Nosferatu (October 6th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[NOSFERATU screens Friday October 6th at 9:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque. Live musical accompaniment by The Invincible Czars.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

For those who don't already know, F.W. Murnau's silent horror classic NOSFERATU is in reality a very thinly disguised and very much unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'. Stoker's heirs were not pleased and tried to have every copy of the film destroyed, but like any good movie monster NOSFERATU managed to rise from the grave. It is now considered one of the undisputed classics of the horror genre, one of those films that film historians and critics will tell you that you simply have to see in order to have an appreciation for the development of cinematic art, blah, blah, blah. And they're right, of course, but that's not why you should watch it. You should watch NOSFERATU because, even at almost a century old, it's still fun to watch.

Not So Silent Cinema presents 3 Charlie Chaplin shorts w/live original score Jan. 11th at Cleveland Cinematheque

[Press Release from Not So Silent Cinema.]

On Sunday January 11th, The Cleveland Art Institute hosts Not So Silent Cinema’s Charlie Chaplin Shorts, featuring new original scores to three classic Chaplin short films. The performance takes place at 4:00pm. Learn more atwww.notsosilentcinema.com

Nobody does it like Charlie Chaplin! Perhaps the most iconic film star of all time, Chaplin pioneered aspects of acting, directing and writing that shaped the course of cinema history. This program, featuring several short films Chaplin made for Mutual Film Company in an exhilarating two year run in 1916-1917, show the rapid evolution of Chaplin's style from no-holds-barred slapstick to nuanced emotional storytelling.

“You won't be able to hear a pin drop…And you're not likely to be able to sit still either.”

–Philadelphia Inquirer

Dope Island: Police brutality caught on camera! - A Cleveland Movie Blog special video report!

I hope I don't have to explain that the footage is from a classic two-reeler that's almost 100 years old, EASY STREET. The big guy manhandling Charlie is a character actor named Eric Campbell who played villains in practically all Chaplin shorts from this period. And there is a Ferguson connection, insofar as Campbell, a huge Scotsman, died in a car wreck the very year EASY STREET came out (check out his Wikipedia biography; it was an incredibly tragic year for the guy all around). Sentimental movie fans refer to him as a "gentle giant" - wow, sound familiar?

I hope you internet kids get the main gag here, that cop Charlie subdues the strongman four times his size by asphyxiating him using the natural gas piped into an old-fashioned street lamp. This must have been back in the days when many such lights still existed, as pre-electric filament technology (but the same lamp has a police-emergency telephone; don't ask me how true to life that is, the two existing side by side). At dusk the city had fellows who went around lighting the gas street lamps by hand, imagery you'll occasionally find in period movies.

The Freshman (August 21st and 24th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[THE FRESHMAN screens Thursday August 21st at 7:00 pm and Sunday August 24th at 4:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

There are some people in this world who refuse to watch black and white movies, let alone silent ones. They presume, incorrectly, that such films will be dated and hokey and hold no relevance to them. These folks need to see a movie like THE FRESHMAN. The premise, the plot, the pacing, and the jokes all feel very much contemporary, and unlike the films of Chaplin or Keaton, could probably work just as well as a talkie. Sure, there are aspects of the film that date it, but not much more than if one were to make a film today and set it in the 1920s.

31 Days of Halloween 2013: Nosferatu (October 4th at the Capitol Theatre at midnight)

[NOSFERATU screens Friday October 4th at the Capitol Theatre at midnight.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

For those who don't already know, F.W. Murnau's silent horror classic NOSFERATU is in reality a very thinly disguised and very much unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'. Stoker's heirs were not pleased and tried to have every copy of the film destroyed, but like any good movie monster NOSFERATU managed to rise from the grave. It is now considered one of the undisputed classics of the horror genre, one of those films that film historians and critics will tell you that you simply have to see in order to have an appreciation for the development of cinematic art, blah, blah, blah. And they're right, of course, but that's not why you should watch it. You should watch NOSFERATU because, even at almost a century old, it's still fun to watch.

The Alloy Orchestra to accompany three silent films on Sept. 28 & 29

[Press release from the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

The late Roger Ebert called the Alloy Orchestra “the best in the world at accompanying silent films.” On September 28 and 29, this internationally known three-member band from Boston will come to the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque to play for three different silent classics: Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS and two Lon Chaney movies, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and HE WHO GETS SLAPPED.

