The manner in which after 1929, silent films were not only allowed to rot and decay but were wantonly destroyed (for those interested I strongly recommend Luigi Comencini's superb 1953 film La valigiia dei sogni - hugely in advance of its time) was little less than a crime against humanity - a form of cultural holocaust comparable to the destruction of the great classical library at Alexandria.
An immeasurable change has taken place since 1953 in our appreciation of the importance of our film heritage. In effect we are in the midst of a true Renaissance that is transforming not only our historiographical understanding (the history of cinema is steadily being rewritten) but also our awareness of the visual values if film so often deprecated during the "dark ages" of the "sound" era.
One would normally say without hesitation that the massacre of the film-archives had no redeeming feature except - lo and behold - we even have here a nostalgia for nitrate damage - very beautifully put together by Bill Morrison. Morrison is one of several "found footage" specialist who have sprung up in the wake of the Renaissance (Dutchman Pierre Delpeut is another well known example) and who have become very propagandists for silent film and, more importantly still, for the values silent film represents. Sometime I must confess I am inclined to be irritated by the banal nature of the compilation technique and would urge viewers to go back to the original silent films rather than waste their time with, say, Delpeut's The Forbidden Quest but there are other occasions when the process of providing a "modern" perspective does no disservice to the original film-makers and this is the case both with this delightful little film and with Bill Morrison's superb 2016 short, The Dockworker's Dream. His feature films (Decasia, Spark of Being and Dawson City) I have not yet had the opportunity to watch but look forward greatly to doing so.
Vive la révolution!
