Japanese Summer: When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice & Good Morning

Still riffing on some of the Japanese films I saw this summer...

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960) stars one of my favorite Japanese actors of the period - Tatsuya Nakadai. However, the star of When a Woman Ascends the Stairs is Hideko Takamine, the schoolteacher in Twenty-Four Eyes, in quite a different role. Here, she is Keiko, a Tokyo Ginza bar hostess who unlike her colleagues, keeps a professional distance from her clients. By professional distance, I mean she doesn't have sex with them. The memory of her late husband may be her motivation but regardless, her professionalism only adds to her allure in the eyes of her customers and bar manager (Nakdadai). It comes at a cost. It seems every bar hostess' dream is to own her own bar. Keiko could get bankrolled by one or more of her clients...if she'd just play the game. Her steadfast refusal establishes her character in a morally ambiguous environment.

Keiko has been saving her money so she can start her own place without any assistance. A former co-worker's failed attempt at starting her own place plants the seed but an illness and extended stay with her no-good brother, shrewish mother and sick nephew pushes her over the edge. Keiko spends her savings bailing out her brother and paying for her nephew's medical care. This defers her dream of opening her own bar...or does it.

In an about face, Keiko first accepts a marriage prosposal from a man who turns out to be fraud (and already married) and later sleeps with a businessman who agrees to bankroll her. He turns out to be a cad as he is being transferred away for work and partially reneges.

After Nakadai admits his lost desire for her and disappointment by her out-of-character actions, Naruse sets up one of the best moments of the film when Keiko goes to the train station to see the businessman off. The man is concerned by her unexpected appearance and worried his wife will find out what happened but Keiko takes the high road by giving him back his money disguised as a present. The film ends with Keiko seemingly back to her old self as she ascends the stairs to the bar she works at and serves as the perfect bar hostess again...just like the film started. However, the audience is more aware of the sadness and disappointment behind Keiko's smile, more impressed with her constantly polite demeanor and a little sad about the life lessons she has learned.

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs is a very effective film. It's very dark at its heart. Keiko's future is very uncertain and her hardened heart will only make it more difficult to change her attitude. Regardless of the inner turmoil, the audience is certain that Keiko will be able to regain the professional detachment she showed earlier in the film. If not for her husband's death, Keiko's life would be much different (presumably better). The film showcases an excellent performance by Takamine. It was an excellent by the acclaimed director Mikio Naruse.

Instead of subtitles on the print, PFA projected laser subtitles and there was a "malfunction." The subtitles became unsynchronized with the film and they had to stop the film. I didn't ruin the experience but it did lessen my enjoyment which was still considerable. That's the second or third time I've seen problem with the laser projector. PFA may want to explore other options with un-subtitled prints are the only ones available.

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The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice, a 1952 Ozu film, features a married couple for the cinematic hall of fame. Shin Saburi & Michiyo Kogure are Mokichi & Taeko Satake, respectively. Comfortably off, childless & settled in their way, the couple coexist. There doesn't seem to be much passion in their relationship; if there ever was. Taeko is a shrew and not above lying to her husband whom she considers a dullard. Mokichi is taciturn to the point of giving grunts instead of speaking and seems disinterested in his marriage or his wife. Of the two, I found Mokichi more sympathetic but they were quite a pair.

Green Tea Over Rice follows a particularly turbulent period in their lives including a Taeko lying to go on an overight trip to the spa, being tasked with finding a husband for their niece and Mokichi being transferred overseas for his job. Ozu trains his camera on the nuances of marriage or a weary couple. It's not so much a complacent marriage as it is two people living separate live but still married.

The key scene is at the end when Mokichi unexpectedly returns and they share a simple meal as the title indicates. Mokichi has simple tastes which his wife has mocked and criticized throughout the film so her sharing the meal is a pleasant surprise.

Ozu had his finger on the scale though. I think it's obvious his sympathies were with the husband. The only time the wife was a bitch or lying was at the end when she thought he had left for South America. The film may not appeal to everyone as the subject foreign or pedestrian but I thought it was one of the wonderfully narrowly focused films by Ozu. Ozu almost exclusively trained his eye on family dramas. Frequently, the conflicts were generational but in Green Tea it was gender and without the sensationalism of an affair or unrequited love.

Best suited for fans of Ozu or these kinds of films, The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice was elegantly simple. I can't quite say it was satisfying because the focused on the couple whereas most Ozu films focus on an extended family & the dynamics at work. By focusing on the couple, Ozu invited the audience to take sides which is uncharacteristic for Ozu.

