358 Pandora's Box

[foggy eyes]

I'm with you. I only took issue because Sunrise is often misrepresented in this respect, caught up as it is in the messy transition from silent to sound cinema.

[zedz]

Crikey, you lot have been busy while I slept. If I'd said "Sunrise was released as a sound film" we probably could have avoided all of this! Sorry for any confusion, but I'm the sort that rolls their eyes when City Lights is described as a silent film, hence the shorthand (and as noted, before, the point at issue is not silent vs sound, but projection speed, and nobody has established that Sunrise was shot at anything other than 24fps or that we've all been watching and listening to it at the wrong speed for 80 years - shades of Kind of Blue). Nevertheless, it's sparked an interesting discussion.

One last point I'd be interested to clear up, though. American optical sound projectors have always run at 24fps, right? 24fps was not adopted as the standard for sound projection because it was somehow intrinsically ideal for sound, but because it fitted in with the silent speed which was already the most standardised in the industry, correct?

[HerrSchreck]

I found a paper online by Sponable at a SMPE presentation which is interesting on this subject.

Below is an excerpt from another monograph presented by UCLA Preservation Officer Rob Gitt about the birth of sound and the attempts to find a standardized protocol for recording/projection speeds. It had to be found and implemented because since films were recorded at many dif speeds in the whole of the silent era (sometimes more than one speed within a single film, especially during earlier hand cranking), projectionists/cine owners would take their own liberties, even ripping thu films as fast as possible on purpose to run the flick more times (than possible at studio-"intended" speeds) to boost ticket sales by running audiences in & out quicker.

Variable density was the first system to enter popular usage, beginning with Lee De Forest's Phonofilms, represented by a speech by "silent" Calvin Coolidge. When he was still experimenting, De Forest had exchanged ideas with Theodore W. Case and Earl I. Sponable, who were working along similar lines until there was a falling out between them. (In the early Forties, Sponable would write a long piece published in the SMPE Journal and elsewhere debunking with exchanges of correspondence and other documentation De Forest's claims to have been the inventor of modern sound technology.)

Case and Sponable would continue to work on their own and excerpts from tests they made in 1926 were then shown. These tests, shot at different speeds, would become a source of controversy among later technology clueless film historians after they were used in a 1956 CBS "Twentieth Century" episode entitled "The Movies Learn To Talk" because the narration claimed that the higher pitch of Case's voice was due to the tests having been shot "at the wrong speed for sound film." Of course, THERE WAS NO OFFICIAL SPEED FOR SOUND FILM IN 1926, or, in actual practice at the time, for silent film. In seeking to set a standard speed for their disc system, Western Electric had done a survey of the average speeds at which silent films were being photographed (between 18 and 22 fps) and projected (between 20 and 30 fps!) and settled on 24 fps/90 fpm (the latter for 35mm film) as an average. (Similar surveys were done in 1925 by both the SMPE and Douglas Fairbanks with the same results.) In their experiments De Forest, Case and Sponable, and later RCA had all used slower speeds, causing Case's voice to sound higher when played back at 24 fps. Actually, if the decision had been left up to the sound engineers and based on what was best for audio quality, an even higher speed, most likely 30 fps, would have been chosen; the Dickson/Edison Kinetoscope used 40 fps. Because Vitaphone got into the marketplace first, and also probably because the film companies had to lease amplification equipment from Western Electric regardless of what sound system they were using, 24 fps became the standard that exists to this day.

The Case-Sponable system would be purchased by William Fox, who patented it as the Fox-Case System but gave it the trade name Movietone. Like Warners, Fox first used the system to add musical scores and sound effects to existing silent films like "What Price Glory" (1926), and "Sunrise" and "7th Heaven" (both 1927), a clip from the latter being shown. But because the Movietone equipment was portable, unlike the Vitaphone equipment, Fox was able to start a sound newsreel, and a portion of the famous interview with George Bernard Shaw was shown. And using Movietone trucks, director Raoul Walsh started the first primarily outdoor film, "In Old Arizona" (1928); Walsh was injured during the shooting and Irving Cummings finished the film.

Interestingly, Case-Sponable/DeForest, the inventors/licensees of the optical Movietone system, seemed initially to be at odds with the 24fps protocol.

[Tribe]

Right around 10:14, where Dr. Schon enters Lulu's bedroom, isn't that a menorah on the ledge? Was Lulu supposed to be Jewish? Or, since Dr. Schon was purportedly paying for her apartment, was he Jewish?

Tribe

[foggy eyes]

Fascinating articles, Herrshreck. Good find.