 

METROPOLIS, which will show on Saturday, September 28 at 8:00 pm, is the movie that made the Alloy Orchestra famous. It remains their most popular score. This 1927 German sci-fi spectacular—about a gleaming futuristic city where the wealthy lead lives of luxury above ground while worker drones toil on machinery underground (until a robot gets them to revolt)—is the perfect vehicle for the Alloy sound, a distinctive mix of clarinet, accordion, electronics, and junk metal percussion. Though the band has accompanied METROPOLIS at the Cinematheque a few times over the years, the September 28 performance will be the East Side Cleveland premiere of their score to the complete METROPOLIS, a 2010 restoration of the movie that is 25 minutes (and 25%) longer than the longest previous cut.

 

NE Ohio artists re-scoring silent film

[Press release from Akron Film+Pixel.]

Akron Film+Pixel will premiere a version of the 1924 silent sci-fi classic AELITA: QUEEN OF MARS with a new score created by Northeast Ohio songwriters. Over twenty musicians have contributed to this project, each filling a 3 to 4 minute segment of the film. Their work will be edited into AELITA and screened in the Main Auditorium of the Akron-Summit County Main Library on August 24th at 8:00 pm.

The project is the second installment of its kind, following the new score for the early German horror classic THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI produced by local musicians in 2012.

"Last year's musical interpretations of DR. CALIGARI sounded awesome.  We're very excited to see what everyone comes up with for AELITA," said Jacob Trombetta, the project's creator.

ShiSho, The May Company, Relaxer and The Speedbumps are a few of the artists who are contributing to this year's film. The full list of participating artists is included below.

AELITA: QUEEN OF MARS will premiere with the new soundtrack at the Akron-Summit County Main Library on Saturday, August 24th. The event is open to the public and admission is $5. Advance tickets can be purchased at http://aelita.eventbrite.com/.

The General (April 23rd at the Cedar Lee Theatre)

[THE GENERAL screens Tuesday April 23rd at 7:00 pm at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

If you really need a break from last week's ghastliness, be it the Brownscapolypse or Cavstastrophe or Boston or tax deadlines, be at the Cedar Lee for a bigscreen revival of a comedy that's so good that it's ranked among film historians as simply one of the greatest comedies ever. Perhaps one of the best films ever made, simple as that.

It's THE GENERAL. No, not a film based on that CGI auto-insurance salesman (and by the way, what's the deal with that General anyway? In what war did he serve? How many people did he kill? How does that qualify him to sell auto insurance exactly?), but rather the 1926 Buster Keaton masterwork, co-directed by Keaton and Clyde Bruckman, but, let's face it, Keaton's show all the way. For those lovers of Hollywood's true Golden Age (yes, hard to believe there was one) who still debate the question of who was better, Keaton or Chaplin, THE GENERAL is Exhibit A for Buster partisans.

Japanese benshi (silent film narrator) coming to the Cinematheque

[Press release from the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

 

Ichiro Kataoka, one of Japan’s foremost benshi (or silent film narrators), will perform in person at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque on Friday, November 16, at 7:30 pm. Kataoka will narrate the 1935 Japanese silent film AN INN AT TOKYO directed by Yasujiro Ozu (TOKYO STORY).

In Japan silent films were accompanied not only by music, but also by a benshi. Standing next to the screen, the benshi provided a running commentary on the movie while relaying the film’s story in a theatrical manner (playing multiple roles with a variety of voices). Some benshi were so popular that they were more of a draw than the movie itself! Though benshi disappeared with the coming of sound, certain individuals kept the tradition alive. Ichiro Kataoka is one of Japan’s foremost practitioners of this vanished art. He was the star pupil of master benshi Midori Sawato (who performed at The Cleveland Museum of Art in 1989) and is also a film and television performer, a voice actor for video games, and a historian. AN INN AT TOKYO, the movie he will narrate, is a moving drama about the relationship between an unemployed father and an equally destitute single mother.

Alloy Orchestra returning to the Cinematheque

[Press release from the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

The Alloy Orchestra, a Boston band that Roger Ebert has called “the best in the world at accompanying silent films” (and whose last performance in Cleveland, a 2010 Cinematheque showing of METROPOLIS at the Capitol Theatre, sold out the house), will return to the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque on Thursday, October 4.

The ensemble’s three members will lend their distinctive mix of clarinet, accordion, electronics, and junk metal percussion to two movies that they have never before performed in Cleveland, both Soviet silents shown in rare 35mm prints.

Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg’s 1926 film version of Gogol’s THE OVERCOAT will show at 7:00 pm. And a movie recently voted the eighth best film of all time, Dziga Vertov’s MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA (1929), will follow at 8:45 pm for a separate admission fee. THE OVERCOAT, the Alloy’s newest score, will be performed at the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center two days before they bring it to Cleveland. MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA is frequently cited as their best score.