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The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice and Good Morning screened at Viz/New People over Independence Day weekend or two weeks before the 2011 San Francisco Silent Film Festival. I note the relative dates because the Silent Festival screening I Was Born But... Good Morning (1959) is a loose remake of I Was Born But... (1932). Both films were directed by Ozu. I had not seen either film before the July screenings but I was aware of the relationship between the films.

Having seen both films, I thought Good Morning also bore a strong resemblance to Ozu's Early Summer (1951). In Good Morning, the boys run away from home because their father won't buy a television; in Early Summer they run away because he won't buy more model train tracks.

Trains are a recurring theme in Ozu's later films. Scenes take place on traveling on trains, Ozu uses train stations as establishing and exit shots, people walk along train tracks, exterior shots with moving trains are frequently used, etc..

The television set or lack thereof is the central plot point in Good Morning. The Hayashi family (husband, wife, two sons and their aunt) live in a Tokyo suburb. Their son's primary wish in life is to have television. Their "alternative lifestyle" neighbors (he lounges in his pajamas, she is cabaret singer) have one the boys go over to watch sumo wrestling. The boys pester their parents for a television until the father loses patience with them. In response, the boys go on silent strike. They refuse to speak to anyone until they get a television. They claim that adults say meaningless things and they refuse to grow up into that kind of adult.

Eventually, they run away from home but are found by their English tutor who fancies the boys' aunt. Upon their petulant and forced return, they are delighted to see a television set their father has purchased. What they don't know is that small talk adults engage in is part of a larger set of social customs. It's this same set of customs which accounts for the television. A neighbor gets a new job as a salesman and taps their parents to make a purchase (kind of like being hit up for money at work for coworkers' children's school donation drives). The parents seeing an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, buy a television from him.

Ozu stalwart Chishu Ryu plays the father. Only six years earlier, in Ozu most acclaimed work, Tokyo Story, Ryu portrayed Sugimara's father. Koji Shigaragi, 13 years old at the time, does a masterful job as the eldest child. His younger brother is played by Masahiko Shimazu. Another Ozu regular, Haruko Sugimura, plays the gossipy neighbor who stirs up trouble in the neighborhood.

Primarily a comedy, the film is a slight departure for Ozu in other ways as well. His films are usually internally focused on family dynamics but in Good Morning the attention is drawn to larger societal norms which I associate as secondary or external forces at work on the family. The silent strike sets off gossip in the neighborhood as Sugimura's character interprets the boys' silence as a having their root cause in a disagreement she with their mother. Despite the boys' insistence that small talk is meaningless, a simple "Good morning" serves as a password for social interaction. It's utterance may be reflexive but it's absence is noticeable. The boys' selfishness and youth hinder their understanding of this.

The second major plot point is the television. The father could easily afford a television but he is against it on principle. He considers it an idiot box. Like America a few years earlier, Japan was in the midst of television boom. 1959, the year Good Morning was released, was also the high point for ticket sales in Japan. The next year began a decline in film attendance which was largely attributed to television. The fact that Ryu's character eventually buys the television is a commentary on Japanese society as much ss a plot device. The penetraton of television sets into Japanese households was unstoppable. Regardless, of Ryu's opposition, the boys (like the rest of Japanese society) were clamoring for a television. To deny them would only cause continued strife so Ryu relented.

I have yet to encounter an Ozu film (talkies) that I didn't thoroughly enjoy. I'm not so enamored by his silent films. I notice that Ozu seemed to have a fascination with Western society in his silent films. He seems to have lost that in his films from the 1950s and beyond. In Good Morning, the jazz and TV loving couple next door exhibit signs of Western influence. Ozu portrays them as misfits and looked upon askance by Japanese society. I'm not sure if that reflects Ozu's view of them or if he is relating his own experience through them.

Anyway, Good Morning only burnished my high opinion of Ozu and his films.

2011 San Francisco Silent Film Festival (Part 2 of 2)

My favorite film from the 2011 San Francisco Silent Film Festival was The Great White Silence, a documentary by Herbert Ponting chronicling the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition to Antarctica from 1910 to 1913. Less well known than Ernest Shackleton's Trans-Antarctic expedition and Roald Amundsen's discovery of the geographic South Pole, Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova Expedition was more tragic than Shackleton and had cinematic documentation which Amundsen lacked.

