Scott Lord
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03 Oct 01:25
Scott Lord: Sherlock Holmes- The Woman In Green (Roy William Neal)
by Anonymous
Scott Lord, Scott Lord Mystery Film and 2 others like this
28 Jul 01:22
Three years before the premier of "Intolerance" (D.W. Griffith, 1916), author Eustace Ball, in the volume "The Art of the Photoplay" advised, "Put one plot at a time; the single reel picture lasts only eighteen minutes and only one line can be worked out well in this time. This is another important detail in which the photplay differs from the drama."
David Bordwell sees cinematic history as a "Basic Story" and that within this approximation, D.W. Griffith is attributed with having invented "cinematic syntax". This syntax is apparent in what Raymond Spottiswoode referred to as the "grammar of film", or shot structure and perhaps in what is expanded later into semiotics and the "grande syntagmatique". While crediting Edwin S. Porter with the use of crosscutting two simultaneous actions, Bordwell notes the crosscutting of four historical periods (seperate storylines, which thematically merge) in Griffith's film Intolerance, filmed thirteen years later.
Susan Jean Craig, The City University of New York, in her dissertation "Skin and Redemption-Theology in Silent Films 1902 to 1927 describes the editing of motifs as film technique, "Filmmakers learned that they could use simple shorthand of now widely recognized filmic devices to amplify characterization and backstory: creating metaphoric links between seemingly unrelated storylines by shifting the action betwen them, called intercutting, underscoring human behavior and emotion through high-contrast lighting of scenes and subjects; and stressing subtle psychological shifts in motivation simply by moving the camera closer to the actor's faces. Thus, when D.W. Griffith wanted to introduce a prostitute in his 1916 epic "Intolerance, Love's Struggle through the Ages (Triangle Film Corp.) he didn't need to showa young woman trading sexual favors for payment. Instead he cut from a simple two second shot of a woman dressed too elaborately for her station in life to an intertitle that dubbed her "The Friendless One" to make his point crystal clear. Scholar Phillipe Gauthier sees crosscutting as a programmed languague and dismisses the need to view D.W. Griffith as its inventor, but rather as his "method of film construction", which having previous existed, he "developed and systemized", specifically that editing used in chase scenes and last minute rescue scenes to meet the exingencies of his narrative technique. While properly evaluating the work of D.W. Griffith and the canonical structuring of editing through a "suspensefull call for help, the proximity of the threat and the last minute rescue", Phillipe Gauthier finds early examples of the origins of film technique neglected by earlier prominent film historians. The director of the 1908 Pathe film "A Narrow Escape", if nothing else, certainly does quite often cut on the action of the character leaving the frame.
Author Stanley J. Solomon, in The Narrative Structure of the Film, from his volume The Film Idea eescribes the use of simultaneuous threads of action to climax thematically, "The last two reels (of the total thriteen in extant circulating versions) are among the most exciting sequences in all cinema. As the four stories head toward their conclusions, Griffith begins to cut back and forth much more quickly than he did earlier- mainly without the interference of the image of the rocking cradle...delaying the outcome of each story and building up a tremendous amountof suspense." Solomon looks to Iris Barry often. Iris Barry herself, author of D.W. Griffith, American film master, notes "Intolerance" directed by D. W. Griffith as being seminal. "The film Intolerance is of extreme importance to the history of the cienema." She singles out shots that use only part of the screen's area, tracking shots and rapid crosscutting as techniques used by Griffith in extraordinary combinations with his camera angles.
Peter Cowie, in his volume Eighty Years of Cinema implies that the storyline to "Intolerance" was entirely improvization on the part of D.W. Griffith; not only is there no credit for the photodramatist that wrote the photoplay, but there was originally no scenario to the film. Peter Cowie adds, "Like all Griffith's work, 'Intolerance' has a didactic ring that makes the captions seem pompous. But it lives up to the director's dictum 'Art is always revolutionary, always explosive and sensational."
Stanley J. Solomon in turn finds a thematic continuity in the film, "The four stories demonstrate the cause and effect relationship between individual acts and broadly calamitous events....That concept held in that the peculiarly suggestive medium of film, visual information should consist of fragments which, when carefully chosen and sensitively edited, would produce the idea of a completed action."
Both Lillian Gish and Paul Rotha write of Griffith having found lines in a poem by Walt Whitman that were to connect the stories thematically, Gish appearing at intervals throughout the film to contrast the dramatic quickening of the pace of the film and lending it a symbolism, "Intolerance was, and still is, the greatest spectacular film." Motion Picture World during 1916 popularized the film as bringing Griffith to a pantheon by subtitling its review with, "Griffith Surpasses Himself by a Spectacular Masterpiece in Which All Traditions of Dramatic Form are Successfully Revolutionized." Paragraph subtitles were to include, "Original Method of Construction", "Human Interest in Abundance" and "Marvelous Spectacular Effects".
