The story of a samurai who falls on hard times due to misunderstandings and explains the plots of his enemies. Such explanations superbly depict the absurdity of the samurai's unjust world.
Orochi is a 1925 black and white Japanese silent film with benshi accompaniment directed by Buntarō Futagawa. It is the most popular and beloved film of Tsumasaburō Bandō, featuring the star at the height of his fame.
The film title was originally "Outlaw," but was banned by Japanese censors and police because the depiction of an outlaw as a hero was seen as a very dangerous suggestion. The title was later changed to "Serpent," describing how Tsumasaburō Bandō wiggles when he fights back, and how even in death, a serpent still looks terrifying.
Max Auzinger...Jules, principal steward of the house
Didier Aslan...Duke de Monthieu
Alexander Murski...Mr. Adelsskjold
Grete Mosheim...Mrs. Alice Adelsskjold
Karl Freund...LeBlanc, art dealer
Wilhelmine Sandrock...Widow de Monthieu
A famous painter falls in love with one of his models, Michael.
Michael (also known as Mikaël, Chained: The Story of the Third Sex, and Heart's Desire) was a German silent film released in 1924, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, director of other notable silents such as The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), Master of the House (1925), and Leaves from Satan's Book (1921). The film stars Walter Slezak as the eponymous Michael, the young assistant and model to the artist Claude Zoret (Benjamin Christensen).
The film is based on Herman Bang's 1902 novel Mikaël. It is the second screen adaptation of the book, the first being The Wings, made eight years prior by director Mauritz Stiller. Michael, however, follows Bang's storyline much more closely than the earlier film version.
Initial responses to the film included some major objections. Film critic Mordaunt Hall, writing in December, 1926 for The New York Times, pronounced:
"Chained" is a dull piece of work, redeemed only by some artistic scenes and Benjamin Christensen's able portrayal of Claude Zoret, an artist...The actress cast as a princess does not screen well, and Walter Slezak, who figures as the youth, gives a stilted, amateurish impersonation.
He criticises the film for what he perceived as opportunism for a German director to take a "fling at France" by filming less than favorable national figures on the screen (Zoret was purportedly based on French sculptor Auguste Rodin). The homosexual undertones also upset reviewers, since "Michael [was] one of the very few big-budget mainstream studio productions from the silent period that [dealt] with homosexuality; although it remains implicit, it was readily apparent to many contemporaries."
After Dreyer had further established himself as a prominent director through his later films – most notably The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), which is considered a masterpiece – critics began to reevaluate Michael. From the perspective of auteur theory, this film exhibits many trademark elements of Dreyer's personal directorial style, such as his use of close-ups in a "way that... makes a tranquil picture of overwhelming feelings." It has also been suggested that the film reflects personal feelings harboured by Dreyer after a purported homosexual affair.
The film has been cited to have influenced several directors. Alfred Hitchcock drew upon motifs from Michael for his script for The Blackguard (1925).
Along with Different From the Others (1919) and Sex in Chains (1928), Michael is widely considered a landmark in gay silent cinema.
Max Maxudian as Le minéralogiste Kalatikascopoulos
Georges Térof as Machefer
Gil Clary as Dalilah
Sisif, a railwayman, and his son Elie fall in love with the beautiful Norma (who Sisif rescued from a train crash when a baby and raised as his daughter), with tragic results. Originally running nine hours, this epic tragedy is notable for the way it foreshadows Gance's later 'Napoleon' in its use of then-revolutionary lighting techniques, and rapid scene changes and cuts.
"There is cinema before and after LA ROUE," wrote Jean Cocteau of Abel Gance's 1923 epic romance of forbidden love and doom, shot with no-expense-spared amidst the chaotic railways of Nice and the high-elevation peaks of Mont Blanc. One of the most influential films of the silent era, its editing style of rapid, rhythmic cuts had never been seen before.
