Live Screenings – September 2023 – Silentfilmcalendar.org

2 September

Tokyo Chorus (Dir. Yasujirō Ozu, Jap, 1931) (Screening format – 35mm, 90mins) Capitalizing on popular genres of the Shōwa period and coming off his twentieth feature as director, Yasujirō Ozu showcases his trademark empathy within the shomin-geki, or “common people drama,” with a film that is equal parts domestic drama, student comedy, and “salaryman” story centering patriarch Okajima, a low-income insurance salesman counting on his annual bonus to buy presents for his expectant family. Between the difficult authenticity of working-class life and reprieves of ingenious physical comedy, Tokyo Chorus is essential viewing for fans of King Vidor’s The Crowd, which Ozu cited as an inspiration. Find out more at silentfilm.org. With live musical accompaniment. BFI Southbank, London Link

I Flunked But….. (Dir. Yasujirō Ozu, Jap, 1930) + I Graduated But…. (Dir. Yasujirō Ozu, Jap, 1929) (Screening format – 35mm, 65/11 mins) In I Flunked But….., a college student attempts to cheat on his final exams by scribbling notes on his shirt; naturally his best-laid plans go awry. After this he is left to reassess his life and education and get back on track. Featuring legendary actors Chishu Ryu and Kinuyo Tanaka in significant early roles, I Flunked But… is an excellent example of Ozu’s student films, initially playful, even channelling the spirit of Harold Lloyd and Ernst Lubitsch in its knockabout comedy, before proceeding to acknowledge the weight of responsibility that comes with age. The sophistication hinted at here would become increasingly refined as Ozu’s career progressed. Find out more at a2pcinema.com/ozu-san. Just 11 minutes survive of Ozu’s earlier I Graduated But..., about a newly graduated student who turns down a job he believes is below him but then realises that his irresponsible attitude threatens his marriage and future happiness. Find out more at a2pcinema.com/ozu-san. With live musical accompaniment. BFI Southbank, London Link

4 September

I Was Born, But…… (Dir. Yasujiro Ozu, Jap, 1932) (Screening format, 35mm, 90mins) This early comedy from Yasujirô Ozu focuses on the Yoshii family – dad Kennosuke, his homemaker wife, and two sons Keiji and Ryoichi – who have just moved from Tokyo’s crowded city centre to a suburban development. Straight away the two boys start slugging it out to find a place in the pecking order among the neighbourhood kids. One of those deposed by their wily antics is Taro, son of Mr Iwasaki, the owner of the company where Kennosuke works as a humble salaryman. Then one night the Yoshii family are invited round to the Iwasaki’s, where the boys are mortified to see their dad dutifully kowtowing to his boss: “You tell us to become somebody, but you’re nobody. Why do you have to bow so much to Taro’s father?” Kennosuke’s attempts to explain the realities of the adult world to his sons leads to some soul-searching of his own. One of the few surviving examples of Ozu’s silent period film-making, like his later films this one focuses on the internal dynamics of a single family unit as a way of drawing out broader generalisations about contemporary Japanese society, and uses the low-angle camera shots of domestic interiors that would become his stylistic trademark. Find out more at silentfilm.org . With live musical accompaniment and introduction. BFI Southbank. London Link

5 September

The Ten Commandments (Dir Cecil B DeMille, US, 1923) (Screening format – not known, 136mins) Cecil B. DeMille’s first screen version of The Ten Commandments is only peripherally a Biblical story. The film’s first 45 minutes recap the struggle between Moses (Theodore Roberts) and Rameses (Charles de Roche) over the liberation of the Hebrews from Egypt. After a series of plagues Rameses permits the Exodus to take place–only to go back on his word a few moments later. The scenes of thousands of Hebrews trekking across the desert, the parting of the Red Sea and the destruction of the Egyptian armies are produced on a spectacular scale. But the the film then cuts to present day San Francisco and we are introduced to the MacTavish Family: pious, Bible-thumping Martha McTavish (Edythe Chapman) and her sons, straight-arrow John (Richard Dix) and hedonistic Dan (Rod LaRocque). Both sons love Mary Leigh (Leatrice Joy), but the roguish Dan wins out. While John continues honoring the Ten Commandments, Dan has no such qualms and we are propelled into a lurid melodrama of treachery, deceit and murder. Partially filmed in Technicolor at a then-astronomical cost of $1.2 million (a sum that caused a decade-long rift between Cecil B. DeMille and Paramount Pictures), The Ten Commandments grossed several times that amount. In fact, it was Paramount’s highest grossing film until The Ten Commandments remake in 1956 starring Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner and directed by…..Cecil B DeMille. Find out more at film-foundation.org Presented by South West Silents, With live musical accompaniment by Meg Morley. Pound Arts, Corsham Link