In her book entitled Screen Acting, Mae Marsh explains the differences between the acting required for each camera distance. She begins with telling us that during a long shot facial expressions register indifferently and need to be compensated by body movement. She allows that most dramatic action is filmed in three quarters legnth, from the face to the knees, intermediate shots that require both facial expressions and body movement. Lillian Gish writes, "It took a while before we became friends with Mae Marsh and the fault was ours. At the beginning we thought ourselves superior because we had been trained in the theater."
To return to the syntax of film, its grammar of cinematic shot structure, film historian Arthur Knight explains D.W. Griffith's use of the close-up, stressing that it could also be used to reveal inanimate objects, as in the insert shot. "But the close up does more than merely emphasize what is important in a scene, it eliminates everything else. It forces the audience to see what the director wants it to see- and only that.It concentrates attention on the slightest detail, whether it be an object, an actor, or a portion of an actor...It was Griffith's unique ability to reveal filmically the inmost thoughts and emotions of his characters to reveal them clearly and intimately to his audiences."
It is thought that the later films of D. W. Griffith, including "The White Rose" (1923) with Mae Marsh, more elaborately presented theme as being intertwined with the drama in which the characters were situated. D. W. Griffith
Actress Constance Talmadge appeared in a cornocopoia of short comedies for The Vitagraph Company of America between 1914-1916 before being cast by Griffith in "Intolerance". Lillian Gish in her autobiography The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me gives an account of Constance Talmadge wearing pads to "make her figure more womanly" while in costume for the film. Added to that she reports long delays between shots while filming. Although during 1918 Lillian Gish had talked D.W. Griffith out of casting Constance Talmadge in the film "Hearts of the World" in favor of her sister Dorithy Gish, Constance Talmadge would later become Dorothy's "constant companion", travelling to Europe with her, the two "inseperable".
G.W. Bitzer, in his autobiography "Billy Bitzer, his story" writes, "All Griffith pictures after 1913 were made with a Pathe camera, including 'Intolerance'. It was a camera he preferred and happened to be the least expensive camera made. Bitzer claimed the camera enabled him to be the first to use wash-drawing effects, which were to become popular with cameramen later.
D.W. Griffith at Biograph Film Company Victor Sjostrom
Scott Lord Silent Film: Intolerance; Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages...
by noreply@blogger.com (Scott Lord on Silent Film, Scott Lord on Mystery Film)
David Bordwell sees cinematic history as a "Basic Story" and that within this approximation, D.W. Griffith is attributed with having invented "cinematic syntax". This syntax is apparent in what Raymond Spottiswoode referred to as the "grammar of film", or shot structure and perhaps in what is expanded later into semiotics and the "grande syntagmatique". While crediting Edwin S. Porter with the use of crosscutting two simultaneous actions, Bordwell notes the crosscutting of four historical periods (seperate storylines, which thematically merge) in Griffith's film Intolerance, filmed thirteen years later.
Susan Jean Craig, The City University of New York, in her dissertation "Skin and Redemption-Theology in Silent Films 1902 to 1927 describes the editing of motifs as film technique, "Filmmakers learned that they could use simple shorthand of now widely recognized filmic devices to amplify characterization and backstory: creating metaphoric links between seemingly unrelated storylines by shifting the action betwen them, called intercutting, underscoring human behavior and emotion through high-contrast lighting of scenes and subjects; and stressing subtle psychological shifts in motivation simply by moving the camera closer to the actor's faces. Thus, when D.W. Griffith wanted to introduce a prostitute in his 1916 epic "Intolerance, Love's Struggle through the Ages (Triangle Film Corp.) he didn't need to showa young woman trading sexual favors for payment. Instead he cut from a simple two second shot of a woman dressed too elaborately for her station in life to an intertitle that dubbed her "The Friendless One" to make his point crystal clear. Scholar Phillipe Gauthier sees crosscutting as a programmed languague and dismisses the need to view D.W. Griffith as its inventor, but rather as his "method of film construction", which having previous existed, he "developed and systemized", specifically that editing used in chase scenes and last minute rescue scenes to meet the exingencies of his narrative technique. While properly evaluating the work of D.W. Griffith and the canonical structuring of editing through a "suspensefull call for help, the proximity of the threat and the last minute rescue", Phillipe Gauthier finds early examples of the origins of film technique neglected by earlier prominent film historians. The director of the 1908 Pathe film "A Narrow Escape", if nothing else, certainly does quite often cut on the action of the character leaving the frame.
