A Hundred Years Ago 12 – USA 1909 II: Films to Discover.
Presenta Mariann Lewinsky, grand piano: Neil Brand. Viewed in Bologna, Cinema Lumière 1, on the Fourth of July, 2009.
From Tom Gunning's introductory text:
- Vitagraph was Griffith's major rival in sophistication, producing a number of ambitious literary adaptations, but failing to achieve the new conception of staging Griffith was introducing to film.
- However, Vitagraph's more modest narratives showed a clarity of storytelling often based around a particular object
- In 1909, Selig began producing westerns, a genre, which truly found international popularity this year
- At Essanay, the slapstick comedy was evolving
- Hiawatha represents the first major film of the independent company challenging the monopoly of the MPPC, Carl Laemmle's Imp, the ancestor of Universal
Due to technical problems, the order of the programme was changed to:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. US 1909. D: Charles Kent. Based on the play by William Shakespeare. CAST: Maurice Costello (Lysander), Clara Kimball Young (Penelope), James Young, Dolores Costello (fairy), Helene Costello (fairy), Gladys Hulette (Puck), William W. Ranous (Bottom), Charles Chapman (Quince); PC: Vitagraph. 35mm. B&w. From: GEH / Restoration funded by GEH. - Print looks bad in the beginning, from bad original materials, with a scratched image, but it turns ok toward the end. A fairy-tale film based on William Shakespeare's play, with Puck, Hermia (Rose Tapley), Lysander, Demetrius (Walter Ackerman), Helena (Julia Swayne Gordon). It is a condensation of the whole story, not very successful. - Dolores Costello, daughter of Maurice Costello, grandmother of Drew Barrymore, in her first film as a six-year old fairy. - 15 min
The Tell-Tale Blotter. US 1909. PC: Essanay. 35mm. B&w. From: GEH / Restoration funded by GEH. - An effective detective story, with a clear mise-en-scène, the blotter paper as vital evidence to the burglary of a safe. 5 min
The Cowboy Millionaire. US 1909. D: Otis Turner. CAST: Tom Mix, Carl Winterhoff, William Garwood, Mac Barnes, Adrienne Kroell, William Stowell; PC: Selig. 35mm. B&w. From: NFM. - Tinted print with Dutch intertitles. - Tom Mix gets married in the city, and his cowboy friends visit him with their horses and lassoes. The boisterous cowboys have a good time in the train, too. A lot of rodeo stunts. 2o min
Dope Head Clancy. US 1909. PC: Phoenix. 35mm. 155 m. B&w. From: GEH / Restoration funded by National Endowment for the Arts. - Ok print. Farce. Visiting a show without paying, thrown out. Wrestling match. Attempting to act in films, a parody of film production. 8 min
Buon anno. IT 1909. PC: Ambrosio. 35mm. From: Museo Nazionale del Cinema. - Good bye to a great retrospective (a hundred years ago: 1909). 1 min
Due to the delay in the programme I missed:
Hiawatha. US 1909. D: William V. Ranous. Based on the poem "The Song of Hiawatha" di Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; CAST: Gladys Hulette, William V. Ranous; PC: IMP. 16mm. B&w. From: MoMA
Lines of White on a Sullen Sea. US 1909. D: D.W. Griffith. DP: Billy Bitzer; CAST: Linda Arvidson, Kate Bruce, Dell Henderson, Florence Lawrence, Arthur Johnson, James Kirkwood, Owen Moore, Billy Quirk; PC: Biograph. 16mm. 11’. B&w. Intertitles reconstructed by Killiam/Blackhawk. From: MoMA. - I managed to see a bit of this print as it was shown in reverse in the beginning, and it did not look very good.
Showing posts with label Vitagraph. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vitagraph. Show all posts
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Cento anni fà 1 – Milano 1909: Il primo concorso mondiale di cinematografia
A Hundred Years Ago 1 – Milan 1909: The 1st World Film Competition. Presentano Mariann Lewinsky e Giovanni Laso. Grand piano: Antonio Coppola. Cinema Lumière 1, Bologna, 27 June 2009
Celebrating the Centenary of the first film festival.
Nerone / Nero, or The Fall of Rome. IT 1909. PC: Ambrosio. 35mm. 291 m. Col. Digibeta, alas. From: CSC-Cineteca Nazionale / restored in 2006. - Fiction, Antiquity.