9 September

Sunrise; A Song of Two Humans (Dir. F W Murnau, US, 1927) (Screening format – not known, 94mins) F W Murnau’s debut American film, made at the technical zenith of the silent era but already heralding the arrival of the talkies being one of the first silents made with synchronized musical score and sound effects soundtrack. The simple story of a husband’s betrayal of his wife with a treacherous city girl, Sunrise moves from a fairytale-like depiction of rural life to a dynamic portrait of the bustling modern American city. Explored in elaborate tracking shots by Charles Rocher and Karl Struss’s pioneering camerawork, the city set was one of the most costly yet produced. The result was a commercial flop, though the achievement did not go unheralded: Sunrise was awarded a special Oscar for unique and artistic production at the first ever Academy Awards and Janet Gaynor won the first Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. The film’s legacy has endured, and it is now widely considered a masterpiece with many calling it the greatest film of the silent era. Find out more at theguardian.com With live musical accompaniment by the Jane Gardner Quartet. St Cuthberts Church, Norham Link

Story of Floating Weeds ( Ukikusa monogatari) (Dir. Yasujiro Ozu, Jap, 1934) (Screening format – 35mm, 86 mins) An itinerant kabuki troupe, led by aging actor Kihachi, arrives in a small town. He frequents the local cafe owner, who is an old flame, and with whom he fathered a son, Shinkinchi, who remains ignorant as to who his father is. Kihachi’s jealous mistress, Otaka, pays a young actress in the troupe to seduce Shinkichi, but the young pair fall in love. But events are not destined to run smoothly. This was the first time Ozu employed the trademark sackcloth that became the backdrop to all his opening credits. The film also marked a maturing of the director’s style, as evidenced by the way he develops the relationships between characters. The film was remade by Ozu in 1959, called simply Floating Weeds. Find out more at tcm.com . With live musical accompaniment. BFI Southbank, London Link

10 September

The Crowd (Dir. King Vidor, US, 1928) (Screening format – 35mm, 103 mins) One of the last great masterpieces of the silent era, The Crowd combines awe-inspiring camera–work with a thrilling, often tender realism that would influence the great postwar directors, King Vidor’s pioneering film follows John and his wife Mary as they struggle against the de-humanising effects of ordinary life in the city, and strive to set themselves apart from the crowd. More akin to the neo–realism of European films, The Crowd offers a rare morbid view of society far removed from the upbeat, lively fare reflected in most American silent films of the era. Vidor won universal acclaim for his innovative methods of illustrating the harsh, impersonal aspects of urban existence. The cinematography by Henry Sharp (much of it shot on location in New York City with hidden cameras) earned enthusiastic praise for his innovative style and amazing camera angles. Under pressure from MGM, Vidor reluctantly filmed an upbeat alternate ending, where John inherits a fortune and ends living in the lap of luxury, but this was thankfully rejected by preview audiences and his more ambivalent finale prevailed. Find out more at afi.com. Introduced by Bryony Dixon, BFI Silent Film Curator. With live musical accompaniment. BFI Southbank, London Link

