Posts tagged ‘greta garbo’
Starlit Night: 2018 San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Favorite, An Inn In Tokyo, 1935
I think it’s safe to say that Yasujirō Ozu is one of my favorite film directors. At one point some years back I binged on all the Ozu films I could find, focusing mostly on his midcentury classics, but I really love almost all of his movies that I’ve had the pleasure of seeing. So it’s nice to see that this year’s edition of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival is including one of his later black-and-white silents, An Inn In Tokyo (1935), as part of its lineup.
The film follows a down on his luck widower and his two young sons as the father tries to find a job in prewar Tokyo. With the paltry income they scrape together catching stray dogs the trio has a daily choice of sleeping in an inn or eating, while the father searches in vain for employment. In their travails they cross paths with a young mother and her daughter who are in similar dire straits.
Geometric, An Inn In Tokyo, 1935
Although relatively early on in Ozu’s career the film still has many of the hallmarks of his aesthetic including a deeply humanistic and empathetic worldview, focusing on the gentle and deep bonding among family members. Severel of Ozu’s formal tics are already in evidence as well including his geometric compositions and his use of full-face camera address. The film utilizes more camera movement than his later movies, primarily using a gliding pan that follows the action of his characters through the landscape.
Ozu also draws out sympathetic, effective performances from his cast, from both the adult and child actors, and captures several beautiful interplays between them. A particularly nice scene early on in the film features the food-deprived father and sons miming eating and drinking their favorite dishes and beverages, including sake, in the middle of the field. The playful longing in their actions coupled with the sweetness of their family bonding creates a charming and sad moment.
Queen, The Saga Of Gösta Berling, 1924
In addition to the Ozu, as usual this year’s Silent Film Festival includes several other gems. These include another Japanese silent film that sounds very different from An Inn In Tokyo, Tomu Uchida’s crime film Policeman (1933), Piel Jutzi’s Mother Krause’s Journey To Happiness (1929), which looks at life in a seedy Weimar Republic- tenement, and the epic 200-minute long The Saga Of Gösta Berling (1924, dir. Mauritz Stiller), which was queen Greta Garbo’s first starring role. As usual all screenings include live musical accompaniment.
Brilliant, Battling Butler, 1926
Closing out the festival on June 3 is Battling Butler (1926), by another one of my favorite directors, Buster Keaton. The film features The Great Stoneface’s brilliant physical comedy combined with his typical underdog fish-out-of-water lead character. Seeing Keaton on the big screen is always a treat so this one is not to be missed.
23rd San Francisco Silent Film Festival
May 30-June 3, 2018
Castro Theater
San Francisco CA 94114
Enjoy The Silence: 2013 Silent Film Festival
Workers and Geese, Unite! The House On Trubnaya Square, 1928
It’s July, the fog has swamped the city, and the Silent Film Festival (SFF) returns this week to San Francisco. Spanning an action-packed four days, the lineup includes classics, gems, and newly restored discoveries from locales around the world including Bali, Japan, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, England, Russia, and the United States. This year’s festival features legendary stars such as Louise Brooks (Prix de Beaute), Greta Garbo (The Joyless Street), Harold Lloyd (Safety Last!) and Douglas Fairbanks (The Half-Breed) and famed directors including G.W. Pabst and Yasujiro Ozu.
In contrast to the high-tone glamor found in the movies above, The House on Trubnaya Square is a sprightly little Soviet comedy that follows the misadventures of a cleaning lady in Moscow. As the cleaning lady rises through the ranks of the workers’ movement, the film satirically exposes the foibles of feudalism, capitalism, and socialism alike. As to be expected from the land of Eisenstein, the movie features great editing, along with excellent camerawork, choreography, and story structure, as well as a cheeky performance by Vera Maretskaya as the cleaning lady swept up in the social movements of the time.
Stop the presses! The Last Edition, 1924
Another notable program is the premiere of the recent restoration of The Last Edition, an entertaining yarn shot in San Francisco in 1924. The movie looks at corruption in the newspaper publishing business, in which an unscrupulous publisher takes advantage of an overly trusting pressman. The populist film sides with the workingman against the corrupt bosses, reflecting the sentiments of the Wobblies and other early 20th-century labor organizations. The movie is especially fun for its local flava, as much of it is shot at the Chronicle Building at 5th and Mission Street and concludes with an exciting chase through the streets of San Francisco, passing by recognizable landmarks including the newly rebuilt City Hall. The film also features huge mechanical presses, typesetting trays, switchboards and rotary phones, and other industrial age machinery that will gun the engines of your inner steampunk.
Ouch!, How A Mosquito Operates, 1912
Also part of the festival is a presentation by John Canemaker on well-known newspaper cartoonist Winsor McKay that includes of illustrations from Canemaker’s bio on McKay as well as a screening of several of McKay’s brilliant animated films. Best known for his long-running comic strip Little Nemo, McKay’s animations are masterful, deft, and magical, ranging from the whimsical Little Nemo and Gertie the Dinosaur through the dramatic, realistic Sinking of the Lusitania. My personal favorite is How A Mosquito Operates, in which a prodigious bug repeatedly sinks its very sharp stinger into a sleeping man’s nose, its protuberant abdomen swelling with blood after each bite.
The Silent Film Festival is a rare opportunity to see these movies in all their big-screen glory, and it’s markedly more fun than watching DVDs by yourself at home. As per usual, all SFF screenings (at the gloriously appropriate Castro Theater) include live accompaniment.
San Francisco Silent Film Festival
July 18-21, 2013
Castro Theater
429 Castro Street (near the intersection of Castro and Market Street)
San Francisco, CA 94114
415-621-6120, castrotheatre.com
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