H.P. Lovecraft Double Feature with 'Call of Cthulhu' and 'The Whisperer in Darkness' (August 31st at the Cleveland Museum of Art)

[CALL OF CTHULHU and THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS screen Friday August 31st at 6:15 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

The goals that the filmmakers responsible for THE CALL OF CTHULHU and THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS set for themselves would be ambitious even for a major studio production. First and foremost, they mean to be faithful adaptations of the works of H.P. Lovecraft, a writer whose stories generally involve concepts not easily translated into cinematic form. Secondly, these adaptations are meant to appear as if they were made at roughly the same time as the stories were published. In the case of CALL that's 1928, necessitating a silent film; for WHISPERER it's 1931, the same year that Universal Studios was beginning their horror cycle with DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN. That they manage to be largely successful in these goals while working with incredibly small budgets (we're talking well under a million) is even more remarkable.

Repost: The Gold Rush (August 10th at the Cleveland Museum of Art)

[THE GOLD RUSH screens Friday August 10th at 7:00 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

What's there left to say about Charlie Chaplin's 1925 GOLD RUSH that hasn't been said? I a bit of digging and learned that Chaplin's direct inspiration for this comedy of hardship was reading about the horrific true-life Donner Party incident - a group of California-bound western settlers, snowed in for the winter of 1846, reduced to cannibalism to survive. You know what that means, right? Someday some film-school brat with a dorm shrine to George Romero and Herschell Gordon Lewis and the like will earn his ticket to Hollywood big leagues with a digital-era remake "Gold Rush - The Way Chaplin Intended," with full dismemberment, decapitations, eviscerations, nudity, anthrophagy etc. And the swooning Sundance jury (or San Diego Comic-Con, same thing) nerds who hand the splatter comedy their coveted midnite-screening slot won't even be savvy enough with film history to know the decent 1998 frontier horror flick RAVENOUS, with Guy Pearce, also drew from the Donner tragedy. Making it and THE GOLD RUSH kind of cousins, which is a weird thought.

An Evening With George Melies (June 26th at the Capitol Theatre)

[A TRIP TO THE MOON and THE EXTRAORDINARY VOYAGE screen Tuesday June 26th at 7:00 pm at the Capitol Theatre as part of “An Evening With George Melies”.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

If you were intrigued by last year's HUGO, Martin Scorcese's love letter to silent film pioneer George Melies, now is your chance to see Melies' best known film, A TRIP TO THE MOON, on the big screen. Also on the bill is THE EXTRAORDINARY VOYAGE, a documentary that covers Melies life and career, as well as the painstaking restoration of the hand colored version of TRIP, long thought lost, that is showing on this program.

Made in 1902, A TRIP TO THE MOON is one of the cornerstones not just of science fiction film, but of modern filmmaking, period. Some may say it looks hokey by today's standards, but the intentionally unreal appearance of the sets, costumes, and special effects gives the film an aura of pure fantasy that few modern films come close to approaching. Even if you prefer your special effects to work towards creating a sense of realism and believability, you have to consider the technology of the times. Movies had only been in existence for a few years, and Melies was the James Cameron of his time. Even more than that, since he had his hand in almost every aspect of the film, including production, direction, editing, special effects, set design, and acting.

The Gold Rush (February 25 at 5:15 p.m. and February 26 at 2:50 p.m. at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[THE GOLD RUSH screens Friday February 25th at 5:15 pm and February 26th at 2:50 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

What's there left to say about Charlie Chaplin's 1925 GOLD RUSH that hasn't been said? I a bit of digging and learned that Chaplin's direct inspiration for this comedy of hardship was reading about the horrific true-life Donner Party incident - a group of California-bound western settlers, snowed in for the winter of 1846, reduced to cannibalism to survive. You know what that means, right? Someday some film-school brat with a dorm shrine to George Romero and Herschell Gordon Lewis and the like will earn his ticket to Hollywood big leagues with a digital-era remake "Gold Rush - The Way Chaplin Intended," with full dismemberment, decapitations, eviscerations, nudity, anthrophagy etc. And the swooning Sundance jury (or San Diego Comic-Con, same thing) nerds who hand the splatter comedy their coveted midnite-screening slot won't even be savvy enough with film history to know the decent 1998 frontier horror flick RAVENOUS, with Guy Pearce, also drew from the Donner tragedy. Making it and THE GOLD RUSH kind of cousins, which is a weird thought.

Faust (February 18th and 19th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[FAUST screens Saturday February 18th at 5:15 pm and Sunday February 19th at 8:35 pm]

Review by Matt Finley

I'm not suggesting that director F.W. Murnau had, himself, entered a Faustian pact with some soul-scrounging demonic pawn broker in exchange for cinematic prowess, but, damn was he fantastic. Just four years after immortalizing the undead in 1922's NOSFERATU, Murnau tackled an even better known, and much older, story of mortal man's perpetual cage match with the forces of darkness. In FAUST, however, the dark, poisoned heart that thumps ripe for the staking is the same one that fuels the story's protagonist: the heart of man. With bombastic special effects and a masterful ability to capture the dramatic spectacle of myth at both ends of its scope - the achingly human and the magically sublime - Murnau's FAUST is not just a powerful film, but also a definitive telling of one of mankind's most enduring and inescapable tragedies, a story of human greed and the lengths a person will go to indulge his hunger for power.