More than a decade before his famous stranding on Antarctica, Shackleton served under Scott on a previous attempt to reach the South Pole. The Terra Nova Expedition was a race against Amundsen to reach the South Pole. Scott lost the race by 33 days. More importantly, Scott lost his life on the return trip.

Ponting served as the official photographer and cinematographer on the Terra Nova Expedition. Ponting's The Great White Silence was part of the official record of the expedition.

It is amazing that Ponting was able to get his cameras to film under the extreme conditions. The images he captured are spectacular. There was one sequence showing penguins incubating their eggs. It reminded me of March of the Penguins except it predated it by 90 years and didn't have the voice of God narrating it. I have admit that Morgan Freeman's authoritative but soothing voice added immeasurably to March of the Penguins. However, The Great White Silence benefited greatly from the live accompaniment by the Matti Bye Ensemble. They struck just the right chords to convey the desperation and haunting aspects of living on the most isolated place in the world.

I thought the film would have been better without the cutesy penguin and seal (or were they sea lion?) scenes but in 1913, these animals must have seemed exotic as motion pictures. The long shots and sweeping panoramas were breathtaking. Ponting filmed scenes from up high of dog sleds venturing onto barren and white landscapes. The mens's bodies made tiny by the distance from the camera but also as a metaphor of how tiny men are when compared to the vast forces of nature.

The combination of Ponting's establishing shots and the Matti Bye Ensemble's disquieting score elevated The Great White Silence to a masterpiece which is still spectacular 90 years later. The film was tinted so the still photo below is accurate.

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The next film I was interested in was Yasujirō Ozu's I Was Born, But... With its translated title's rigorous adherence to the rules of punctuation, but improperly being cited as the original version of Ozu's later Good Morning (1959), I had high hopes for I Was Born, But...

I cannot recall who introduced I Was Born, But..., but he claimed this was the film where "Ozu became Ozu." This statement is open to interpretation but based on it, I was expecting static camera shot and a focus on family dynamics. I noticed more camera movement than Ozu's postwar films but the interactions between the Yoshi family members is the primary story being told. The most obvious difference from Ozu's later films is that the two young boys and their viewpoints occupy much of I Was Born, But... In his later films, children are present and serve to contrast the actions of adults but in I Was Born, But..., the plot incorporates much of the boys' activities and opinions.

Keiji Yoshi and his younger brother Ryoichi have moved into a new neighborhood. Quickly, they encounter bullies from school which cause them to be truant. Much of the film focuses on the plight of the boys and how they eventually overcome their tormentors. This part of the film is handled with a light comedic touch.

The boys make friends with Taro who is their father's boss. The fathers seem to work at film processing company. Ignorant of the pecking order in the workplace, Keiji & Ryoichi are shocked to see their father play the buffoon on some film shot by Taro's father. By extension, the boys figure their father is subservient to Taro's father which is the opposite of the social order among the boys. Disappointed in their father and society at large, the boys throw a temper tantrum and go on a hunger strike. The next day, the father is able to reconcile with the boys and even catch a ride with Taro's father on the way to work. However, the ending has a melancholy tone as Taro's rise and the boy's harsh introduction to reality seem inevitable.

If the introduction was meant to imply Ozu became a film master with I Was Born, But..., I'd be hesitant to agree. I thought the film portends great things from Ozu since I have seen several of his later works. However, I thought the focus on the children distracted from the seriousness of the plot. As the program notes mentioned, this may be because Japanese censors wanted films to avoid classism and social inequities. Ozu used humor and social commentary masquerading as a children's story to get past the censors. The boys' criticism of their father were accurate and stinging as well as naïve and cruel.

I also thought Ozu gained a valuable tools with the advent of talkies. Because of his static camera, dialog took on an important role in Ozu's film. In his silent films, that is lost in the intertitles and perhaps the translation. I Was Born, But... was an exceptional film but this is Ozu afterall. My expectations were not quite met but nonetheless I'm glad I took the afternoon off from work to watch it. I also noticed Ozu had not yet embraced his elliptical storytelling technique as of I Was Born, But...

Tomio Aoki who plays Keiji gave up acting for many years as an adult. He returned to the screen in a supporting role in Kon Ichikawa's The Burmese Harp (1956).

Accompanist Stephen Horne played the piano for the soundtrack but broke out the flute for several key scenes. Although he played a traditional flute, the tone reminded me of many Japanese films featuring what I refer to as a Japanese flute or shakuhachi.

