That was the year that was… 2018's most silent nights

Once again the early 1900’s absolutely wiped the floor with the early 21st Century which is turning out less of a Fox than a Dog. Reality in the UK took something of a beating in 2018 but at least I had Berlin, Bologna and Pordenone with this being the year when I took to flying after a break of more than a decade to seek out more silent experiences in Europe. So, apologies if my list is more jet-set than train-set but most of these films will make it to the UK (provided we can sort out the customs arrangements…).

This blog was once described as picaresque and whilst I’ve learned so much from my “travel” I continue to find new surprises from the first 35 years of cinema and to build on impressions already made. I’ve only been a watcher of “live” silent film since April 2011 when Neil Brand and the Dodge Brothers played rip-roaring accompaniment for Brooksie in Beggars of Life, and it remains a joy to watch the archives emptied of their secrets and to see films projected and played for that have been hidden for decades.

And so, in no particular order and with apologies for all those I’ve missed off, here’s a snapshot of my favourite moments this year.

1. Sunrise (1927), Elizabeth Jane Baldry, Early Music Centre, York

I’ve waited years to see Sunrise with live accompaniment and Jonathan Best’s fantastic Yorkshire Silent Film Festival provided the perfect opportunity as I nipped over to York after a wonderful day at Sheffield’s Abbeydale Picture House. The Early Music Centre is a converted church and provided great atmosphere as well as acoustics for Ms Baldy’s gorgeous accompaniment. Murnau’s classic is the great fairy tale of the silent era and this was a special combination of sight and sound

2. Nelson (1918), Stephen Horne and Martin Pyne, Cinema No. 6, Portsmouth

Talking of the importance of place… South West Silents had the quite brilliant idea of screening Maurice Elvey’s ground-breaking biopic of Horatio Nelson in Portsmouth and all within a cannonball shot of HMS Victory herself.

Elvey filmed on Victory and this remains the only time this happened as Dr Lucie Dutton explained in her erudite introduction – a celebration of this remarkable British film and its director.  Stephen Horne and Martin Pyne illustrated the narrative with all due diligence and the old port resonated with joy on our greatest admiral’s birthday: perfect timing all round.

3. 7th Heaven (1927), with Timothy Brock, Teatro Comunale di Bologna Orchestra, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival 2018

My first trip to Bologna and a feast of film and culture in one of Italy’s finest cities. We saw the restored Rosita with a full orchestra under the stars in the Piazza Maggiore but, after rain stopped play, 7th Heaven was screened at the Opera House instead and were left as high as Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell by the combination of screen, eighteenth century architecture and Timothy Brock’s sumptuous score. Wow.

4. The Great Victorian Moving Picture Show, John Sweeney and his Biograph Band, London Film Festival 2018

No other event carried more shock of the old than this year’s LFF gala in which dozens of late Victorian films – many from ultra-high grade 60-70mm negatives – were screened on the BFI’s IMAX. There was no peripheral escape from these huge memorials to our great grandparents’ age and John Sweeney’s perfectly judged score brought out the full flavour as the appropriately costumed Bryony Dixon talked us through this stunning archive.

5.  The Golden Butterfly (1926), Cyrus Gabrysch Kennington Bioscope

The Bioscope programmers leave no stone unturned in their efforts to brings us not only the rare and obscure but also the wonderful and the two Michael Curtiz (nee Manó Kertész Kaminer) films featuring the dazzling Lili Damita were amongst the highlights. This one was my favourite and I loved the combination of high-energy Lil with Cyrus Gabrysch’s quicksilver accompaniment.

6.  Christian Wahnschaffe (1919-21), with Stephen Horne, Berlinale 68

My first trip to Berlin and a chunk of the Festival’s Weimar Retrospective of which this sprawling two-parter starring the außergewöhnlich Conrad Veidt was the highlight. The second film is the best and Stephen Horne whipped up mighty storm for the intense conclusion. Herr Veidt’s fashion sense was also extraordinary; monocles, leather vest and jodhpurs are on my Christmas list.

7. Exit Smiling (1926), Meg Morley, Kennington Bioscope 2nd Silent Laughter Weekend

Thoroughly modern Beatrice Lillie gives one of the most delicious silent performances in this, her only silent film and, on this evidence alone was quite possibly “the funniest woman in the World”. Sadly, she had better things to do with her time than make too many movies but what remains dazzles especially this one when accompanied with jazz-age cool by mighty Meg Morley.

