Top 5 Silent films (more if you feel the need)

James Steven Beverly · January 29, 2009

I've learned a LOT from silent movies and just was wondering what your top 5 favorite silent films are. Mine, in no particular order are:

1. The Battleship Potemkin- Sergei Eisenstein's masterpiece.

2 Sunrise-FW Murnau's masterpiece

3.Nosferatu-FW. Murnau's OTHER masterpiece

4. The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari'-Robert Wiene's masterpiece

5 Silent Movie - Mel Brooks masterpiece OK I know but I DO love it besides everyone knows Mel Brook's masterpiece is Young Frankenstien! Now for my REAL number 5

5. Metropolis-Fritz Lang's masterpiece

Now EVERYONE thinks the Lumière brothers or Thomas Edison invented the movie camera BUT it may have come even before them:

True motion pictures, rather than eye-fooling 'animations', could only occur after the development of film (flexible and transparent celluloid) that could record split-second pictures. Some of the first experiments in this regard were conducted by Parisian innovator and physiologist Etienne-Jules Marey in the 1880s. He was also studying, experimenting, and recording bodies (most often of flying animals, such as pelicans in flight) in motion using photographic means (and French astronomer Pierre-Jules-Cesar Janssen's "revolving photographic plate" idea). In 1882, Marey, often claimed to be the 'inventor of cinema,' constructed a camera (or "photographic gun") that could take multiple (12) photographs per second of moving animals or humans - called chronophotography or serial photography, similar to Muybridge's work on taking multiple exposed images of running horses. [The term shooting a film was possibly derived from Marey's invention.] He was able to record multiple images of a subject's movement on the same camera plate, rather than the individual images Muybridge had produced. Marey's chronophotographs (multiple exposures on single glass plates and on strips of sensitized paper - celluloid film - that passed automatically through a camera of his own design) were revolutionary. He was soon able to achieve a frame rate of 30 images. Further experimentation was conducted by French-born Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince in 1888. Le Prince used long rolls of paper covered with photographic emulsion for a camera that he devised and patented. Two short fragments survive of his early motion picture film (one of which was titled Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge).

The first movie camera in history looked like this:

Maybe this is why people are natually camera shy!! :D

David Mullen ASC · January 29, 2009

Well, these are some of my favorites for their cinematography:

Broken Blossoms (1919)

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)

The Last Laugh (1922)

Nosferatu (1922)

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Sparrows (1926)

Metropolis (1927)

Sunrise (1927)

Wings (1927)

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

But my actual favorites -- every short and feature Buster Keaton ever made! In particular, "The General", "Sherlock Jr.", "Steamboat Bill Jr.".

Jim Keller · January 29, 2009

I would add the 1903 The Great Train Robbery to either of the above lists.

The 1916 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was also extremely innovative visually, and though it didn't age well story-wise, is still worth noting as a "great" IMHO.

David Mullen ASC · January 29, 2009

Douglas Fairbanks movies are great to watch, particularly "Thief of Bagdad".

I also saw a great print of a Valentino movie restored by Kevin Brownlow (not available on DVD) called "The Eagle" (well, there is a Kino DVD but the picture quality is mediocre.) The movie is a lot of fun, basically a variation on the "Zorro" and "Scarlet Pimpernel" set-up where the hero plays a effeminate fop working under the nose of the villain when he's not running around in disguise helping the oppressed and wooing the villain's daughter. It's shot by the great George Barnes, the man who trained Gregg Toland, and who later shot "Rebecca" and "Jane Eyre".

James Steven Beverly · January 30, 2009

Well, I also would have to add Modern Times, City Lights and The Gold Rush to the list as well as Ben Hur (1925) and Intolerance. Chaplin (along with Lloyd and Keaton) is the undisputed master of physical comedy and these are some of his best works. I want to add Birth of a Nation for it's innovation but I don't know that I could call it a great movie, in that much like Triumph of the Will, it's visually stunning but the message is so odious and corrupt, the beauty of the film is destroyed by it's content. Still without it, modern film wouldn't be what it is today.

Delorme Jean-Marie · January 30, 2009

maybe the jacques tatti movie could be rated as silent movie in color and in 70mm !!