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Through the Silent Film Festival, I've become a big fan of Lon Chaney. Over the past few years, they have screened The Unholy Three and The Unknown; both of which I greatly enjoyed. So it was no surprise when I saw He Who Gets Slapped on the program. The role seems tailor made for Chaney. A scientist, who had a his research and wife stolen by a wealthy baron, hides from society & himself as a clown in the circus. The clown persona is He Who Gets Slapped. The act consists of He being slapped and otherwise humiliated by the other clowns which serves a constant reminder of his treatment by his wife and the baron.

He is having modest success at the circus and has his emotions in check until a beautiful horse rider starts at the circus. Consuelo (Norma Shearer) is the daughter of an impoverished count who puts his daughter to work at the circus. A beautiful woman is frequently the cause of trouble in cinema and Shearer's character may well have been named Paris. Immediately, He is drawn to Consuelo who considers him "just friends." Consuelo is more interested in her partner in the horse riding act (John Gilbert). Consuelo's father has other plans as he is essentially pimping his daughter's hand in marriage to...none other than the baron who wronged He.

The reappearance of the baron and his interest in another woman He loves upsets He's fragile psyche with tragic consequences for all involved. I won't recount the ending but it involves a lion and I wonder if the actors and the lion were filmed at the same time. He Who Gets Slapped was an MGM production and marked the first time a lion graced the MGM logo at the opening of the film.

Although Gilbert and Shearer received high billing, Marc McDermott as the baron and Tully Marshall as the count get more screen time and leave a greater impression. Both characters are contemptible whether they are cheating each other or transacting Shearer's maidenhood.

He Who Gets Slapped was very entertaining and a good choice to close the festival.

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The Nail in the Boot was an example of Soviet cinema in the 1930s. Unabashedly jingoistic and employing state-of-the-art propaganda techniques, The Nail in the Boot tells the story of a soldier who cannot deliver a key message during war games because his boots were shoddily made. Sentenced to death for his transgression, the soldier calls out the workers at the boot factory where his substandard footwear was produced.

The film was well made (certain scenes evoked Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin) and well scored by Stephen Horne but it felt more like I was watching a historical Communist artifact than an actual film.

My lack of enthusiasm for The Nail in the Boot was made up for by Chess Fever, a delightful romp into a society gone mad with its obsession with chess and a woman who loves her boyfriend but not the impact chess is having one him. Breezy and laugh-out-loud at moments, I loved Chess Fever.

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Marlene Dietrich graced the cover of the 2011 San Francisco Silent Film Festival program book. Czar of noir gave the most impassioned introduction of the festival when he introduced Dietrich's What Men Yearn For. He even expanded my vocabulary by quoting a passage by director Kurt Bernhardt where he described Dietrich as an intrigante. I willingly admit there is something terrible sexy about Dietrich. With all that going for her, I am sad to say What Men Yearn For disappointed me.

Prior to introducing He Who Gets Slapped, director Alexander Payne (Election and Sideways) said he preferred Norma Shearer before she started talking. In other words, he preferred Shearer as a silent film actress. This opinion drew a few hisses from the crowd.

I could say the opposite of Dietrich. I greatly prefer Dietrich when she spoke. Dietrich has two things going for her which don't exist in the silent films. First, she has that husky voice. It sounded like a lion purring while deciding whether to go in for the kill. Dietrich was sexy and dangerous. Second and perhaps wedded to the tone of her voice is her German accent while speaking English. Again, when Dietrich spoke English it sounded exotic and ominous. She was a like a sex Nazi. Her voice was irresistible and makes you feel she was wicked but yet you (at least me) couldn't resist. You know she is a maneater and you should give her a wide berth, but like a moth drawn to the flame...

All this is alluded to in What Men Yearn For and her perverse and tragic charisma reels in a poor newlywed to their mutual doom. What Men Yearn For is not so much a love triangle as a debauched ménage à trois which was probably passé to Berlin audiences during the Weimar Republic. The film only hinted at the nature of the three sided relationship whereas Berliners had first hand experience if history books and Cabaret are to believed.

Fritz Kortner shines as more jaded third of the triangle opposite Dietrich and Uno Henning. Porcine and sleazy with an aristocratic élan, Kortner is almost the equal of Dietrich.

Marlene Dietrich is a captive of my fetish which unfortunately centers around her voice.

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My favorite short film was The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra. Borrowing from German expressionism and mise-en-scène techniques, 9413 was nightmarish experimental film propelled by the Alloy Orchestra's fevered score. The film reminded a little of Dementia (1955) which I saw at this year's I Wake Up Dcreaming program at the Roxie.