Author Stanley J. Solomon, in The Narrative Structure of the Film, from his volume The Film Idea eescribes the use of simultaneuous threads of action to climax thematically, "The last two reels (of the total thriteen in extant circulating versions) are among the most exciting sequences in all cinema. As the four stories head toward their conclusions, Griffith begins to cut back and forth much more quickly than he did earlier- mainly without the interference of the image of the rocking cradle...delaying the outcome of each story and building up a tremendous amountof suspense." Solomon looks to Iris Barry often. Iris Barry herself, author of D.W. Griffith, American film master, notes "Intolerance" directed by D. W. Griffith as being seminal. "The film Intolerance is of extreme importance to the history of the cienema." She singles out shots that use only part of the screen's area, tracking shots and rapid crosscutting as techniques used by Griffith in extraordinary combinations with his camera angles.
Peter Cowie, in his volume Eighty Years of Cinema implies that the storyline to "Intolerance" was entirely improvization on the part of D.W. Griffith; not only is there no credit for the photodramatist that wrote the photoplay, but there was originally no scenario to the film. Peter Cowie adds, "Like all Griffith's work, 'Intolerance' has a didactic ring that makes the captions seem pompous. But it lives up to the director's dictum 'Art is always revolutionary, always explosive and sensational."
Stanley J. Solomon in turn finds a thematic continuity in the film, "The four stories demonstrate the cause and effect relationship between individual acts and broadly calamitous events....That concept held in that the peculiarly suggestive medium of film, visual information should consist of fragments which, when carefully chosen and sensitively edited, would produce the idea of a completed action."
Both Lillian Gish and Paul Rotha write of Griffith having found lines in a poem by Walt Whitman that were to connect the stories thematically, Gish appearing at intervals throughout the film to contrast the dramatic quickening of the pace of the film and lending it a symbolism, "Intolerance was, and still is, the greatest spectacular film." Motion Picture World during 1916 popularized the film as bringing Griffith to a pantheon by subtitling its review with, "Griffith Surpasses Himself by a Spectacular Masterpiece in Which All Traditions of Dramatic Form are Successfully Revolutionized." Paragraph subtitles were to include, "Original Method of Construction", "Human Interest in Abundance" and "Marvelous Spectacular Effects".
In her book entitled Screen Acting, Mae Marsh explains the differences between the acting required for each camera distance. She begins with telling us that during a long shot facial expressions register indifferently and need to be compensated by body movement. She allows that most dramatic action is filmed in three quarters legnth, from the face to the knees, intermediate shots that require both facial expressions and body movement. Lillian Gish writes, "It took a while before we became friends with Mae Marsh and the fault was ours. At the beginning we thought ourselves superior because we had been trained in the theater."
To return to the syntax of film, its grammar of cinematic shot structure, film historian Arthur Knight explains D.W. Griffith's use of the close-up, stressing that it could also be used to reveal inanimate objects, as in the insert shot. "But the close up does more than merely emphasize what is important in a scene, it eliminates everything else. It forces the audience to see what the director wants it to see- and only that.It concentrates attention on the slightest detail, whether it be an object, an actor, or a portion of an actor...It was Griffith's unique ability to reveal filmically the inmost thoughts and emotions of his characters to reveal them clearly and intimately to his audiences."
It is thought that the later films of D. W. Griffith, including "The White Rose" (1923) with Mae Marsh, more elaborately presented theme as being intertwined with the drama in which the characters were situated. D. W. Griffith
Actress Constance Talmadge appeared in a cornocopoia of short comedies for The Vitagraph Company of America between 1914-1916 before being cast by Griffith in "Intolerance". Lillian Gish in her autobiography The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me gives an account of Constance Talmadge wearing pads to "make her figure more womanly" while in costume for the film. Added to that she reports long delays between shots while filming. Although during 1918 Lillian Gish had talked D.W. Griffith out of casting Constance Talmadge in the film "Hearts of the World" in favor of her sister Dorithy Gish, Constance Talmadge would later become Dorothy's "constant companion", travelling to Europe with her, the two "inseperable".
G.W. Bitzer, in his autobiography "Billy Bitzer, his story" writes, "All Griffith pictures after 1913 were made with a Pathe camera, including 'Intolerance'. It was a camera he preferred and happened to be the least expensive camera made. Bitzer claimed the camera enabled him to be the first to use wash-drawing effects, which were to become popular with cameramen later.
D.W. Griffith at Biograph Film Company Victor Sjostrom
Silent Film
Scott Lord, Scott Lord and one other like this
28 Jul 01:22
After having appeared in “The Outlaw and His Wife”, actress Edith Erastoff starred with Lars Hanson and Greta Almroth In “The Flame of Life” and "Song of the Scarlet Flower" (Sangen om den eldroda blommen) directed by Mauritz Stiller during 1919 and “Let No Man Put Asunder” (“Hogre Andamal”, 1921) directed by Rune Carlsten. Stiller had directed Edith Erastoff in a 1914 production of August Strindberg's work "Storm" at the Intima Teatern, where she had witked mostly with Einar Froberg. Swedish Silent Film director Rune Carlsten had directed her twice on the stage of the Intima Theatern before her having appeared in Sjostrom's "The Outlaw and his Wife".
