Pandora's Box

Year of Release:  1929
Director:  G. W. Pabst
Screenplay:  G. W. Pabst and Landislaus Vajda, based on the plays Erdgeist and Pandora's Box by Frank Wedekind
Starring:  Louise Brooks, Francis Lederer, Carl Goetz, Alice Roberts
Running Time:  136 minutes (also 100 minutes and 152 minutes)
Genre:  Drama

Lulu (Brooks) is a dancer, whose uninhibited sensuality provokes obsession and violence in the men around her, leading them to ruin and death.

This is a classic German silent film with a story that moves from Berlin to Paris to London, and takes in gambling, show-business, lesbianism, prostitution and Jack the Ripper.  At the time it was made it was hugely controversial and very heavily cut and re-edited for some markets.  Visually the film is very stylish, made at the tail-end of the German Expressionism movement, this has touches of the surreal, stylised look of Expressionism but blends it with gritty realism in the scenes set in the London slums.  The film hangs on the iconic image of Louise Brooks as Lulu, many films take advantage of the beauty of their lead actress, but rarely as successfully as this.  Blending knowingness, with naivete, and sensuality with innocence, she gives a luminous performance.  However, she is seen largely through the eyes of the men in her life, all of whom exploit her in their own ways, and the film sees her as responsible for all of the evils that befall them, rather than the men being held accountable for their own choices.
Louise Brooks became kind of a fashion icon following the success of the film (her distinctive bob haircut is still referred to as a "Lulu"), however the movie quickly fell into obscurity but was rediscovered in the 1950s whereupon it was declared a masterpiece.  It is an important and striking film, and a must-see for fans of silent cinema.

Louise Brooks as Lulu in Pandora's Box
     

The Artist

Year:  2011
Director:  Michel Hazanavicius
Screenplay: Michel Hazanavicius
Starring:  Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo, James Cromwell, John Goodman, Missi Pyle, Penelope Ann Miller, Malcolm McDowell
Genre:  Silent, drama, comedy, romance
Running Time:  100 minutes

The middle of January is obviously way too early to be talking about the greatest film of the year, but if it manages to produce anything to top The Artist than 2012 will go down as one of the greatest years in movie history.  I'm not even joking.  A black and white, French, silent film with no stars, might sound like box-office poison, at least outside of the art-house circuit and Film Festivals.  However this film has been met with rapturous critical reception and large audiences.  It is immediately obvious why when you see it because it is absolutely fantastic.

The film opens in Hollywood in 1927.  The biggest star of the day is matinee idol George Valentin (Dujardin) who has been hugely successful in a string of comic adventure films with his adorable little performing dog, Jack (Uggie the dog).  One night after a premiere he literally bumps into a young aspiring actress, Peppy Miller (Bejo), whom he helps to get her first big break.  However, Valentin's position at the top of the tree is threatened by the latest technological innovation:  sound cinema (aka "the talkies").  Initially dismissing sound as a passing fad, Valentin finds himself unable to adapt to this new style, and soon finds himself on a relentless downward spiral, while Peppy goes from strength to strength fast becoming the biggest star in Hollywood.

This charming and endlessly stylish film perfectly recreates the world of silent film, featuring such out-dated techniques as irises, wipes and intertitles.  The two lead actors give superb performances, with Jean Dujardin expertly playing the charismatic leading man, and also allowing the audience to see his darker side in the later parts of the film.  Berneice Bejo is effortlessly engaging as Peppy, and the two handle the physical sielnt comedy perfectly.  The score is brilliant, although it's inclusion of Bernard Herrmann's love theme from the movie Vertigo (1958) has proven controversial due to the hostile reaction it provoked from the actress Kim Novak, who starred in Vertigo.    

Despite being very much a tribute to the cinema of the past, this is still accessible for modern audiences.  Those who worship at the shrines of Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin will doubtless love it but it will also entertain those who seem to think that cinema started with Star Wars (1977).   If nothing else it will introduce the magical world of silent cinema to a whole new audience and that is enough in itself  to make it an unqualified success. 

Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo are all smiles in The Artist  

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Year: 1919
Director: Robert Wiene
Screenplay: Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer
Starring: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher, Lil Dagover, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski
Running Time: 71 minutes
Genre Horror, psychological, silent

Summary: A small town in Germany is holding a fair. One of the attractions is the "somnambulist" Cesare (Veidt) who apparently permanently sleeps inside a coffin-like cabinet and awakes only occasionally to do the bidding of his owner and master, the mysterious hypnotist and mystic, Doctor Caligari (Krauss). A series of bizarre murders starts around the same time that Caligari arrives. When Franzis (Feher) and his friend Alan (von Twardowski) visit Caligari's sideshow, Cesare predicts that Alan will be dead by daybreak and, sure enough, that night he falls victim to the mysterious killer. Naturally enough Franzis suspects Caligari and Cesare, however the truth is more complex then it seems.

Opinions: This film is one of the first horror films ever made and is arguably among the most influential being one of, if not the first, examples of a "frame story" and also a twist ending in cinema. Most films, even science-fiction and fantasy films, pay at least some kind of lip-service to some kind of reality. This film doesn't even bother. It belongs to the "German Expressionist" movement which was sweeping German art, theatre as well as cinema in the inter-war years. The film uses bizarre, skewed, flat, painted sets, strange camera angles, and weirdly designed intertitles. Part of the reason for the expressionistic style was the fact that the producers didn't have much money for sets and lighting.
The effect is a genuinely dreamlike experience. Almost every image in the film has some element that is slightly "off", whether in the bizarre angles or designs of the sets, or the exaggerated makeup and costumes of the characters.
It is a must-see for anyone seriously interested in horror films or in film history in general, however some viewers might be put off by the fact that it is a silent film, it moves slowly, the very obvious fakeness and staginess of the production and also the exagerrated and often histrionic acting that was a hallmark of silent films. however, if you can get past this, it is still a powerful and striking experience.
Another word of warning is that the film is in the public domain and therfore exists in a number of different versions and cuts, so as always "buyer beware". I saw it in the cinema with live music, and that is by far the best way to see it and if you ever do get the opportunity to see the film "live" as it were, don't miss it. If not, it is still well worth your time checking it out, but be careful that you get the best version.



Conrad Veidt flees with Lil Dagovar in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari