.
The Wiveliscombe Festival of Silent Cinema gives you a rare opportunity to see some of the classic films from the 20s.
What you see is what you get!
One of the most exciting things about silent films is that most actions were done for real, usually by the stars, with harness, wires, superimposition, matte-shots or, of course, computer-generated imagery. The directors of several recent action films have gone back to using stunt-men and real time mechanical effects because audiences are tiring of computer trickery: where anything is possible, nothing is surprising. It’s immediacy, the feel of authenticity, the experimentation with techniques that were not yet commonplace, that make silent films so alive.
The sound of silents
The silents may have been filmed without sound, but they were never intended to be watched without it. In the biggest cinemas films would be accompanied by orchestras playing specially-composed music and supplying sound effects. Event the smallest provincial cinema would have a pianist who would follow suggested cues in a “crib” book or improvise the accompaniment. Today’s restored prints have a musical soundtrack added, but for our Saturday screenings we are lucky enough to have the distinguished Anglo-Polish jazz saxophonist Jan Koplinski and keyboard wizard Steve Iliffe from Pinski Zoo playing live.
17th to 19th November 2006
- Friday 17th November – 7:30pm – Pandora’s Box (dir. G.W.Pabst) – The controversial story of passion and murder starring Louise Brooks
- Saturday 18th November – 3:30pm – Berlin: Symphony of a Great City / A Propros de Nice – Innovative documentaries directed by Walter Ruttman and Jean Vigo
- Saturday 18th November – 7:30pm – Nosferatu (dir. F.W.Murnau) – The original Dracula film
- Sunday 19th November – 3:30pm – The General – Brilliant American Civil War comedy adventure directed and written by, and staring Buster Keaton
Screening take place as the New Hall, Wiveliscombe Primary School, North Street, Wiveliscombe, Somerset TA4 2LA
Tickets: £4 for individual shows, £15 for the season
Available on the door or in advance from Wiveliscombe Community Office and Wiveliscombe Post Office. Further information and advance bookings also available from 01984 629114 or 01984 624564
Film Summaries
Pandora's Box (1928)
To mark the centenary of Louise Brooks' birth (and the 21st anniversary of her death) we are opening the festival with Pandora's Box, her best known and most controversial film. Based on Wedekind's 'Lulu' plays it caused a scandal when first released. In 1995 Time Out polled a host of film-makers and commentators on the best films ever made, and Pandora's Box was included in the Top 100. Brooks is at her most charismatic, glamorous and radiant, despite the sordid situation of her character. Lulu is a high-class call-girl with several rather middle-aged but affluent admirers, one of whom she manipulates into marrying her. Later, after accidentally killing him, she escapes to London, where she lives in poverty. On Christmas Eve she goes out into the snowy streets, forced to take up her trade again, but there are more dangerous characters then Father Christmas out and about.
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927)
Although nearly 80 years old, Berlin: Symphony of a Great City still looks innovative, with an immediacy that draws you into the lives of the city's people. Much of it was filmed with hidden cameras, and on the whole the makers are content to stand back and let us simply observe a day in the life of Berlin's inhabitants. Sometimes, though, an element of social injustice moves them to comment by using startling juxtapositions of images.
A Propos de Nice (1929)
A Propos de Nice is a highly entertaining short film about the Riviera resort made by Jean Vigo, best-known for the subversive Zero de Conduite with influenced Lindsey Anderson's notorious 'If...' (1969).
Nosferatu (1922)
Nosferatu the name means "plague-carrier" and was the first filmed version of Dracula, although for legal reasons the Count was re-named Orlok. Unlike later characterisations by Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, and Louis Jordan, Orlok is not a suave, seductive figure but a living corpse with rodentine features. It was this film, not the original Bram Stoker novel, that introduced the tradition that sunlight was fatal to vampires, but if Orlok is to be lured to his destruction a distressing sacrifice is necessary.
At the Saturday screenings live accompaniment will be provided by JAN KOPLINSKI (saxophones) and STEVE ILIFFE (keyboards and electronics) from PINSKI ZOO. Now in its 27th year, Pinski Zoo has released several highly-acclaimed albums and earned kudos around the world. Jan is also an expert on silent films and East European cinema.
The General (1926)
The General is probably Buster Keaton's most famous film and was inspired by an actual incident in the American Civil War. A Southern train-driver makes a dangerous journey into enemy territory to retrieve his beloved engine from a group of Union marauders who stole it during a raid behind Confederate lines. As well as starring in, Keaton directed, produced and co-wrote the film, and went to great lengths to make the film historically accurate, even tracking down a locomotive from the 1860s. The General contains some of Keaton's most elegant stunts and funniest gags, but as well as being a great comedy it is also a great piece of film-making, staged, directed, performed, edited and photographed with considerable skill and sophistication.