In Sweden, Victor Sjostrom continued directing in 1922 with the film “Vem domer”, starring Jenny Hasselqvist, which he co-scripted with Hjalmer Bergman.
Victor Sjostrom had written four hundred letters to Edith Erastoff, his co-star from the film “The Outlaw and His Wife”, their eventually having married during 1922.
The historiography of the film criticism that delineates the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film was perhaps easily formulated while the films were still being screened internationally in theaters if we heed the review placed in the periodical Picture Show magazine during 1919 that astutely notes "On stage it is easy to calculate the effect of limelights....a glance at the top photographs of Seastrom (left) in 'Love the Only Law' and (right) 'A Man There Was' well illustrates how the one appealing figure dominates the immense landscape around him". The magazine quotes Victor Sjostrom explaing his liking screen adaptation over stage adaptation almost propheticly in regard to the film criticism, if not film theory, that would later follow. "One has to deal with more people', he says, 'and also with grand, terrible landscapes, with shifting effects of shade and shadow'".
Author Forsyth Hardy, in the volume Scandinavian Film written in 1952, explains the film of Victor Sjostrom as having established Sjostrom as an auteur of the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film by his work having created a poetic cinema. Hardy writes, “There was a greater freedom of movement, an assured sense of rhythm and a fine feeling for composition. In ‘The Outlaw and His Wife’ Sjostrom used landscape with a skill which was to become part of the Swedish Film tradition. He found a way of filming the tree-lined valleys and wide arched skies of his country so that they became not merely backgrounds but organic elements in the theme in the theme. There was still, however, a lingering tendency to melodrama in the acting....the end of the film especially was marred by melodramatic excess, but despite this fault, Berg-EJvid was memorable because of its theme, and its demonstration in the earlier sequences of the film medium's affinities with poetry."
Peter Cowie, in his volume Scandinavian Film, nodded to the cinematography that Victor Sjostrom and Julius Jaenzon had already developed together, "The everyday rythmn of pastoral life and the pleasures and pains accompanying it merge in a charged brilliance in the cinematography of Julius Jaenzon. The interiors in the farm at the beggining of the film look quite authentic...."
During 1960, Charles L. Fuller, writing for Films in Review, succinctly described the films motifs, "Its theme was that no man escapes his fate 'though he rides faster than the wind' ".
Peter Cowie, in his volume Eighty Years of Cinema, explains, "But apart from his assured use of flashbacks, Sjostrom was the first Swedish director to realize the importance of landscape in the cinema. The solicitude and predicament Berg-Ejvind and his wife speak through images with the clouds and mountains expressing a life of vigor and simplicity." Peter Cowie, in his volume Swedish Cinema adds,"The magnificent scenery towers over this film and sets a precedence for such later ckassics as 'Salska Valka' and 'Summer Interlude'."
About the film, Einar Lauritzen wrote, “But Sjostrom never let the drama of human relations get lost in the grandeur of the scenery.” To this can be added that Jean Mitry, in his work The Aesthetics and Psychology of Cinema, writes of the mountain in "The Outlaw and His Wife", up to the tragic ending, is a symbol of granduer and isolation, as well as a symbol for the effort of the man and woman to reverse their fate. The snow, in Mitry's interpretation symbolizes not only purity but also redemption.
Peter Cowie writes, "Prominent too in this masterpiece is the Scandinavian approach to the seasons. Summer is recalled in short, wrenching spasms, as the outlaw sits starving in his mountain hut toward the end; but winter, equated inthe Swedish arts with death, destroys the spirit and whips the snow over the couple's bodies with inexorable force."
Bo Florin sees the landscape as metaphorical in the films of Victor Sjostrom, often representing conflict between characters and within characters after establishing the relation of man to nature, "Fullerton points to the dialectics in the relationship between human and landscape, which establishes analogies between them." Bo Florin then almost suprisingly goes further to stimulate the reader by entering into the effect of enviornment, ie. atmosphere as trope, on plot and whether it is part of the storyline, "The shape of the landscape in the film functions as a series of presages, which to the spectators forbode the dark conclusion of the narrative." Florin often sees Victor Sjostrom continuing his work from the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film as Victor Seastrom in Hollywood, his having analysized Sjostrom's work on both continents in his paper "Confronting the Wind".
Tom Milne sees the film as being an example of a director "articulating the sense of space and liberty in the use of landscape which was already one of the distinguishing marks of the Swedish cinema".
"The Outlaw and His Wife" was reviewed in the United States during 1921 under the title "You and I". Motion Picture News concluded, "The picture is marred by an utterly irrelevant prolougue and epilougue which should be dispensed with immediately. It has no place in advancing the drama and really spoils the good impressions of the picture."