Another Fine Mess: Laurel & Hardy Triple Bill Featuring Angora Love in which Stan and Ollie are followed home by a stray goat, From Soup To Nuts, where they are inept waiters catering a posh dinner party, and Liberty in which the boys are construction workers building a skyscraper. Whatever they’re up to, they make a complete mess of it…Presented by the Northern Silents. With live musical accompaniment by Jeff Davenport (percussion) and Jonny Best (piano). Old Woollen, Sunny Bank Mills, Farsley Link

13 September

It (Dir. Clarence Badger, US, 1927) (Screening format – 35mm, 72 mins) + 28mm short film presentation. Starring Clara Bow and Antonio Moreno, It is based on stories from the sensationalist novelist Elinor Glyn, of Three Weeks fame. She had coined the term `it’ to describe what makes a personality attractive in her 1914 novel The Man and the Moment; the novella It and its screen version – to which Glyn contributes a cameo, as herself – both appeared in 1927. Glyn’s onscreen explanation of what defines `it’ makes this an early example of the `concept film’ as well as of product placement, given that her story is seen being read in Cosmopolitan, the magazine in which it had been serialised the previous year. Stage actress Dorothy Tree had her first film role in a small, uncredited part. Similarly, a young Gary Cooper was cast in a minor role as a newspaper reporter. The film was a box office hit, consolidating Clara Bow’s burgeoning status as one of the most popular actresses of the era and acquiring for her the soubriquet `the IT Girl’. A year later she starred in a film version of Glyn’s 1905 novel Red Hair, of which only some brief Technicolor footage of Bow is known to survive. Find out more at moviessilently.com. The first half will consist of a special screening of the first ever home movie format, Pathé’s 28mm. The films shown will be original prints made between 1912 and 1922, including an early animation and a Mr and Mrs Sidney Drew film, and will be projected using an original restored 28mm projector, by film historian Christopher Bird. Presented by the Kennington Bioscope. With live musical accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link

14 September

Cottage on Dartmoor (Dir. Anthony Asquith, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 84mins) Joe (Uno Henning) works as a barber in a shop in a Devon town, alongside a manicurist called Sally (Norah Baring). He becomes infatuated with her and asks her out but it is clear that Sally does not reciprocate Joe’s feelings. Joe’s infatuation with her develops into obsession. Meanwhile a young farmer Harry (Hans Schlettow), begins to woo Sally and the couple begin seeing each other which leaves Joe in despair. After a fight with Harry, Joe is jailed but swears revenge on Harry and Sally. A Cottage on Dartmoor is a tale of love and revenge set in the bleak landscape of Dartmoor and a thoughtful distillation of the best of European silent film techniques from a director steeped in the work of the Soviet avant-garde and German expressionism. One of the last films of the silent era and a virtuoso piece of film-making, A Cottage on Dartmoor was a final passionate cry in defence of an art form soon to be obsolete. Find out more at silentfilm.org. With live musical accompaniment by Wurlitza. Ashburton Arts, Newton Abbot Link

15 September

16 September

Pandora’s Box (Dir. G W Pabst, Ger, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 135mins) Based on two plays by the German author Frank Wedekind, Erdgeist (Earth Spirit, 1895), which Pabst himself had directed for the stage, and Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora’s Box, 1904), the silent drama follows the tumultuous life of the showgirl Lulu whose un-selfconscious sexuality brings about the ruin of all those that fall for her and eventually her own. In a daring move, Pabst chose a little known American actress over the more experienced Marlene Dietrich for the part of Lulu, a decision that made the young Louise Brooks an international star. Her innocent looks paired with her natural erotic allure and sense of movement – Brooks was also a dancer – perfectly matched Pabst’s idea of his heroine as unwitting seductress. Subjected to cuts to eliminate some of its “scandalous” content and unfavourably reviewed by critics at the time, it is now considered one of the boldest and most modern films of the Weimar era highlighting Pabst’s command of camera language and montage. Find out more at silentlondon.co.uk . Presented by the Northern Silents. With live musical accompaniment by Frame Ensemble ( Linda Jankowska (violin), Liz Hanks (cello), Trevor Bartlett (percussion), and Jonny Best (piano)) Stoller Hall, Manchester Link

