dominic-9

I saw this film for the first time in Oxford at an Art House cinema called the Phoenix Picture House. They had arranged for a four piece live jazz band to provide a soundtrack to this silent classic and considering that they improvised most of their score they did a pretty fine job. But it was for Louise Brookes that I saw this film.

She was magnificent. Lousie Brookes radically altered the course of film acting history with the magic of subtlety. Since its conception the cinema actor was a hammed up melodramatic animal thinking that because no one could hear them, they had to scream out their feelings with manic gestures and absurdly deranged facial expressions.

Lousie Brookes changed all that forever. She understood the old maxim of 'less is more' and put to incredible effect in this slickly ultra-modern silent masterpiece. Watch the crucial scene when Lulu is threatened by the jealous Doctor and you'll see what I mean. Her approach to acting was one of the most important influences in cinema history and her look was copied and reproduced over and over, as recently as 'Something Wild' and 'Naked Tango'.

Louise Brookes understood film as it was then, as a purely visual medium, and we will never see her like again.

The Shining, The Exorcist and The Omen are all films that owe some of their stylistic approach to this film. This is the film that re-wrote the rules of the horror genre as it went along, whilst acting as both social critique and fond homage to 'The Birds' as well.

Romero set in place a steady breakdown of all our assumptions of the horror film, which he then utilised to full effect through the rest of this film and the two superb sequels that followed.

This is perhaps one of the greatest low budget cult movies ever made, certainly one of the most influential, and in its brutally harrowing documentary style conclusion a harsh statement on American racial attitudes. A statement which is as relevant today as it was over thirty years ago.