I bersaglieri. IT 1909. PC: Ancona Film. 35mm. 200 m. Col. From: Cineteca di Bologna – Lanterna Film
La Légende du premier violon. FR 1909. PC: Eclipse 35mm. 211 m. Col. From: Lobster Films / print from 1993. - Fiction. The pact with the Devil: a lady gets a diabolical violin.
The Niagara in Winter Dress. US 1909. PC: Vitagraph. 35mm. 54 m. From: BFINA. - Doc. Magnificent views of the snow-clad Niagara. *
Villes et cimetières arabes. FR 1909. D: Alexandre Promio. PC: Théophile Pathé. 35mm. 72 m. Colour print. From: AFF/CNC. - Doc. *
Princess Nicotine. GB 1909. PC: Vitagraph. 35mm. 109 m. Col. From: Cineteca del Friuli / Lobster Films. - Fantasy, féerie. No title cards. Little fairies. Stop motion. Is this an advertising film? *
Patrizia e schiava / In der Villa der Patrizierin. IT 1909. PC: Cines. 35mm. 300 m. B&w. Deutsche Zwischentitel. From: BFINA. - Fiction, Antiquity, féerie. Flash titles mainly. The story of a slave girl, the tragedy of abduction. Meeting the gods of the sea. The joy of the comeback.
La fidanzata di Cretinetti / El casamiento de Toribio. IT 1909. PC: Itala-Film. 35mm. 45 m. From: BFINA. - A Cretinetti farce, Spanish intertitles.
Celebrating the Centenary of the first film festival.
Nerone / Nero, or The Fall of Rome. IT 1909. PC: Ambrosio. 35mm. 291 m. Col. Digibeta, alas. From: CSC-Cineteca Nazionale / restored in 2006. - Fiction, Antiquity.
I bersaglieri. IT 1909. PC: Ancona Film. 35mm. 200 m. Col. From: Cineteca di Bologna – Lanterna Film
La Légende du premier violon. FR 1909. PC: Eclipse 35mm. 211 m. Col. From: Lobster Films / print from 1993. - Fiction. The pact with the Devil: a lady gets a diabolical violin.
The Niagara in Winter Dress. US 1909. PC: Vitagraph. 35mm. 54 m. From: BFINA. - Doc. Magnificent views of the snow-clad Niagara. *
Villes et cimetières arabes. FR 1909. D: Alexandre Promio. PC: Théophile Pathé. 35mm. 72 m. Colour print. From: AFF/CNC. - Doc. *
Princess Nicotine. GB 1909. PC: Vitagraph. 35mm. 109 m. Col. From: Cineteca del Friuli / Lobster Films. - Fantasy, féerie. No title cards. Little fairies. Stop motion. Is this an advertising film? *
Patrizia e schiava / In der Villa der Patrizierin. IT 1909. PC: Cines. 35mm. 300 m. B&w. Deutsche Zwischentitel. From: BFINA. - Fiction, Antiquity, féerie. Flash titles mainly. The story of a slave girl, the tragedy of abduction. Meeting the gods of the sea. The joy of the comeback.
La fidanzata di Cretinetti / El casamiento de Toribio. IT 1909. PC: Itala-Film. 35mm. 45 m. From: BFINA. - A Cretinetti farce, Spanish intertitles.
Friday, October 10, 2008
BRIGHTON 30 YEARS AFTER 5: JON GARTENBERG
Stolen by Gypsies
US 1905. PC: Edison. D: Edwin S. Porter. Print: LoC, 16mm, 340 ft /16 fps/ 13 min, English intertitles
A Mid-Winter Night's Dream; Or, Little Joe's Luck
US 1906. PC: Vitagraph. Print: GEH, 551 ft /16 fps/ 9 min, English intertitles
Jon Gartenberg: "My experience of the conference in Brighton, England, was, in retrospect, a heady one, comprising marathon screenings, intense intellectual engagement, pioneering discoveries, and the challenging at every turn of conventional notions about film history. Several years earlier, I had begun working as a film archivist in The Museum of Modern Art. In this capacity, I assisted Eileen Bowser on the Museum’s 1975 D.W. Griffith tribute. More than 100 of Griffith’s Biograph films (1908-1913) were shown in Part I of the retrospective, and it was nothing less than thrilling for me to watch these emotionally powerful short films unfold, in all their compositional beauty, economic construction, sophisticated editing structures, and restrained acting. (See my article “Griffith at MoMA”, Films in Review, February 1981.)
