Notizie

I’m going to start by setting a scene. The head of the Moving Image Section at the Library of Congress, Mike Mashon, takes the stage at the Castro Theater to introduce a screening of Erich Von Stroheim’s ambitious debut Blind Husbands (1919) at the 25th San Francisco Silent Film Festival. It’s a full house and that’s certainly not unusual for this event. “Recently, I was watching a conversation on the Criterion Channel,” Mashon tells the crowd. “Critic/curator Dave Kehr and historian Farran Smith Nehme were discussing Raoul Walsh and one of them said that Walsh was one of the least intellectual directors. He didn’t have a pretentious bone in his body; he was just a straight-ahead guy.” Mashon pauses, timing the silence for comic impact. “So… Erich Von Stroheim.” He need say nothing more. The entire audience erupts in laughter. Mashon smiles, saying, “You know,...

Erich von Stroheim was one-of-a-kind: a serious filmmaker who also became a distinctive, and indelible, screen personality. He’s probably best known today for his role as Gloria Swanson’s faithful servant in Billy Wilder’s 'Sunset Blvd.' While learning about directing as an assistant to D.W. Griffith in the teens, he established himself as a stereotyped “evil Hun” in World War One movies. Universal’s Carl Laemmle gave him a chance to realize his own vision on screen in 'Blind Husbands' (1919) and launched his star-crossed career as a writer-director. Laemmle may have complained about the enormous cost of the lavish 'Foolish Wives' (1922), with its eye-popping Monte Carlo set, but he used...

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In spite of its prestige pic credentials, Tom Hooper's Les Misérables is almost endearingly eccentric. Almost. Shot from odd angles with distortive wide-angle lenses which often give the impression that space is warping and shifting around the characters, the film strikes an awkward balance between showy glitz and intentional roughness. Most importantly, there's the film's central gimmick: instead of lipsyncing, the leads performed most of their singing live on the set.

As gimmicks go, it's an interesting one; whether talking or singing, voices coming from moving or seated or costumed bodies sound nothing like voices recorded in a studio. The sound of "live" voices—flat notes and all—singing along to an off-screen orchestra mirrors the film's glamorous / scuzzy visual aesthetic.

It's a risky idea, and a lot of the time it doesn't quite gel. Russell Crowe, for instance,...