" playtime" 1967

"My Uncle " 1958 my favorite

"Mr. Hulot's Holiday" 1953

and the buster keatons

and don't forget the chaplins

The Gold Rush (1925) my favorite

Modern Times (1936)

City Lights (1931)

then i notice for the first time he directed thoses master pieces !!!

Simon Wyss · January 30, 2009

True motion pictures, rather than eye-fooling 'animations', could only occur after the development of film (flexible and transparent celluloid) that could record split-second pictures. Some of the first experiments in this regard were conducted by Parisian innovator and physiologist Etienne-Jules Marey in the 1880s. - celluloid film - that passed automatically through a camera of his own design) were revolutionary.

Further experimentation was conducted by French-born Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince in 1888. Le Prince used long rolls of paper covered with photographic emulsion for a camera that he devised and patented. Two short fragments survive of his early motion picture film (one of which was titled Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge).

No, not everyone thinks that the Lumière and Edison did it all. A lot of work has gone into European Wikipedia articles and discussion. Even at Eastman-Kodak Co. one began to slowly correct a point here and there.

Marey didn't build a thing with his own hands. He is in the same league as are Eastman, Edison, and others. It was his physioligist assistant Georges Emile Joseph Démény who devised the photographic gun, the photochronographe (later renamed chronophotographe and chrono de poche système Démény, built by Léon Gaumont). This is a sad story that so many things become attributed to the wrong persons: The Mitchell has been invented by Leonard, the Debrie G. V. is Mr. Labrély's idea, film is the invention of Hannibal Goodwin, anamorphosis (CinemaScope) comes from Prof. Chrétien, the Latham Eidoloscope was constructed by Lauste, the very photographic sound film pionieer is Sven Berglund, and so on and on. AMC's Biograph camera, allegedly given to Dickson and Casler, is entirely the camera of William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, chief-engineer with Edison until 1895. Dickson knew exactly what was covered by Edison patents and caveats, so he made a camera which is loaded with unperforated film. The Biograph camera punches holes out of the film right while being driven. It has a suction pump that provides perfect film flatness before the aperture.

When we turn to Le Prince I'd like to say that I presume him behind the Bell & Howell wooden case camera of 1909 and the Bell & Howell Standard of 1911. I cannot prove anything. I simply see him finishing his work of life in Chicago or somewhere there. He used one of the better vanishing tricks on that September 16, 1890.

One of my favorite silents is the English Explosion of a Motor Car of 1897.

James Steven Beverly · February 1, 2009

Ah, I stand corrected. I'm kinda suprised no one mentioned Napoléon yet. It certainly has to be said it was innovative for it's time.

Leo Anthony Vale · February 2, 2009

Ah, I stand corrected. I'm kinda suprised no one mentioned Napoléon yet. It certainly has to be said it was innovative for it's time.

'Napoleon' is uneven, the action and spectacle stuff are great, the more intimate scenes are, maybe, somewhat hokey.

I'll add 'Haxen' 1922 AKA 'Witchcraft Through the Ages'. Stunning cinematography with quite advanced lighting for 1922. There's a 60s version with narration by Wm.Burroughs and a jazz score.

Murnau's 'The Last Laugh'. Only one intertitle in the film & that's to intoduce a tacked on happy ending.

Eisenstein's 'October'. The shorter version 'Ten Days that Shook the World' is okay, but the longer version is great.

'The Lost World' has a lot of enjoyable stop motion dinosaurs by Wilis O'Brian.

A practice run for 'King Kong'.

'Max and his Dog', a 1912 max Linder short. Max thinks his wife's cheating on him and has his dog spy on her while max is at the office. There's a split screen shot of The dog calling max on the phone which cracked me up. Was that type of shot already a cliche by 1912?

Fr.Lang's 'Die Nebelungen' movies are good. 'Siegried's Death' is a marvel of graphic design, while 'Kriemhild's Revenge' is a good action film.

& 'Menschen am Sonntag', a proto-neo-realist film made in 1929, though released with a musical score. Directed by Kurt und Robt.Siodomak, Edgar G.Ulmer and Fred Zinnemann. Co-written by Billy Wilder. Photographed by Eugen Schuefften. Lots of cooks, but the broth turned out fine.

Oh, & Edison's patent for the movie camera is suspiciously similar to the Lumiere French patent.