When Bluebook of the Screen in 1923 introduced Victor Sjostrom as then currently filming his first feature made in the United States, "Master of Men" as Victor Seastrom it related, without quoting him directly, that Sjostrom felt that his "tragedy of Iceland", "The Outlaw and His Wife", was his est work and that to him it "would not be understood or appreciated in England or America".
David Bordwell, in his paper French Impressionist Cinema, Film Culture, Film Theory and Film Style, supports the idea that "The Outlaw and his Wife" had helped mark the incipience of a Golden Age of Swedish Silent FIlm. Bordwell notes, "'The Outlaw and his Wife' had begun an "influx" of Swedish Silent Films into France by Gaumont to complement a growing avaunte garde movement of French Impressionistic films, "In one week in 1921, no fewer than eight Swedish Films were playing in Paris, nearly all by Sjostrom and Stiller. Again, the Swedes use of flamboyant lighting effects and occaisional spatial distortion (e.g. the superimpositions of Sjostrom's 'The Phantom Carriage') probably reinforced and encouraged certain tendencies in French filmmakers work." Borwell described the Swedish camera techniques as "narturalistic" when compared to other European markets. Bordwell writes that Cinea, one of the magazines founded by Louis Delluc, proponent of the French Impressionist avaunte garde film movement, devoted a large amount of space to the reviewing of the films of Sjostrom and Stiller and their having been revered in France by critics and filmmakers, which is evident by the numerous appearances of Victor Seastrom on the cover. The volume Experiment in Film, edited by Roger Manvell in 1949 opined that while the films of Victor Sjostrom inspired the film of the French Avant-Guarde movement when it "set a fashion for dreams and superimposition", German silent cinema, with Nosferatu produced "deplorable experiments in composition."
Greta Garbo
Victor Sjostrom
Victor Sjostrom playlist
Swedish Silent Film: The Outlaw and His Wife (Victor Sjostrom, 1918)
by noreply@blogger.com (Scott Lord on Silent Film, Scott Lord on Mystery Film)
After having appeared in “The Outlaw and His Wife”, actress Edith Erastoff starred with Lars Hanson and Greta Almroth In “The Flame of Life” and "Song of the Scarlet Flower" (Sangen om den eldroda blommen) directed by Mauritz Stiller during 1919 and “Let No Man Put Asunder” (“Hogre Andamal”, 1921) directed by Rune Carlsten. Stiller had directed Edith Erastoff in a 1914 production of August Strindberg's work "Storm" at the Intima Teatern, where she had witked mostly with Einar Froberg. Swedish Silent Film director Rune Carlsten had directed her twice on the stage of the Intima Theatern before her having appeared in Sjostrom's "The Outlaw and his Wife".
In Sweden, Victor Sjostrom continued directing in 1922 with the film “Vem domer”, starring Jenny Hasselqvist, which he co-scripted with Hjalmer Bergman.
Victor Sjostrom had written four hundred letters to Edith Erastoff, his co-star from the film “The Outlaw and His Wife”, their eventually having married during 1922.
The historiography of the film criticism that delineates the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film was perhaps easily formulated while the films were still being screened internationally in theaters if we heed the review placed in the periodical Picture Show magazine during 1919 that astutely notes "On stage it is easy to calculate the effect of limelights....a glance at the top photographs of Seastrom (left) in 'Love the Only Law' and (right) 'A Man There Was' well illustrates how the one appealing figure dominates the immense landscape around him". The magazine quotes Victor Sjostrom explaing his liking screen adaptation over stage adaptation almost propheticly in regard to the film criticism, if not film theory, that would later follow. "One has to deal with more people', he says, 'and also with grand, terrible landscapes, with shifting effects of shade and shadow'".
Author Forsyth Hardy, in the volume Scandinavian Film written in 1952, explains the film of Victor Sjostrom as having established Sjostrom as an auteur of the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film by his work having created a poetic cinema. Hardy writes, “There was a greater freedom of movement, an assured sense of rhythm and a fine feeling for composition. In ‘The Outlaw and His Wife’ Sjostrom used landscape with a skill which was to become part of the Swedish Film tradition. He found a way of filming the tree-lined valleys and wide arched skies of his country so that they became not merely backgrounds but organic elements in the theme in the theme. There was still, however, a lingering tendency to melodrama in the acting....the end of the film especially was marred by melodramatic excess, but despite this fault, Berg-EJvid was memorable because of its theme, and its demonstration in the earlier sequences of the film medium's affinities with poetry."
Peter Cowie, in his volume Scandinavian Film, nodded to the cinematography that Victor Sjostrom and Julius Jaenzon had already developed together, "The everyday rythmn of pastoral life and the pleasures and pains accompanying it merge in a charged brilliance in the cinematography of Julius Jaenzon. The interiors in the farm at the beggining of the film look quite authentic...."
During 1960, Charles L. Fuller, writing for Films in Review, succinctly described the films motifs, "Its theme was that no man escapes his fate 'though he rides faster than the wind' ".