9413 was about the dehumanizing and assembly line nature of Hollywood filmmaking. Undoubtedly avante-garde upon its production, the film still seems original and provocative 83 years later.

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The Blizzard, The Goose Woman and Mr. Fix-It all had enjoyable or even awe inspiring aspects but left me mild. The Blizzard has this incredible scene with a reindeer stampede and a man being dragged by a reindeer in the snow. The Goose Woman features the incredible transformation of Louise Dresser from an uncouth and filthy wretch to a sophisticated society matron. Mr. Fix-It features the comedic and athletic talents of Douglas Fairbanks which seem wasted on a comedy about false identities and orphans. Douglas Fairbanks was an action star and Mr. Fix-It wasn't an action movie.

Upstream was interesting in that it played with movie conventions. Typically, when a lead character acts like a lout (in this case becomes too big a star to associate with his old friends), the character's success is reversed and s/he learns a valuable lesson about loyalty before being forgiven by those s/he has wronged. In Upstream, the lout high hats his old colleagues during a wedding reception. He is literally tossed out the door onto the street. End of film. The ending was abrupt but I often complain that Hollywood films are predictable.

Il Fuoco featured Pina Menichelli (great name), a wild-eyed Italian diva. Diva has a specific meaning in this context. In Italy in the 1910s, certain actresses reached the stratosphere in adulation which has yet to be equaled. Paid enormous sums and the object of unyielding public interest, the Italian cinema divas eclipsed their Hollywood counterparts. Pina Menichelli was one of the these divas and her sexually aggressive role Il Fuoco catapulted her to the highest echelons of Italian society including a marriage to an Italian baron.

In Il Fuoco, Menichelli prances around with a maniacal look on her face and what appears to be a court jester hat on her head. It may have sexy and shocking in 1915 but in 2011, it looked ridiculous. I could not "transcend time." Instead of English intertitles, Frank Buxton was the reader. I don't like readers or more accurately, I haven't encountered a skilled reader. Buxton read the lines as if the film was high camp. Perhaps with intertitles or a better reader, I could have "transcended time." Free advice to SFSFF, if you are going to bring in world-class musicians to score the film, can't you bring in experienced film readers?

Huckleberry Finn - I couldn't quite get into Huck & Tom's adventure. Admittedly, I dozed off for part of it.

2011 San Francisco Silent Film Festival (Part 1 of 2)

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival ran from July 14 to 17 at the Castro Theater. They screened 18 programs; I saw 12.

The biggest news of the festival is that the San Francisco Silent Film Festival is presenting (in association with American Zoetrope, The Film Preserve, Photoplay Productions, and the British Film Institute) four performances of Napoléon, Abel Gance's 1927 masterpiece. The performances will be on March 24, 25, 31 and April 1 at the Paramount Theater in Oakland.

Many people can recount the controversy surrounding this film better than I can. The gist of the problem is that Francis Ford Coppola owns the rights to the film.

Noted film historian Kevin Brownlow has spent most of his life restoring the once lost epic. In 1980, Brownlow presented the 4+ hour restoration at the Telluride Film Festival which is currently run by the Balboa's Gary Meyer. Later in 1980, Francis Ford Coppola released a re-edited version of Napoléon with a Carmine Coppola (his father) score. In the ensuing years, Brownlow has continued assembling previously lost footage. At present, Brownlow has reconstructed 5½ hours of the film. Legal disputes with Copolla have prevented this version from screening except for a December 2004 engagement in London. That version with musical score arranged by Carl Davis will be performed in Oakland next year with Carl Davis conducting the Oakland East Bay Symphony.

I have purchased my tickets. As befitting an epic film like Napoléon, the ticket prices are in a range I am more accustomed to seeing at the opera. If I recall correctly, prices ranged from $35 to $120. Silent Film Festival members receive a discount on up to two tickets. The tickets are sold through Ticket Master which tacked on the most exorbitant service and handling charges (yes plural) for any event I've ever paid for. It was hard to swallow but I eventually pried open my wallet.

