A Medley of Short Silent Films by Women
Sep. 7th, 2019 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerThe IU Cinema was showing a medley of short silent films by women on Thursday, and after much waffling - it is a long drive just to see a movie - I went, and I’m glad I did because I had a delightful time. Tea at my favorite tea shop! Catching up on correspondence! A quick stop at the cafe where I used to work to pick up my favorite cookie for morning tea the next day! And then, of course, the movies.
I have a lot of trouble paying attention to old silent films when I try to watch them at home, even if they have a soundtrack (and if there isn’t a soundtrack, good night), but for whatever reason it’s a lot easier in a movie theaters. I expected a less modern accompaniment - I sort of twitched when a rap song started playing to accompany Lois Weber’s “Lost by a Hair”- however, the songs were well-chosen to accompany their subjects, so once I’d adjusted my expectations it went well enough.
A few highlights:
The surviving reels of Marion E. Wong’s The Curse of Quon Gwon, but I’m going to give that its own post.
A selection of Zora Neale Hurston’s ethnographic films, filmed in the 1920s in the black communities of central and south Florida; it looked to me like someone (Hurston herself?) came back later and cut them together to make a sort of silent documentary, which makes it more fun to watch, but I would have liked to know who did it. (The cutting is particularly obvious in the segment called “Girl Rocking,” with a young woman in a rocking chair; the camera cuts in close to her face, then cuts out, then we get a close-up of her foot on the porch floor as she rocks, etc.) It’s fascinating to watch; I particularly liked the segment about the sea baptism, and the different children’s clapping and dancing games.
“That Ice Ticket,” a short film about a young woman juggling a trio of suitors, whose little brother decides to “help” her by putting up a smallpox quarantine sign to see which one is willing to risk illness to see her. (He’s lucky they don’t all run for it!) This is an example of regional cinema; the director/lead actress, Angela Murray Gibson, made movies in the small community of Casselton, North Dakota. Before the big studios took over movie production in the mid-twenties, a lot of little regional movie companies popped up like this: Nell Shipman’s Idaho outfit at Priest Lake is another example. There’s not a whole lot of information about them and many of the films haven’t survived, so it was a treat to see one.
However, probably my very favorite film was the last one, episode nine of Hazards of Helen: “Leap from the Water Tower.” We’re introduced to Helen when she rides on screen on her horse, wearing a divided skirt and a cowboy hat, with her little dog running at her side, and I was all, “Not to be dramatic, but I would die for Helen.”
Not that I would ever need to die for Helen, because Helen is the original plucky heroine and would obviously be the one saving me as I swooned on a handcar after being kidnapped by villains or something.
Anyway, in this episode, Helen (who is a telegraph operator) receives a message that a train has been SABOTAGED! - so she rides out to the water tower, climbs up, and jumps off the water tower onto the train. Not gonna lie, the leap from the water tower is way less exciting than the title made me expect, but you have to remember that the stars were doing all their own stunts at the time, and when you consider the fact that Helen is taking an actual jump onto an actual moving train and then walking along the train top to warn the engineers, the daredeviltry quotient definitely goes up.
I have a lot of trouble paying attention to old silent films when I try to watch them at home, even if they have a soundtrack (and if there isn’t a soundtrack, good night), but for whatever reason it’s a lot easier in a movie theaters. I expected a less modern accompaniment - I sort of twitched when a rap song started playing to accompany Lois Weber’s “Lost by a Hair”- however, the songs were well-chosen to accompany their subjects, so once I’d adjusted my expectations it went well enough.
A few highlights:
The surviving reels of Marion E. Wong’s The Curse of Quon Gwon, but I’m going to give that its own post.
A selection of Zora Neale Hurston’s ethnographic films, filmed in the 1920s in the black communities of central and south Florida; it looked to me like someone (Hurston herself?) came back later and cut them together to make a sort of silent documentary, which makes it more fun to watch, but I would have liked to know who did it. (The cutting is particularly obvious in the segment called “Girl Rocking,” with a young woman in a rocking chair; the camera cuts in close to her face, then cuts out, then we get a close-up of her foot on the porch floor as she rocks, etc.) It’s fascinating to watch; I particularly liked the segment about the sea baptism, and the different children’s clapping and dancing games.
“That Ice Ticket,” a short film about a young woman juggling a trio of suitors, whose little brother decides to “help” her by putting up a smallpox quarantine sign to see which one is willing to risk illness to see her. (He’s lucky they don’t all run for it!) This is an example of regional cinema; the director/lead actress, Angela Murray Gibson, made movies in the small community of Casselton, North Dakota. Before the big studios took over movie production in the mid-twenties, a lot of little regional movie companies popped up like this: Nell Shipman’s Idaho outfit at Priest Lake is another example. There’s not a whole lot of information about them and many of the films haven’t survived, so it was a treat to see one.
However, probably my very favorite film was the last one, episode nine of Hazards of Helen: “Leap from the Water Tower.” We’re introduced to Helen when she rides on screen on her horse, wearing a divided skirt and a cowboy hat, with her little dog running at her side, and I was all, “Not to be dramatic, but I would die for Helen.”
Not that I would ever need to die for Helen, because Helen is the original plucky heroine and would obviously be the one saving me as I swooned on a handcar after being kidnapped by villains or something.
Anyway, in this episode, Helen (who is a telegraph operator) receives a message that a train has been SABOTAGED! - so she rides out to the water tower, climbs up, and jumps off the water tower onto the train. Not gonna lie, the leap from the water tower is way less exciting than the title made me expect, but you have to remember that the stars were doing all their own stunts at the time, and when you consider the fact that Helen is taking an actual jump onto an actual moving train and then walking along the train top to warn the engineers, the daredeviltry quotient definitely goes up.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-07 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-08 03:52 pm (UTC)Helen would never let either of us die for her, though. We would try to do it and she would come paddling down the rapids in a canoe and save us just before we went over the waterfall.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-08 04:31 pm (UTC)Also: TRUE, and all the more reason to make the attempt; being valiantly rescued by Helen is its own reward.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-10 01:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-07 04:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-08 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-08 12:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-08 03:51 pm (UTC)