Peter Cowie, in his volume Eighty Years of Cinema, explains, "But apart from his assured use of flashbacks, Sjostrom was the first Swedish director to realize the importance of landscape in the cinema. The solicitude and predicament Berg-Ejvind and his wife speak through images with the clouds and mountains expressing a life of vigor and simplicity." Peter Cowie, in his volume Swedish Cinema adds,"The magnificent scenery towers over this film and sets a precedence for such later ckassics as 'Salska Valka' and 'Summer Interlude'."
About the film, Einar Lauritzen wrote, “But Sjostrom never let the drama of human relations get lost in the grandeur of the scenery.” To this can be added that Jean Mitry, in his work The Aesthetics and Psychology of Cinema, writes of the mountain in "The Outlaw and His Wife", up to the tragic ending, is a symbol of granduer and isolation, as well as a symbol for the effort of the man and woman to reverse their fate. The snow, in Mitry's interpretation symbolizes not only purity but also redemption.
Peter Cowie writes, "Prominent too in this masterpiece is the Scandinavian approach to the seasons. Summer is recalled in short, wrenching spasms, as the outlaw sits starving in his mountain hut toward the end; but winter, equated inthe Swedish arts with death, destroys the spirit and whips the snow over the couple's bodies with inexorable force."
Bo Florin sees the landscape as metaphorical in the films of Victor Sjostrom, often representing conflict between characters and within characters after establishing the relation of man to nature, "Fullerton points to the dialectics in the relationship between human and landscape, which establishes analogies between them." Bo Florin then almost suprisingly goes further to stimulate the reader by entering into the effect of enviornment, ie. atmosphere as trope, on plot and whether it is part of the storyline, "The shape of the landscape in the film functions as a series of presages, which to the spectators forbode the dark conclusion of the narrative." Florin often sees Victor Sjostrom continuing his work from the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film as Victor Seastrom in Hollywood, his having analysized Sjostrom's work on both continents in his paper "Confronting the Wind".
Tom Milne sees the film as being an example of a director "articulating the sense of space and liberty in the use of landscape which was already one of the distinguishing marks of the Swedish cinema".
"The Outlaw and His Wife" was reviewed in the United States during 1921 under the title "You and I". Motion Picture News concluded, "The picture is marred by an utterly irrelevant prolougue and epilougue which should be dispensed with immediately. It has no place in advancing the drama and really spoils the good impressions of the picture."
When Bluebook of the Screen in 1923 introduced Victor Sjostrom as then currently filming his first feature made in the United States, "Master of Men" as Victor Seastrom it related, without quoting him directly, that Sjostrom felt that his "tragedy of Iceland", "The Outlaw and His Wife", was his est work and that to him it "would not be understood or appreciated in England or America".
David Bordwell, in his paper French Impressionist Cinema, Film Culture, Film Theory and Film Style, supports the idea that "The Outlaw and his Wife" had helped mark the incipience of a Golden Age of Swedish Silent FIlm. Bordwell notes, "'The Outlaw and his Wife' had begun an "influx" of Swedish Silent Films into France by Gaumont to complement a growing avaunte garde movement of French Impressionistic films, "In one week in 1921, no fewer than eight Swedish Films were playing in Paris, nearly all by Sjostrom and Stiller. Again, the Swedes use of flamboyant lighting effects and occaisional spatial distortion (e.g. the superimpositions of Sjostrom's 'The Phantom Carriage') probably reinforced and encouraged certain tendencies in French filmmakers work." Borwell described the Swedish camera techniques as "narturalistic" when compared to other European markets. Bordwell writes that Cinea, one of the magazines founded by Louis Delluc, proponent of the French Impressionist avaunte garde film movement, devoted a large amount of space to the reviewing of the films of Sjostrom and Stiller and their having been revered in France by critics and filmmakers, which is evident by the numerous appearances of Victor Seastrom on the cover. The volume Experiment in Film, edited by Roger Manvell in 1949 opined that while the films of Victor Sjostrom inspired the film of the French Avant-Guarde movement when it "set a fashion for dreams and superimposition", German silent cinema, with Nosferatu produced "deplorable experiments in composition."
Greta Garbo
Victor Sjostrom
Victor Sjostrom playlist
Silent Film
Scott Lord, Scott Lord and one other like this
28 Jul 01:22
Scott Lord Swedish Silent Film: Thomas Graal’s Basta Barn (Mauritz Still..
by noreply@blogger.com (Scott Lord on Silent Film, Scott Lord on Mystery Film)
Peter Cowie, in his volume Scandinavian Cinema, writes, "The domestic relationships and erotic byplay in Stiller's comedies posses an application and validity beyond their immediate setting- and generation." In his volume Eighty Years of Cinema, Peter Cowie opines, "There is a spirited mischievousness about the performances of Victor Sjostrom and Karen Molander in 'Thomas Graal's First Child' that makes other acting of the period seem academic and ponderous.