By the time I participated in the Brighton marathon pre-screenings at MOMA, I was already well immersed in Griffith’s well-honed stylistic devices. What struck me profoundly when watching the Biograph and Edison films from 1900 to 1906 (especially in contradistinction to my experience of viewing the Griffith Biograph films) was the extraordinary extent to which camera movement was utilized. I began tracking and dissecting this visual strategy, especially across the format of the chase film, and in particular, how camera movement was employed to suggest or articulate simultaneous action. One such paradigmatic film in this regard was Stolen by Gypsies (Edison, 1905), which (as I described it in my original Brighton Project article) through panning “creates a more sophisticated narrative with two autonomous stories: on the one hand, the chase, and on the other, the recovery of the baby, unrelated to the apprehension of the supposed culprits”
In preparation for the original Brighton Project, we had viewed a fragment of a trick effects scene from A Mid-winter Night’s Dream; or, Little Joe’s Luck (Vitagraph’s final production of 1906). As a follow-up to the Brighton Project, we subsequently screened films from 1907 and 1908, up to the moment of Griffith’s debut as a director at Biograph. I traced in these screenings the further developments in camera movement during this period.
At the same time, I was struck by the sophisticated structure of a number of the Vitagraph films on display. I noticed pans in interior shots, better control over lighting, composition in depth, and the incorporation of trick effects within a larger narrative. Perhaps most significantly, I saw conflicting strategies at work within the same film to establish temporally parallel events through staging within the mise-en-scène as well as through the editing together of discrete shots. This curiosity led me to further research and publication of an article (in Studies in Visual Communication, Fall 1984) concentrating on the emergence of the Vitagraph studio to the forefront of the American film industry in the Nickelodeon era.
In the complete version of A Mid-winter Night’s Dream, a social drama involving doing good deeds at holiday time, an extended object-animation sequence occurs in the children’s bedroom. The preceding scene, comprising an interior pan from the dining room to the living room, across the invisible fourth wall, returned me squarely to my original focus on camera movement in early cinema, but now with a much deeper appreciation of the complex crosscurrents at work in this formative period of the development of film narrative." - Jon Gartenberg. - Stolen by Gypsies: a blend of drama and comedy, but the comedy is not funny. - A Mid-Winter Night's Dream: a variation on the little match girl, with a boy and a happy ending. Animation in the dream-within-the-dream.
US 1905. PC: Edison. D: Edwin S. Porter. Print: LoC, 16mm, 340 ft /16 fps/ 13 min, English intertitles
A Mid-Winter Night's Dream; Or, Little Joe's Luck
US 1906. PC: Vitagraph. Print: GEH, 551 ft /16 fps/ 9 min, English intertitles
Jon Gartenberg: "My experience of the conference in Brighton, England, was, in retrospect, a heady one, comprising marathon screenings, intense intellectual engagement, pioneering discoveries, and the challenging at every turn of conventional notions about film history. Several years earlier, I had begun working as a film archivist in The Museum of Modern Art. In this capacity, I assisted Eileen Bowser on the Museum’s 1975 D.W. Griffith tribute. More than 100 of Griffith’s Biograph films (1908-1913) were shown in Part I of the retrospective, and it was nothing less than thrilling for me to watch these emotionally powerful short films unfold, in all their compositional beauty, economic construction, sophisticated editing structures, and restrained acting. (See my article “Griffith at MoMA”, Films in Review, February 1981.)