[Felix]

Take this site, which is haunted by dedicated psycho cineastes-- yet, Dent, our discussions regarding silent films pretty much run between the same group of folks... me, you, zedz, the German crew of vogler, ledos, Tommasso, La Cle', and two or three occasional others like dkmb & justelblanc. The 100-200 other dedicated regulars, as well as the approx 200 other semi-regulars, never join in the discussion. Silents just don't do to them what they do to us. We are a tiny minority even among cineastes.

One more to add to the tiny minority than Schreck... Silents have always done it for me and this is an incredibly rich time with all the wonderful releases and so many in such good condition, and yes, I support your endorsement of Kino fully. I like films that look good, plot is a lesser concern, and most silents do look so good. I prefer the acting too, it is honest and clearly acting, not pretending to be real.

I fell in love with silents before I ever had the chance to see any, back in 75 when I was reading articles about the nascent Televsion, and Tom Verlaine's guitar work being comapred to an aural Cabinet of Dr Caligari. Bowie was also singing the praises of Lang and I would see the odd still from Nosferatu or Metropolis. They all seemed so much more attuned to my sensibilites than any of the films I was seeing at the cinema, not that there was a lot of choice in my locale. (Even less now and they invariably fuck the projection up at the nearest one which is not that near...)

It wasn't until I finally invested in a TV and VCR in 88, just before C4 started to go down the tube, that I could really start to indulge my passion, which I did in a big way when the C4 Silents and the associated Hollywood series were on and I could tape some very wonderful films (hey, how bad is this, I had the full C4 Napoleon on tape but erased it due to the cost of tapes back then and the belief that I would never need more than about 20 films in my collection... Je ne regrette just about rien, apart from that).

Come 91 and I bought a new PAL/NTSC VCR so I could play American tapes from a wonderful company I had come across which sold the silent films I could not buy over here, the company was called, eh, Facets. I was lucky with the first few but then got some PD tapes from them, including a horrendous Last Laugh which gave me no idea of how wonderful a film it was. Then there was the JEF label, started by Jef Aikman, who I think is on the go again. They issued some of my favourites, but in horrednous prints. I finally saw Caligari but the print was crap and the music worse. This is why I am more than happy to forgive Kino their faults.

I kinda eased off after that and it wasn't until about three years ago that I noticed Caligari had been released in a good print that I thought, maybe time for a DVD player and start to pick up on this properly and like I say, once I cottoned on to Amazon and Multi region DVDs there was no stopping me. All these films I used to be so desperate to see, all there for me now, well, most of them (fuck you good and proper Coppola and fuck your Apocalypse Now boxset too, even if it is still one of my favourite films). A golden time right enough but where are all the Sjostroms? I think he must be the most neglected silent director now. I hoped when Kino came out with the Stillers that something might be forthcoming from them but no such luck.

(Sorry folks, a little off topic for Pandora's Box...)

[Steven H]

(Sorry folks, a little off topic for Pandora's Box...)

I sometimes forget silents were available *at all* on home video before DVD. Huge divide, there.

I watched the film with commentary last night, and Mary Ann Doane brings up and interesting point about every generation discovering the film for itself, and how/why feminists and cinephiles can identify with Lulu (or Brooks in general). She's unique in that she kind of lives up to the current myth of the ideal woman (the Sex In the City, "I can have sex like a man and not care" heroine). How out of place would she be in just about any other major silent film director's work? Try picturing her in a Griffith, DeMille, Gance, or Sternberg film (though Lubitsch and Von Stroheim would make for interesting combinations). Either their films would eat her alive, or would be devourced theirselves.

The commentarists don't bring up her acting style itself, or at least the relative naturalness of it. I think Brooks was a precursor to Brando in bringing a relaxed realism to her roles. I could see Cassavettes or Rivette wishing to work with her more than any other silent actress (Rivette especially, his idea of watching any great actor is more important than plot, etc, seems to apply easily to her.)

Loved the extras. I wanted more Leacock.

edit: I rushed this post, went back and changed some things.

[colinr0380]

It wasn't until I finally invested in a TV and VCR in 88, just before C4 started to go down the tube, that I could really start to indulge my passion, which I did in a big way when the C4 Silents and the associated Hollywood series were on and I could tape some very wonderful films (hey, how bad is this, I had the full C4 Napoleon on tape but erased it due to the cost of tapes back then and the belief that I would never need more than about 20 films in my collection... Je ne regrette just about rien, apart from that).