8. Arcadia (2018), Paul Wright with music from Adrian Utley and Will Gregory

Not strictly a silent film this dazzling deep-dive into the BFI archives threw up a compelling narrative about the relationship between of our connection to the land and collective purpose. It was one of the most though provoking films of the year with an excellent score from Utley and Gregory who also featured three songs from the almost mystically-talented Anne Briggs: our identity is not defined by where we are but by how we are. More natural is what we need now not the enclosure of mind, body and soul…

9. The Dumb Girl of Portici (1916), with John Sweeney, Cambridge Film Festival

Lois Weber is Director of the Year starring in Kino Lorber’s massive six-disc compilation: Pioneers – Women Film Makers (box-set must-have of the year!) and with her reputation now elevated back to where it belongs. This film was her first blockbuster and featured legendary ballerina Anna Pavlova in the title role… the film is slightly uneven and Anna’s acting isn’t near the quality of her dancing but, I loved it all especially with maestro Sweeney’s accompaniment. He’s also on the Milestone DVD too with an orchestral score: essential!

10. Captain Salvation (1927) with Philip Carli, Orchestra San Marco, Pordenone, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto

This year’s festival got off to a flier with this powerful tale of redemption and human love on the ocean waves. Philip Carli conducted the Orchestra San Marco playing his own score and they whipped up a storm as did Lars Hanson as the preacher with doubt and the underrated Pauline Starke as the fallen woman who refuses to fall any further. I’d watched the DVD before but nothing prepares you for the combination of light and life when the music is played live.

Plus…

Woman of the Year: Jenny Hasselqvist

This may surprise a lot of people… oh, alright, maybe not. Jenny’s appearance in the restoration of her first film, Mauritz Stiller’s Balettprimadonnan (1916) was properly emotional, especially when she performs on stage at Stockholm’s Royal Opera House. She was Sweden’s leading prima ballerina over the period; a miracle of connected physical and emotional expression. John Sweeney was on hand to accompany the dance.

Man of the Year: Lars Hanson

Also in the above film, Lars, Lars, Lars… was probably my most watched silent star of the year and he never disappoints; handsome and able to fight, lose and regain faith, love, drink, climb and even sail. He’s always grounded and, like so many Swedes, effortlessly convincing.

Jenny, Jenny, Jenny and Lars, Lars, Lars...

Venue of the Year: Cinema Museum

Has to be. The Cinema Museum lives on thanks to unstinting support and the Kennington Bioscope is one of its shining lights. Here’s hoping I’m saying the same thing next December as the fight to save the Museum is not quite over.

Thank you to everyone who programmed, projected, promoted and performed – see you all again in 2019!

The shock of the old… The Great Victorian Moving Picture Show, with Bryony Dixon, John Sweeney and his Biograph Band, London Film Festival 2018

This was the most unusual Archive Gala I’ve seen at the London Film Festival and one of the most thrilling: silent films at the BFI IMAX and all from 1896-1901 …but they’re not even in colour or in 3D?! These restorations of 60-68mm original film and in some cases negatives, didn’t need any further enhancements and, accompanied by John Sweeney’s gorgeous and evocative score, we were pulled into the world of our great grandparents by the sheer scale of the Victorian every day.

The British science fiction writer Bob Shaw had a concept called “slow glass” through which light passes incredibly slowly so that the person on the other side could view events in “real time” years later. So it felt with this collection of 51 films from which light was released of Victorian vitality that was both moving and powerfully familiar.

A ‘phantom ride’ through a Southampton street atop a tram in 1900 felt like we were inside the screen whilst a colourised trip through Conwy, a town I know very well, made me feel like dropping off and into the Liverpool Arms overlooking the estuary and Deganwy – you know the one, on the walls, near the smallest house in Wales. 

Conwy from the L & NW Railway (1898)

Away from the domestic there were also images of Victorian military might with stunning sequences from the Boer War including ambulances crossing the Tugela River at the Battle of the Spion Kop in an immaculately framed sequence with unbelievable depth of field.In the age of the battleship we also saw warships in rough seas and the German Küstenpanzerschiffe, SMS Odin firing her fearsome 9.4 inch guns. 