Queen Kelly (January 21st and 22nd at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[QUEEN KELLY screens Saturday January 21st at 5:15 pm and Sunday January 22nd at 8:35 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Matt Finley

It's a debate that's been waged at gallery openings, cocktail parties and during the lulls at high-class orgies - the concept underlying the execution, the intention behind the result: does it ever matter when judging a work of art? I know - I tend to be a bit liberal in offering passes to films whose creators have unofficially appended sad-eyed disclaimers via interview or commentary track blaming this or that iron-fisted corporate oligarch for undermining the translation of idea into expression. But even the most fervent formalists among you have gotta doff your "Death to the Artist" sandwich boards long enough to give a woot-woot to the1929 film QUEEN KELLY, 1/3 of a would've-been epic that's better for being a fragment of a goliath of a dream than a whole-cloth reproduction of a Lilliputian of an idea.

The Artist

Review by Bob Ignizio

Despite all the critical praise it has received, I half expected THE ARTIST to be just another fun but gimmicky exercise in replicating the look and techniques of an earlier era of film. That's certainly not unreasonable given the track record of director Michel Hazanavicius and his stars Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo. They previously took on the eurospy genre of the sixties with the spot-on spoofs OSS 117: CAIRO, NEST OF SPIES and OSS 117: LOST IN RIO. While both of those films are enjoyable, their main purpose is to look and feel like they were made in 1963 and have a few laughs about the attitudes and tastes of that era.

Nothing wrong with that; but THE ARTIST is something more. Once again Hazanavicius replicates a bygone cinematic era, this time the waning years of silent film. Rather than that being the entire raison d'être for THE ARTIST, however, the technique is used in the service of telling a heartfelt, funny, and hugely entertaining story.

Seven Chances (January 14th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[SEVEN CHANCES screens Saturday January 14th at 5:15 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

Buster Keaton is generally considered one of the best, perhaps even the best, film comedian of the silent era. Where the other contender to that title, Charlie Chaplin, tended to be more intellectual and prone to lighthearted whimsy, Keaton specialized in carefully orchestrated physical comedy, and his gags are just as likely to make your jaw drop as laugh. To put him in some kind of modern context, he's Jackie Chan without the kung fu. In fact Chan has often said that Keaton was his biggest inspiration.

Restored Version Of 'Giorgio Moroder Presents Metropolis' To Screen At The Cedar Lee Theatre

[Press release from Cleveland Cinemas.]

The Cedar Lee Theatre (2163 Lee Rd., Cleveland Hts.) will present two screenings of the digitally restored film GIORGIO MORODER PRESENTS METROPOLIS on Friday, October 28th and Wednesday, October 29th at midnight.

In 1981, three-time Academy Award-winning composer Giorgio Moroder began a three-year endeavor to restore director Fritz Lang’s science fiction classic, Metropolis. During this process, Moroder made the controversial decision to give the film a new, contemporary score, and added a pop music soundtrack featuring songs from some of the biggest stars of the early MTV era, including Pat Benatar, Billy Squier, Freddie Mercury, Bonnie Tyler, Adam Ant, Jon Anderson and more.

Modern Times (May 6 at 7:30 p.m. and May 7 at 5:15 p.m. at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

The finest, freshest comedy you can find is, no, not the HANGOVER sequel, sorry, but this vintage-1936 pantomime tour-de-force starring Charlie Chaplin. As with his previous CITY LIGHTS, Chaplin decided not to jump head-first into the sound-film era like so many of his compatriots did. But rather he made - perhaps symbolically, intentionally or not - the last great silent-film feature. There is brief dialogue, and Chaplin's first spoken words on film (which turn out to be nonsense lyrics improvised in a pseudo-European song), but most of this is sheer slapstick-silent virtuosity. Chaplin, billed simply as "a Worker," is a frazzled assembly-line drone who, in the opening moments, suffers a hilarious nervous breakdown on the job (this being the 1930s, it's comedy; today Charlie would just grab a gun and kill everyone). Fired, the Worker goes looking for employment in an absurdist, Depression-era world of shantytowns, waifs, night clubs full of rich folks, strikers, exploitation, discontent and huge machinery. No, wait, that was me in Cleveland, the other day. No, wait, that is Chaplin. Hard to tell, since we're both named Charles, among other regional similarities.