I got the last few Channel 4 silents (1995: The Iron Horse; 1996: Phantom of the Opera; 1997: Nosferatu (with Bernard Hermann score); 1999: The Wedding March (with Fay Wray introduction) and The Iron Mask. There were a couple of other good one-off silents shown by the BBC in the same period such as the 1927 Casanova and Channel 4 showed Sunrise, the Giorgio Moroder version of Metropolis a couple of times, The Chess Players and Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger) but I came late and missed most of the interesting screenings of silent films, especially the run of D.W. Griffith films in the early 90s.

Luckily when I went to university I found that the library there had recordings of some of the Channel 4 silents that I had missed, so I borrowed them and re-recorded them for my personal use. Unfortunately Napoleon wasn't one of these, but that was how I got a copy of Wings and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!

[Kinsayder]

It wasn't until I finally invested in a TV and VCR in 88, just before C4 started to go down the tube, that I could really start to indulge my passion, which I did in a big way when the C4 Silents and the associated Hollywood series were on and I could tape some very wonderful films (hey, how bad is this, I had the full C4 Napoleon on tape but erased it due to the cost of tapes back then and the belief that I would never need more than about 20 films in my collection... Je ne regrette just about rien, apart from that).

Oh dear, same here! I taped just about all the Brownlow/Gill/Carl Davis silent cinema broadcast under the Thames Silents banner, and I seem to have kept very little of it - probably on the assumption that it was such wonderful stuff it was bound to be shown again and again...

I did at least keep my fuzzy recordings of The Wind (with Lilian Gish intro), The Big Parade, The Crowd and Wings. Along with Napoleon, Thief of Bagdad, Greed, Flesh and the Devil, The General, et al, those C4 silents (broadcast on Sunday afternoons, I seem to recall) formed my introduction to silent movies, and remain some of my most memorable film-watching experiences. How I'd love to have a full set of those Thames Silents on DVD!

[foggy eyes]

I did at least keep my fuzzy recordings of The Wind (with Lilian Gish intro)

That was awesome! And nothing like Thames Silents will ever happen again on British TV. A tragedy.

[unclehulot]

Nosferatu (with Bernard Hermann score)

Ehh....Herrmann?....I wish!! You mean James Bernard, right? In the US, we still haven't been able to hear that score!

[colinr0380]

#-o ](*,)

What was I thinking at the time - you are absolutely right!

[Felix]

I did at least keep my fuzzy recordings of The Wind (with Lilian Gish intro)

That was awesome! And nothing like Thames Silents will ever happen again on British TV. A tragedy.

Yes, it is a tragedy. I used to get almost as excited about Xmas as an adult as I did as a child because I knew we would be getting one of the Thames Silents on Boxing Day afternoon. I got all of those I think, post Napoleon anyway.

As was mentoned earlier here, even in the more barren days we still got stuff like Casanova, and lots of Keaton shorts to fill in the time late at night on C4, odds and sods like the oddball broadcast on STV on a Sunday afternoon of Wiene's Der Rosenkavalier fragment...

There was a fine series of Russian films on VHS in the UK in the mid to late 80's on Hendring, all the Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Dovzhenko, Bondarchuk, and even Kozintsev, Hamlet and the one I missed The New Babylon, with Shostakovich score I think (one of his finest pieces and definitely his best score) and probably a better print than the abysmal thing sold by FACETS (yes, I gave them another shot...) It was not all bleak.

[Michael Kerpan]

Speaking of New Babylon --

If only I had 75 Pounds to blow....

[Felix]

Omigod... Thank you for drawing my attention to this. If I were sure of the quality I think I would be willing to sacrifice a few other releases for a few weeks to get this. The price is pretty steep though, even for a joint Shostakovitch and silent film fanatic like me...

[Michael Kerpan]

Omigod... Thank you for drawing my attention to this. If I were sure of the quality I think I would be willing to sacrifice a few other releases for a few weeks to get this. The price is pretty steep though, even for a joint Shostakovitch and silent film fanatic like me...

It might be the ONLY way to see the film in anything that approximates the creators' intention. (Query, is this a case where a composer of the score is a co-auteur of a film -- Kozintsev seems to have thought something of the sort).

If you lived anywhere near Boston, I'd say we could go halfsies -- and take joint custody of this baby. ;~}

[HerrSchreck]

The DVD bonus features include a full chapter menu and historical essay by Marek Pytel which accesses newly researched documents and materials unavailable at the time of the original edition going to press.

Ah! Now I see what we're paying for-- a FULL chapter menu.

[Michael Kerpan]

The DVD bonus features include a full chapter menu and historical essay by Marek Pytel which accesses newly researched documents and materials unavailable at the time of the original edition going to press.

Ah! Now I see what we're paying for-- a FULL chapter menu.