By the time I participated in the Brighton marathon pre-screenings at MOMA, I was already well immersed in Griffith’s well-honed stylistic devices. What struck me profoundly when watching the Biograph and Edison films from 1900 to 1906 (especially in contradistinction to my experience of viewing the Griffith Biograph films) was the extraordinary extent to which camera movement was utilized. I began tracking and dissecting this visual strategy, especially across the format of the chase film, and in particular, how camera movement was employed to suggest or articulate simultaneous action. One such paradigmatic film in this regard was Stolen by Gypsies (Edison, 1905), which (as I described it in my original Brighton Project article) through panning “creates a more sophisticated narrative with two autonomous stories: on the one hand, the chase, and on the other, the recovery of the baby, unrelated to the apprehension of the supposed culprits”
In preparation for the original Brighton Project, we had viewed a fragment of a trick effects scene from A Mid-winter Night’s Dream; or, Little Joe’s Luck (Vitagraph’s final production of 1906). As a follow-up to the Brighton Project, we subsequently screened films from 1907 and 1908, up to the moment of Griffith’s debut as a director at Biograph. I traced in these screenings the further developments in camera movement during this period.
At the same time, I was struck by the sophisticated structure of a number of the Vitagraph films on display. I noticed pans in interior shots, better control over lighting, composition in depth, and the incorporation of trick effects within a larger narrative. Perhaps most significantly, I saw conflicting strategies at work within the same film to establish temporally parallel events through staging within the mise-en-scène as well as through the editing together of discrete shots. This curiosity led me to further research and publication of an article (in Studies in Visual Communication, Fall 1984) concentrating on the emergence of the Vitagraph studio to the forefront of the American film industry in the Nickelodeon era.
In the complete version of A Mid-winter Night’s Dream, a social drama involving doing good deeds at holiday time, an extended object-animation sequence occurs in the children’s bedroom. The preceding scene, comprising an interior pan from the dining room to the living room, across the invisible fourth wall, returned me squarely to my original focus on camera movement in early cinema, but now with a much deeper appreciation of the complex crosscurrents at work in this formative period of the development of film narrative." - Jon Gartenberg. - Stolen by Gypsies: a blend of drama and comedy, but the comedy is not funny. - A Mid-Winter Night's Dream: a variation on the little match girl, with a boy and a happy ending. Animation in the dream-within-the-dream.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
THE JONATHAN DENNIS MEMORIAL LECTURE 2008. EILEEN BOWSER: THE TELEPHONE THRILLER; OR, THE TERRORS OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY
Eileen Bowser, Curator Emerata (at the MoMA 1954-1993) lectured on the telephone thriller. The new perception of time and space. But in a more fragmented way. The telephone and how it changed life. Telephone-themed postcards.
Are You There? / A Telephone Romance. GB 1901. PC: James Williamson. Starring James Dalton. Print: BFINA.
The typical image was the triple screen. Edwin S. Porter: College Chums (US 1907). The telephone thriller flourished until 1914.
The Telephone. US 1910. PC: Vitagraph. Starring Leo Delaney (husband), Rose Tapley (wife), Dolores Costello (child). Print: BFINA. - Cat overturns gas lamp, fire breaks out, mother calls, switchboard, fire brigade, father learns at the club, fire brigade enters, child rescued, mother faints, fireman rescues mother.
Suspense. US 1913. PC: Rex. D: Lois Weber, Phillip Smalley. SC: Lois Weber. Cast: Lois Weber (wife), Val Paul (husband), Douglas Gerrard (pursuer), Sam Kaufman (tramp). Print: BFINA. - EB: The telephone thriller was well established. LW wanted to see how far one could go. - Always exciting and surprising with the unexpected camera angles, mirror reflections and triangle screens.
Are You There? / A Telephone Romance. GB 1901. PC: James Williamson. Starring James Dalton. Print: BFINA.
The typical image was the triple screen. Edwin S. Porter: College Chums (US 1907). The telephone thriller flourished until 1914.
The Telephone. US 1910. PC: Vitagraph. Starring Leo Delaney (husband), Rose Tapley (wife), Dolores Costello (child). Print: BFINA. - Cat overturns gas lamp, fire breaks out, mother calls, switchboard, fire brigade, father learns at the club, fire brigade enters, child rescued, mother faints, fireman rescues mother.
Suspense. US 1913. PC: Rex. D: Lois Weber, Phillip Smalley. SC: Lois Weber. Cast: Lois Weber (wife), Val Paul (husband), Douglas Gerrard (pursuer), Sam Kaufman (tramp). Print: BFINA. - EB: The telephone thriller was well established. LW wanted to see how far one could go. - Always exciting and surprising with the unexpected camera angles, mirror reflections and triangle screens.
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