Scholar Laura Horak, Carlton University, in the Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, points to Mauritz Stiller having between 1913-1918 directed "feminism comedies" and having "used comedy to explore controversial issues and contest the melodramatic tenor of sexual debates by modelling a light-hearted, cosmopolitan attitude towards social change".
Directed by Mauritz Stiller during 1918, the photoplay to ""Thomas Graal's Basta Barn" (Marriage ala Mode) was written by Gustaf Molander and the cinematographer to the film was Henrik Jaenzon. Starring with Victor Sjostrom and Karen Molander was actress Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson. Gustaf and Karin Molander were married from 1909 to 1919. Gustaf Molander continued as a writer and director of the third film in the series, "Thomas Graal's Myndling", photographed by Adrian Bjurman and starring Vera Schmiterlow, Gull Natrop, Tekla Sjoblom- although Molander was criticized for later directing comedies it may be that he was more recognized for continuing films in the series of adaptations by Victor Sjostrom of the works of Selma Lagerlof, making him more of a protogee of Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller by his having included himself in the Golden Age of Silent Film, which again he quickly absconded from after the advent of sound film.
It almost goes with out saying that that year Victor Sjostrom would gain worldwide recognition for Mauritz Stiller and himself with the protypical first classic film of the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film, "The Outlaw and His Wife", which he directed and in which he starred on screen. He and Stiller both would soon be directing adaptations of the author Selma Lagerlof
Mauritz Stiller would not attempt to direct comedies in the United States before returning to Sweden, adhering to the "genre" he and Sjostrom had established together.
Victor Sjostrom playlist Mauritz Stiller Love and Journalism (Mauritz Stiller)
Scholar Laura Horak, Carlton University, in the Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, points to Mauritz Stiller having between 1913-1918 directed "feminism comedies" and having "used comedy to explore controversial issues and contest the melodramatic tenor of sexual debates by modelling a light-hearted, cosmopolitan attitude towards social change".
Directed by Mauritz Stiller during 1918, the photoplay to ""Thomas Graal's Basta Barn" (Marriage ala Mode) was written by Gustaf Molander and the cinematographer to the film was Henrik Jaenzon. Starring with Victor Sjostrom and Karen Molander was actress Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson. Gustaf and Karin Molander were married from 1909 to 1919. Gustaf Molander continued as a writer and director of the third film in the series, "Thomas Graal's Myndling", photographed by Adrian Bjurman and starring Vera Schmiterlow, Gull Natrop, Tekla Sjoblom- although Molander was criticized for later directing comedies it may be that he was more recognized for continuing films in the series of adaptations by Victor Sjostrom of the works of Selma Lagerlof, making him more of a protogee of Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller by his having included himself in the Golden Age of Silent Film, which again he quickly absconded from after the advent of sound film.
It almost goes with out saying that that year Victor Sjostrom would gain worldwide recognition for Mauritz Stiller and himself with the protypical first classic film of the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film, "The Outlaw and His Wife", which he directed and in which he starred on screen. He and Stiller both would soon be directing adaptations of the author Selma Lagerlof
Mauritz Stiller would not attempt to direct comedies in the United States before returning to Sweden, adhering to the "genre" he and Sjostrom had established together.
Victor Sjostrom playlist Mauritz Stiller Love and Journalism (Mauritz Stiller)
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28 Jul 01:20
The Cat and the Canary (1927)
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28 Jul 01:20
Mr Wong in Chinatown
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28 Jul 01:20
Sherlock Holmes Trailers-Pearl of Death
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28 Jul 01:20
Scott Lord Mystery: Sherlock Holmes The Case of Harry Crocker (1954)
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28 Jul 01:20
the beautiful Fay Wray in The Evil Mind
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28 Jul 01:20
Jane Eyre (Monogram)
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28 Jul 01:20
The Cat and the Canary (1927)
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28 Jul 01:19
Basil Rathbone
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28 Jul 01:19
Mystery Film: The Full Page Ad as Poster
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28 Jul 01:19
Silent Film art
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28 Jul 01:19
Magazine Art
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28 Jul 01:19
Film art
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28 Jul 01:19
Silent film art
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28 Jul 01:19
Art
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28 Jul 01:18
silent film - Scott Lord Silent Film
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28 Jul 01:18
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Mystery: SOS Coast Guard, Theatrical Trailer (1937)
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28 Jul 01:18
Scott Lord on Silent Film Hollywood, Lost Silent Film, Swedish Silent Film, Danish Silent Film: January 2023
Victorseastrom's Favorite Links from Diigo.
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28 Jul 01:18
Scott Lord Horror Comedy: Ghost Parade (Mack Sennett, 1931)
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Blacklight Castle- Mystery Film.