17 September

Modern Times (Dir, Charlie Chaplin, US, 1936) (Screening format – not known, 87mins) Regarded as the last great silent film and made almost a decade into the sound era, Modern Times is Charlie Chaplin’s last outing as the Little Tramp. Here, he puts the iconic character to work as a giddily inept factory employee who fails to cope with the modern equipment he must operate and suffers a breakdown. After being institutionalized, he is freed, only to be mistaken for a communist agitator. He is arrested but eventuallyreleased after which he falls in love with a gorgeous gamine (Paulette Goddard). Chaplin had not been seen on a theatre screen for five years when Modern Times premiered to great acclaim in 1936. Still stubbornly resisting work in “talkies,” he stood alone in his insistence upon preserving the silent film although his voice is heard on the soundtrack he himself composed. Find out more at www.charliechaplin.com With Chaplin composed recorded soundtrack. Garden Cinema, London Link

Three Ages (Dir. Buster Keaton, US, 1923) (Screening format – not known, 71mins) This hilarious comedy, the very first feature film that Keaton co-wrote, directed and starred in, is filled with all the slapstick laughs, crazy stunts, stone face situations and moments of pure sweetness that only Buster can bring. Its a tale of romance split into three different times. We discover that the path of true love has never run smooth as we follow Buster’s hopeful woo-ing dressed in shaggy animal skin in the Stone Age, fetching toga in the Roman era and saggy suit in the ‘modern’ (ie 1923) age. Look out for some brilliantly inventive scenes, including a modern-day descent from a top storey via an incredibly choreographed fall, a pedicure for a lion in a Roman jail and a quick round of golf for a Stone Age suitor trying to keep busy to keep still his beating heart. Find out more at wikipedia.org With live piano accompaniment by Lillian Henley. Palace Cinema, Broadstairs Link

23 September

The Manxman (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, UK, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 100mins) In a small fishing community (with beautiful Cornish locations standing in for the story’s Isle of Man setting), two boyhood friends are inseparable as youths but take different paths in adulthood. When they both fall in love with Kate, the daughter of a puritanical Methodist, they are forced to deal with their own moral codes and with the strict Manx society in which they live. The Manxman was Hitchcock‘s last silent film, and one of his very best. Adapted from a novel by Hall Caine, which had already spawned a successful stage play and a previous film adapation (d. George Loane Tucker, 1916), it was Hitchcock‘s last collaboration with writer Eliot Stannard, whose credit appears on all but one of the silent films. The film was a commercial success, described in Bioscope as a film of “remarkable power and gripping interest”, yet neither Hitchcock nor producer John Maxwell were happy with the film. Although somewhat stagey in places, the film effectively demonstrates the extent to which Hitchcock‘s visual style had developed in a short period, with this tempestuous melodrama certainly bursting with bold, Hitchcockian bravado and it shines even brighter thanks to the complex, sensual performance of Anny Ondra, as Kate. Find out more at wikipedia.org With live musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne. Hippodrome Cinema, Bo’ness Link

28 September

Earth (Dir. Oleksandr Dovzhenko, USSR 1930) (Screening format – not known, 75 mins) Earth, the final part of Dovzhenko’s silent trilogy, is undoubtedly the most famous and controversial movie of the Ukrainian Soviet silent film heritage. Full of lyrical pantheism and utopian exaltation, it demonstrated the ambiguity of Ukrainian geopolitical choice in the late 1920s. The simple plot tells the story of a small Ukrainian village on the eve of collectivisation. Vasyl, the leader of the activist youth, is trying to engage villagers into the collective farm movement while waiting for a technical miracle: a tractor, the forerunner of the new era. Finally, he ploughs a boundary separating the private plots from the collective ones. This enthusiasm costs Vasyl his life, but makes him a martyr – a necessary sacrifice for the new social order. Although Earth fits the tradition of Soviet propaganda films, Dovzhenko’s interest in the human condition and its bond with nature takes the film beyond the propaganda realm. As told by Dovzhenko, an ordinary tale of a class struggle becomes a universal philosophical parable about life and death. Criticised severely for its naturalism, the film was banned nine days after its release in the Soviet Union and was given a credit in Ukraine only after Dovzhenko’s death. Earth hit the headlines only in 1958, when the International Referendum in Brussels praised the film as one of the best 12 films in the history of cinema. It has been voted one of the top ten silent films by The Guardian and The Observer. Find out more at sensesofcinema.com Presented as part of the Glasgow Cathedral Festival. With live musical accompaniment by Ukrainian musicians Misha Kalinin (electric guitar) and Roksana Smirnova (piano) performing a new, jazz-based score they have composed especially for this event. Glasgow Cathedral, Glasgow Link