The 68mm film gives four times the image detail as 35mm and would have been shown on a similar scale in some of the London theatres of the time including the Alhambra (now Leicester Square Odeon) and the Palace Theatre of Varieties on Cambridge Circus (now known as the Palace Theatre). The technology was brought back to Britain by William Kennedy-Laurie Dickson, who had worked with Thomas Edison in the USA and whose British Mutoscope and Biograph Company ran at the Palace. In her notes, Bryony explains that Dickson’s films would form a twenty-minute segment of an evening of music hall, with the theatre’s orchestra playing along just as the Sweeney Bioscope Band were tonight.

The crossing at the Tugela River 

But, before we got to the films, the BFI’s silent film curator Bryony Dixon, who programmed the evening and provided delighted commentary throughout, explained the visual history of the Victorian era, a time when few saw much beyond a street level view of their surroundings. Painted panoramas began to be made and exhibited at multi-storey such as Robert Barker’s Rotunda in Leicester Square, which still survives as the Roman Catholic Church of Notre Dame de France. Here people could pay for a broader perspective, a pigeon’s eye view of the capital and much more: travel broadened the mind and so did a bigger view.

As the huge IMAX screen loomed over the audience you could well imagine the impact Dickson’s projections would have had on the audiences of the 1890s: this was a whole new way of seeing the world and not just the streets and buildings of your home town, celebrities too including the old Queen even if her parasol kept her in shadow, it was still a thrill to see Victoria amidst the crowds.

It was hard not to feel connected to the watchers of 120 years past who would marvel in a not dissimilar way at the views on screen; shadow-plays large and small from the intimacy of a royal picnic in the gardens of Clarence House (1897) to the thrilling launch of the Oceana at Harland and Wolff shipyards in 1899. The ship is huge and the crowd fold away as they realise that the backwash will soak them on the shore. Dickson was an engineer and he would have appreciated this massive technical accomplishment more than most. There were also shots of iron foundry workers pouring molten metal into moulds: the work is unremittingly hazardous and they wear platform shoes to protect their feet, one slip and they would be maimed for life.

Britain's best bicycle!

On a lighter note, there were examples of the theatre with Herbert Beerbohm Tree dying an impressive death as King John in 1899 - a promo for his tour of the full play, the Victorians were media savvy and believed in the power of marketing! There was also comedy, Herbert Campbell being quite revolting as Little Bobby and impressive chair-juggling from the Agoust Family circus performers. All precious glimpses of the performance past: Britain's always has talent.

The Dickson films along with some from Prestwich and Gaumont were all restored by BFI National Archive in collaboration with EYE Filmmuseum and Haghefilm. The technology to enable projection at maximum size is only fairly recent and a huge amount of manual work was performed on the ancient film before scanning at 8k could begin. The results are genuinely beautiful and gave you the kind of buzz you get visiting a foreign country for the first time… something familiar and a lot that is unexpected!

As Bryony says: “…all of those things that tell you something is old have been stripped away…” and, indeed, the films are made with a Victorian sensibility that is perhaps the most striking aspect of all once you begin to experience them after the shock of the new-old.

Afternoon tea in the garden at Clarence House (1897)

John Sweeney’s score was comprised of dozens of themes, all conducted by the maestro himself with alacrity from his band: Michael Whight (clarinet), Oscar Whight (cornet), James Dickenson (violin), Nick Stringfellow (cello) and Frank Bockius (hitting everything in sight with precision). I’ve heard John’s expert piano improvisations many times and it was a treat to hear his composition across these players; as soulful and comprehending as you’d expect. They provided a musical conduit to the spirit of these Victorian visuals and there was not a note out of place as they combined concisely whether for sixteen seconds or sixty. Bryony called them a palm court band and sure enough there was a palm tree on the band stand – it was just like Tiffin at The Langham with added visuals.

There’s a lot more to come with the BFI’s Head of curation, Robin Baker, explaining that the films are just the first look at some 700 Victorian films newly digitised by the BFI National Archive that will be available online in 2019 to mark the 200th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s birth.

It would be nice to view some more on the IMAX; having been back to the future I’d like to return.

Four times the image size of 35mm... palm tree on the right!