LA ROUE heralded an entirely new approach to filmmaking that inspired Sergei Eisenstein and Alexander Dovzhenko (among many others). "Cinema endows man with a new sense," noted Gance. "It is the music of light. He listens with his eyes." Pure melodrama, the film concerns a kind-hearted railway engineer who adopts an orphan girl; years later, both he and his son fall in love with her, a tainted triangle that leads to disaster.
Criticised for its heaving melodramatic flourishes and "lack of verisimilitude" during its original release, LA ROUE is most entertaining precisely because of its wilful lack of realism and decency; this, as they say, is cinema, and here it is being born. A year later, Gance would take what he had learned and put it towards an even more spectacular epic, NAPOLEON.
- Jason Sanders
Abel Gance came up with the idea for this film the day his wife, Marguerite Danis, was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Gance insisted on authenticity which meant sets were built on location; railroad yards for the first half of the film and on Mount Blanc in the French Alps for the second half, though the decision to shoot in the Alps has been attributed to his wife's need for alpine air. Gance completed editing on the 32-reel film on 9 April 1924, hours after his wife died, whilst Séverin-Mars died shortly after shooting completed.
The story, a "tragedy of modern times," is seemingly a simple one. Aman named Sisif (Séverin-Mars) rescues a baby girl in a train wreck and raises her as his own along with his son. She's known as a "rose of the rails" since the family lives in a squalid house by the railroad where Sisif is an engineer. As the years pass the girl, named Norma, grows to adulthood. Things get uneasy when Sisif realizes that he is in love with Norma (Ivy Close), and things turn to tragedy when his son Elie (Gabriel de Gravone) also loves her ... but believes she is his sister. Sisif plots to marry her off to a wealthy man to escape the impending disaster.
After Norma is unhappily married off, Sisif is injured in an accident and banished to a small mountain railway near Mont Blanc. He lives there with his son on the edge of a glacier but even in their isolation they cannot escape tragedy ... of their love of Norma.
The film is high art, operatic, Greek tragedy, and must be approached as such. The visuals are stunning. The composition and sets includes the smallest of details, and Gance uses close-ups, iris shots, fades, and rapid editing (borrowed from D.W. Griffith's masterpieces) to make this one of the most beautiful films ever made. The current version also includes tinting to enhance the emotional pitch of the film.
The performance of Séverin-Mars won't be to every taste, but his old-school acting style is similar to that of Emil Jannings. Without dialog, all he has are his body language and face. Shots are held to emphasise the emotional plight of the ageing man. And you can see every thought he has in his face.
The other great performance is by Ivy Close, a British actress who also worked in European silent films. She resembles Norma Shearer and as with Séverin-Mars, her face shows every moment of joy and sadness. There's a stunning scene toward the end when she's asked to go to a village dance. She runs to powder her face and sees a gray hair, a line on her forehead. She's growing old. La Roue, the wheel of life, is turning, and Norma is growing old.
Séverin-Mars died soon after filming was completed in 1921. Gance did not complete and release the film until 1923. Ivy Close made a few more silent films in the late 1920s and retired from the screen.
This may be a film you only watch once in your lifetime, but you will never forget it.
Iverson Ranch - 1 Iverson Lane, Chatsworth, Los Angeles, California, USA
Cast:
Buster Keaton...Little Chief Paleface
Virginia Fox...Indian Maiden
Joe Roberts...The Indian Chief
Buster helps a Native American tribe save their land from greedy oil barons.
Buster Keaton stars in this two-reel comedy as the captive of hostile Indians. Crooked "oil sharks" led by a man named Hunt have stolen an Indian tribe's lease to their land and given them 24 hours to vacate. Furious, the Indian chief orders that the first white man who enters their encampment be killed. A butterfly collector (Keaton) unwittingly wanders in while chasing a butterfly.
His captors tie him to a stake and prepare him for death by fire. Keaton moves with the stake as the Indians try frantically to place the firewood around him.
When he survives the flames due to his fire-resistant clothes, Keaton is made a member of the tribe and named Little Chief Paleface.
He then foils the scheme of unsavoury oil speculators to steal the land from his Indian companions.