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28 Jul 01:18
Swedish Silent Film
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28 Jul 01:18
The short subject weekly newsreel "Life in Hollywood" featured on the set extratextural introductions of actors and actresses that inckuded Ruth Roland, Vivien Martin, Kathleen Clifford, and Jack and Lottie Pickford.
Silent Film
Life in Hollywood
Scott Lord Silent Film: Silent Film Studio Tour, Life In Hollywood (Dell...
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The short subject weekly newsreel "Life in Hollywood" featured on the set extratextural introductions of actors and actresses that inckuded Ruth Roland, Vivien Martin, Kathleen Clifford, and Jack and Lottie Pickford.
Silent Film
Life in Hollywood
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28 Jul 01:18
Actress Linda Ardvison, writing in the periodcial Film Fun during 1916, includes the "now historic" film "The Advntures of Dollie" (one reel) directed by D.W Griffith for the Biograph Film Company in 1908. Arvidson wrote under the name Mrs. D.W. Griffith. In one installment she reminisces about travelling to film exterior scenes, claiming they hadn't automobiles yet and visited locations by train or by boat. In a later installment she dicusses her salary for the film, "How much money I made! Twenty eight dollars in two weeks, enough for a whole spring outfit." What is more enjoyable is the autobiography of Mrs. D.W. Griffith, When Movies Were Young, published in 1925. Much of the material from the Film Fun periodical is repeated, worded similarly, as she gives an account of D.W. Griffith the actor being offered a provisional chance to direct his first film, "The Adventures of Dollie", given that he could return to acting if necessary. Mrs. D.W. Griffith exlains Griffith having been accepted as a director for Biograph, "For one year now, those movies so covered with slime and so degraded would have to come first to come first in his thoughts and affections....agonizing days when he would have given his life to be able to chuck the job." She includes not only the studio on East Fourteenth Street but the theaters on Third and Ninth Avenues as places into which one would not be seen going.
Author Roger Manvell, in his sixty page introduction to the anthology "Experiment in the Film" credits "The Adventures of Dollie" as the first film in which D.W. Griffith had used the flashback.
Peter Cowie, in his volume Eighty Years of Cinema, notes that it was in 1908, in the film "For Love of Gold", that D.W. Griffith had first used the close up shot in film.
Silent Film D.W. Griffith D. W. Griffith
Scott Lord Silent Film: Linda Arvidson in The Adventures of Dollie (D.W....
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Actress Linda Ardvison, writing in the periodcial Film Fun during 1916, includes the "now historic" film "The Advntures of Dollie" (one reel) directed by D.W Griffith for the Biograph Film Company in 1908. Arvidson wrote under the name Mrs. D.W. Griffith. In one installment she reminisces about travelling to film exterior scenes, claiming they hadn't automobiles yet and visited locations by train or by boat. In a later installment she dicusses her salary for the film, "How much money I made! Twenty eight dollars in two weeks, enough for a whole spring outfit." What is more enjoyable is the autobiography of Mrs. D.W. Griffith, When Movies Were Young, published in 1925. Much of the material from the Film Fun periodical is repeated, worded similarly, as she gives an account of D.W. Griffith the actor being offered a provisional chance to direct his first film, "The Adventures of Dollie", given that he could return to acting if necessary. Mrs. D.W. Griffith exlains Griffith having been accepted as a director for Biograph, "For one year now, those movies so covered with slime and so degraded would have to come first to come first in his thoughts and affections....agonizing days when he would have given his life to be able to chuck the job." She includes not only the studio on East Fourteenth Street but the theaters on Third and Ninth Avenues as places into which one would not be seen going.
Author Roger Manvell, in his sixty page introduction to the anthology "Experiment in the Film" credits "The Adventures of Dollie" as the first film in which D.W. Griffith had used the flashback.
Peter Cowie, in his volume Eighty Years of Cinema, notes that it was in 1908, in the film "For Love of Gold", that D.W. Griffith had first used the close up shot in film.
Silent Film D.W. Griffith D. W. Griffith
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28 Jul 01:18
The library, built in 1809, is beautiful.
These two botttom photographs in particular were taken from behnd Donna's desk from where she checks in books with a scanner and removes the checkout cards. I discussed theology with a new minister today explaining to him that he was the eighth minster I have had a rapport with and that my questions are more precise after a decade. There have been ten or eleven I have known since attending.
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point of view shots of Donna's desk at Church Library
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The library, built in 1809, is beautiful.
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28 Jul 01:17
The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes
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26 Jul 02:51
Scott Lord Silent Film: Yesterday and Today Newsreel (1929)
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26 Jul 02:51
Scott Lord: Silent Sherlock Holmes
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26 Jul 02:50
Filmnyheter 1923 (free online magazine on Swedish Silent Film)
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Virtual History Film: 'via Blog this' Please allow the use of the magazine cover fairly as the is a link provided above it and enjoy the copies of Filmnyheter that have been made available online to read in both Scandinavian and the United States.
silent film
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