Shkurnik (aka A Profiteer, aka The Self-Seeker) (Dir. Nikolai Shpikovsky, Ukr/USSR, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 75mins) Shkurnik is a little known avant-garde film of the period. It is a comic tale of survival in the kaleidoscopic change of circumstances during the civil war in Ukraine and a biting satire on the Soviet propaganda. In the film, the peaceful bourgeois life of an opportunistic Kiev resident is interrupted by the civil war. Seeking first the protection of the white Russian forces he then falls into the hands of the Red Army. Will he survive in the hands of the (female) Bolshevik commissar or will his ingrained thirst for a profit once again put his life in danger. The film, produced by VUFKU, the the All-Ukrainian Photo-Cinema Directorate in 1929, was quickly banned by the Soviet authorities and is virtually unknown to western audiences. Find out more at silentfilmcalendar.org Presented as part of the London Georgian Film Festival. With live piano accompaniment by John Sweeney. Cine Lumiere, London Link

29 September

Sunrise; A Song of Two Humans (Dir. F W Murnau, US, 1927) (Screening format – 35mm, 94mins) F W Murnau’s debut American film, made at the technical zenith of the silent era but already heralding the arrival of the talkies being one of the first silents made with synchronized musical score and sound effects soundtrack. The simple story of a husband’s betrayal of his wife with a treacherous city girl, Sunrise moves from a fairytale-like depiction of rural life to a dynamic portrait of the bustling modern American city. Explored in elaborate tracking shots by Charles Rocher and Karl Struss’s pioneering camerawork, the city set was one of the most costly yet produced. The result was a commercial flop, though the achievement did not go unheralded: Sunrise was awarded a special Oscar for unique and artistic production at the first ever Academy Awards and Janet Gaynor won the first Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. The film’s legacy has endured, and it is now widely considered a masterpiece with many calling it the greatest film of the silent era. Find out more at guardian.com Presented as part of the Glasgow Cathedral Festival. With live musical accompaniment by Thierry Escaich with an improvised score performed on the cathedral’s 140-year-old pipe organ. Glasgow Cathedral, Glasgow Link

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (Dir. F W Murnau, 1922) (Screening format – not known, 96mins) Nosferatu (1922) is one of the most iconic films of the German expressionist era, let alone cinema itself. In this first-ever screen adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, a simple real-estate transaction leads an intrepid businessman deep into the superstitious heart of Transylvania. There he encounters the otherworldly Count Orlok (portrayed by the legendary Max Schreck, in a performance the very backstory of which has spawned its own mythology) who soon after embarks upon a cross-continental voyage to take up residence in a distant new land… and establish his ambiguous dominion. The film was an unauthorised adaption of Stoker’s ‘novel with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the story. Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaption and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints survived and the film came to be regarded as an inspirational master work of the cinema. Brilliantly eerie, with imaginative touches which later adaptions never achieved and featuring some of the most iconic images in cinema history, Nosferatu continues to haunt modern audiences with its unshakable power of gothic imagery and blood curdling suspense.. Find out more at www.rogerebert.com With live musical accompaniment by Hugo Max. Prince Charles Cinema, London Link

30 September

The Live Ghost Tent The quarterly meeting of The Laurel and Hardy Society. Films to be shown include Twins(1925), a silent Stan Laurel short directed by Scott Pembroke, Joe Rock. With recorded accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link

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