*sneaks in with a vase of roses*

Welcome to the neighbourhood!

yalahii.

congrats on the place, bandit!

*drags in lovely, old wood lectern*

for you...:)

happy debating!

Nifty-skip!  I'm no expert in the Rules of Rhetoric and Debate (two different things, I thought), but I shall try to formulate a proposition for debate regarding 'The Purpose of the UN', as that seems to be one of the major points at issue regarding the oncoming war.  I intend to be arguing the pro-UN anti-unilateral position, albeit very simply (at least to begin with).

hey Bandit, nice place you have here. of course it could be a little exhausting to have a formal debate on smarch.

(this reminds me of the formal logic lecture which i passed quite successful.)

Russell ´s paradox, just for fun...

Okay, I changed my mind. Know what I'm going to do instead? Crayon Raves. The opposite of Crayon Rants. Should have one up sometime today.

Crayon Rave #1: Silent Films

Ever get tired of the paltry, repetitive, and bourgeois dialogue used in most movies nowadays? The cure is here: movies with no talking. It's amazing to see how a good actor or actress can tell an entire story with movement and gesture and facial expressions (and the occasional expository placard). Lillian Gish can say more with her face in one take than most actors do now in an entire scene. Eloquent.

Silent films were primarily made between the early 1900s until roughly 1927 - the year the first talkie The Jazz Singer was released - at which point sadly many of the great silent films stars were unable to transition to the new style, and their careers subsequently faded. The subject matter in films of the silent era still seems as vital today in many cases as it did back then. One possible reason for this was the medium itself - without the luxury of dialogue, the narrative of film had to be simple and situations easily identifiable. There is also interestingly an element of improvisation in many films, as most of them had nothing like a script to work off of; but instead the actors and actresses were directed by the director (wait! Directed by the...director? "Inconceivable!") on how the scenes should play out - while they were filming. Another interesting advantage of dialogueless cinema is the ease with which it was imported and exported to other countries. No language means no interpreting, and the stories were universal enough to play anywhere with instant recognition.

It's also fun to see film at that early stage. You can literally watch the style evolve. For instance, an early film by DW Griffith Judith of Bethulia has the camera entirely stationary - the thought process for early films was that they should be blocked like plays, with the viewer allowed only one non-motile viewpoint. But then only four years later in Broken Blossoms it has been realized that the camera can be moved in many many different ways to accentuate whatever mood or information is attempting to be conveyed. The camera becomes almost its own entity and allows the viewer a bird's eye view of the unfolding story that would be impossible in almost any other medium. For more on the subject of early film cinematography, check out Some Notes on the Evolution of Style which is pretty thorough.

Recommended viewing -
The works of the Lumiere Brothers
Rescued By Rover
Broken Blossoms
Greed
The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari
Metropolis
A Trip to the Moon
The Wind
Foolish Wives
The General
The Last Laugh
City Lights
The Kid
A House Divided

Resources -
Silent Era - the Silent Film Website
Amazon
Early Cinema

[ May 03, 2003: Message edited by: Bandit ]

The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari

Next month, next month...

I've heard of Greed, too, and Metropolis and A Trip to the Moon, of course. But they're so hard to come by!

We had a local service (FlyingPig) but it didn't. Fly, that is.

Plus I don't believe there is an Amazon Australia.

JEEE-sus I had like 20 posts today. That's a lot for me.

Bye! Not yet - I am several thousand miles away.

@la Bandida: Just a side question. Wasn`t a lot of the mood in silent pictures conveyed by a pianist playing live in the cinema (thus ensuring no two performances, esp. in different theatres) would ever be the same? They really ought to bring that back.. The musicians would appreciate the work I`m sure.

Not actually a silent movie, but I just decided that I should remedy the fact that I've never watched a Kurosawa film and have borrowed the full-length Shichinin No Samurai from the Massey Library. Lots of bandits in there!