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Silent film screenings in London
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Capturing Colour: Film, Invention and Wonder
Early Cinema Myth No 1 is surely that all silent films were black and white. It’s not true in the slightest, which is why we’re so keen to see this new exhibition in Brighton, which explores early attempts to achieve colour - from magic lanterns onwards.
We take the moving image in colour for granted, but the search for a way to capture the world in colour is a story of ingenious inventions, personal obsession, magic and illusion, scientific discovery, glamour, hard work and determination.
The Capturing Colour exhibition is at the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery until 20 March 2011 and admission is free.
Silent London is planning a field trip to take a look at the show later in the week - we’ll report back here.
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Women Make Film History at the Women’s Library
A quick mention for this event at the Women’s Libary on Saturday, which comprises a screening of several feminist films, followed by a discussion led by a panel including Professor June Purvis and Christine Gledhill.
The screening kicks off with some silents of course: four militant suffrage comedies from 1910. Sounds great.
Tickets are £8 or £6 for concessions.
The afternoon screenings illustrate women’s relationship with the cinema through a wide range of films, moving from early suffragette films which demonstrate cinema’s role - not always complimentary - in making visible women’s political activity in the public sphere, to women’s later use of film to examine what it means to be a woman in the workplace, and finally to the flowering of women’s alternative practices using animation.
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The Docks of New York at the National Gallery
This is a real one-off. Josef Von Sternberg’s The Docks of New York, starring George Bancroft and Betty Compson, screens at the National Gallery at 2.30pm tomorrow, that’s Saturday 4 December. Bancroft plays a sailor on shore leave in the Big Apple, who falls for Compson’s jaded dancer.
Fog-enshrouded cinematography by Harold Rosson (The Wizard of Oz), expressionist set design by Hans Dreier (Sunset Boulevard), and sensual performances by Bancroft and Compson make this one of the legendary director’s finest works, and one of the most exquisitely crafted films of its era.
This looks like something very special, on a weekend already jam-packed with silent screenings in London.
Tickets are £6 or £4 for concessions, but online booking has now closed - so you’ll have to get down to the gallery to get your seat.
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Scrooge, or Marley’s Ghost (1901), surely the very first film adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, courtesy of the BFI YouTube channel. What would the muppets think? The special effects are pretty good, but I’m not so sure about the ghost’s costume.
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The silent film was not only a vigorous popular art; it was a universal language - Esperanto for the eyes.
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Beyond the M25: Slapstick Fest in Bristol
Bristol is only three hours away on the train, so we couldn’t resist bringing this weekend of silent slapstick to your attention. The Slapstick Festival runs from 27-30 January across several venues in the city.
There’s a Gala Event on the Friday night featuring Barry Cryer, Ian Lavender, Neil Innes and Bill Oddie. Other highlights in the festival, as far as Silent London is concerned, include Kevin Brownlow introducing some unseen Chaplin footage on the Thursday, Mantrap starring Clara Bow on Friday, and Rediscoveries and Revelations!, a bonanza of lost films on Sunday morning.
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Silent films for No0bs
A fun, and very informative, introduction to early cinema from Forgetthetalkies.com
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BFI silents: January roundup
There is lots to look forward to in the BFI’s January schedule.
First up, we are very excited about Hamlet (1920) starring Asta Nielsen. This is the first UK screening of a new print of the film, with a new score by Claire van Kampen. Silent Shakespeare has a special place in Silent London’s heart and this is a classic. Some people can get a bit agitated about the fact that Asta Nielsen, who plays Hamlet, is a woman. But she’s Danish too, which is more than you can say for Laurence Olivier. Plus, the film puts a little twist on the plot of the play, which explains everything.
Hamlet is on Thursday 27 January at 8.45pm.
Second, is The Birth of a Nation (1915). It’s horribly racist and terribly long, but DW Griffith’s epic is a game-changer in the history of feature films. Plus, it is shown here with an introduction by Oscar-winner Kevin Brownlow - so this is a good time to catch it, if you haven’t seen it already.
The Birth of a Nation is on Monday 24 January at 6.10pm.
The Howard Hawks retrospective was always going to be a treat, but we’re really pleased to see five silent features (and one incomplete film, Trent’s Last Case, as well) in there.
Fig Leaves (1926) is on 1 January at 6.30pm and 5 January at 8.40pm.
The Cradle Snatchers (1927) with Trent’s Last Case (1929) is on 1 January at 8.40pm and 7 January 6.20pm.
Paid to Love (1927) is on 2 January at 4.10pm and 10 January at 8.30pm.
A Girl in Every Port (1928), which stars Louise Brooks, is on 2 January at 6.30pm and 7 January at 8.45pm.
Fazil (1928) screens on 2 January 8.40pm and 10 January at 6.30pm.
All of the Hawks films are shown in NFT2 and have live piano accompaniment.
Honourable mention also to a short, London After Dark (1926), shown as a companion piece to Say it With Flowers (1934) on Wednesday 12 January 6.30pm.
Priority booking for BFI members is open on 7 December.
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A visit to a cinema is a little outing in itself. It breaks the monotony of an afternoon or evening; it gives a change from the surroundings of home, however pleasant.