No -- actually what you are paying for is the restoration efforts themselves. ;~} This has been pretty much a one-man labor of love, lasting for years.

[HerrSchreck]

It was a joke, Mike. But since we're here, what kind of restoration does one man turn out , commanding such prices? I'd never pay those sort of bucks, even for that film with a Nice Book. Folks have gotten out some pretty obscure even less heard of stuff yet still didn't hafta ratchet up the tag that high. Have you seen what the end result at least looks like by any chance?

Is it truly one guy lugging reels from lab to home to vaults, carefully washing away nitrate damage with a q-tip, and getting on trains & planes & buses quietly examining alternative reels to plug decomp spots... then flying to a big city to run telecine on his composite... then cleaning up the tape of hairs all on his own on MTI-style stations on someone elses digital rig? Or is it more like a "Dave Shepard in the old days" sort of thing, where he's paying for all of the processes, against the idea of a future release?

[Tommaso]

No need for alarm, folks. Just a few weeks ago arte TV in Germany showed "New Babylon" in a brand new restoration (looking absolutely gorgeous) with a brand new recording of the Shosty score (sounding gorgeous, too), and of course original Russian intertitles. I bet we see this next year on an arte edition DVD.

[HerrSchreck]

Cue Music:

"Happy Happy Joy Joy,
Happy Happy Joy.

Happy Happy Joy Joy
Me is Happy Fucking Boy!"

Finally. The fact of the professional restoration in a reputable house alone is prompt for drum-banging. Here's where this site shows it's utility... eyes & ears on the other side of the globe, warning off a dude from the other side of the globe from buying something halfway between the two of them.

[MichaelB]

(Query, is this a case where a composer of the score is a co-auteur of a film -- Kozintsev seems to have thought something of the sort).

I'd say yes, absolutely - Kozintsev and Shostakovich seem to have had a far closer creative relationship than the average director-composer combo.

They were almost exact contemporaries (Kozintsev 1905-73; Shostakovich 1906-75), and close friends from their early twenties onwards. Kozintsev gave Shostakovich some important early breaks (very much including New Babylon, and Shostakovich returned the favour when Kozintsev persuaded him to come out of film-score retirement to do Hamlet - a subject that had obsessed both men for decades.

[Felix]

No need for alarm, folks. Just a few weeks ago arte TV in Germany showed "New Babylon" in a brand new restoration (looking absolutely gorgeous) with a brand new recording of the Shosty score (sounding gorgeous, too), and of course original Russian intertitles. I bet we see this next year on an arte edition DVD.

Well, let's hope, but there are a few restored films that are no closer to securing a DVD release, Vampyr being just one example. If it has been on TV there must be an E-bay release coming anyway...

But if the DVD truly is a labour of love and a genuine restoration and I am going to see this film they way I would dream of being able to see it then I shall probably go for the bird in the hand. But at £75 I would have to be very sure. At that price they will not sell 400 copies in a hurry.

[GringoTex]

This thread is way too hard on Pabst. His primary influence was Eisenstein, not Murnau, and his application of dialectical montage to melodrama was revolutionary. He's responsible for the towering, almost inconceivable presence of Brooks in the film. Through the use of Eisenstein montage, he pushed her character to the brink of abstraction, resulting in a pure unmitigated pleasure for the viewer.

[HerrSchreck]

This thread is way too hard on Pabst. His primary influence was Eisenstein, not Murnau.

You're entitled to your opinion but I don't think even Pabst would fight too hard for that one. There are certainly touches of intellectual/conceptual editing montage in, say, JEANNE NEY and to some degree a ratcheting up of a sense of kinetic visceral stimulation and hazy, busy backstage headtripping in PANDORA; but in sum, Pabst was very much a logical extension of-- product of-- his German silent environment, which in itself during it's latter years 25- et al was touched by the Soviet influence. SO was Lang, Rutmann, et al. Remember the French Impressionist laboratory that even the soviets belonged to-- just because something is edited with a moderate rapidity doesn't make it Eisenstein or even Soviet influenced.

But the one unmistakable blatant influence in FREUDLOSSE, JEANNE NEY, PANDORA, TAGEBUCH, and even on into the sound era is the unrelenting meticulous pictorialism, totally iconic to the German silent era,that painterly sense of seething expression far beyond the bounds of intertitles (not to mention startlingly & blatantly subjective and even strange use of the moving camera) pioneered by Murnau & Freund & Mayer in tandem. Pabst's acid trippiness is pure kammerspiel with that classic Mayer sense of psychological exploration into the zone of near-hallucination.