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The 12 programs I watched were:

Upstream starring Nancy Nash; directed by John Ford; silent with intertitles; accompanied by the Donald Sosin Ensemble; (1927)
Huckleberry Finn starring Lewis Sargent; directed by William Desmond Taylor; silent with intertitles; accompanied by the Donald Sosin; (1920)
I Was Born, But...; directed by Yasujirô Ozu; silent with intertitles; accompanied by the Stephen Horne; (1932)
The Great White Silence; documentary; directed by Herbert G. Ponting; silent with intertitles; accompanied by the Mattie Bye Ensemble; (1924)
Il Fuoco starring Pina Menichelli; directed by Giovanni Pastrone; silent with Italian intertitles and reader (Frank Buxton); accompanied by Stephen Horne; (1916)
The Blizzard; directed by Mauritz Stiller; silent with intertitles; accompanied by the Mattie Bye Ensemble; (1923)
The Goose Woman starring Louise Dresser; with Jack Pickford and Constance Bennett; directed by Clarence Brown; silent with intertitles; accompanied by Stephen Horne; (1925)
Mr. Fix-It starring Douglas Fairbanks; directed by Allan Dwan; silent with intertitles; accompanied by Dennis James; (1918)
The Woman Men Yearn For starring Marlene Dietrich; directed by Curtis Bernhardt; silent with intertitles; accompanied by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra; (1929)
The Nail in the Boot directed by Mikheil Kalatozoz; silent with intertitles; accompanied by Stephen Horne; (1932)
He Who Gets Slapped starring Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer and John Gilbert; directed by Victor Sjöström; silent with intertitles; accompanied by the Mattie Bye Ensemble; (1924)

The 12th program was Wild and Weird, a collection of short films accompanied by the Alloy Orchestra.

Wild and Weird
Dream of a Rarebit Fiend; (1906)
Le Spectre Rouge; (1907)
The Acrobatic Fly; (1908)
The Thieving Hand; (1908)
Princess Nicotine, or the Smoke Fairy; (1909)
Arthème Swallows His Clarinet; (1912)
The Cameraman's Revenge; (1912)
Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend: The Pet; (1921)
Filmstudie; (1925)
Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra; (1928)

Before several of the feature films, the festival screened silent "orphan" short films. What are orphan films? According to the Orphan Film Symposium, "It's a motion picture abandoned by its owner or caretaker."

The orphan films I saw were

Mrs. Harding, "Cameraman"?; (1922)
Coolidge Trapshooting; (1928)
St. Louis to Chicago Airmail; (1926)
Origin of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata"; (1909)
The Tribal Law; (1912)
Chumming with Chipmunks; (1921)
Madison News Reel; (1932)

Non-orphan films that were paired with features include

Why Men Flirt; (1918) paired with Upstream
Chess Fever; (1932) paired with The Nail in the Boot

At 18 minutes, Chess Fever was over ⅓ of the length of The Nail in the Boot and the two were listed as co-features in the festival program guide.

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A few festival observations: the Silent Film Festival is notorious for starting their programs late and they did it again this year. I started Saturday and Sunday with the 2 PM screenings and they were already running behind schedule. Despite the hard work of the sound techs, they have an extremely difficult time finishing the sound checks between shows.

The festival pass was approximately $20 higher than last year. The festival lasted the same number of days as last year so I don't know the cause of the increase. I don't begrudge the increase as much as I wish they could get the shows started on time. I'd pay another $20 if they can improve their on-time performance by 50%.

This year, Poesia was not selling sandwiches in between shows. Those were great sandwiches and they aren't on their restaurant menu. Perhaps the Castro did not like the competition for concessions.

The attendance seemed off slightly from last year. The festival also seems to give out more press passes and guest passes than any other I attend.

Melissa Chittick and Stephen Salmons sat in front of me for a four or five films throughout the festival. Stephen is sporting a beard with a little more pepper than salt. He looked a little like the Most Interesting Man in the World. He was also carrying what looked suspiciously like a man purse. They looked quite content in their roles as audience members.

Throughout the FIFA Women's World Cup Tournament, I had become enamored with the Japanese team; also known as the Nadeshiko. It was my intent to watch the World Cup Final between Japan and the US on Sunday, July 17. I watched through the 70something minute when the US were up 1-0. The US had dominated the match up until that point and should have been up 3-0 or 4-0. I admit that I gave up on the Nadeshiko and left to make it in time to the 2 PM screening of Wild and Weird. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when I found out Japan won the match on penalty kicks. I deserve what I got for not keeping the faith. So although I saw 12 programs this year, I sadly wish it would have only been 11. Does anyone know where I can get an Homare Sawa jersey?

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In conjunction with the SFSFF, the San Francisco Public Library has an exhibit on the 4th and 6th floors of the Main Branch at 100 Larkin Street. The exhibition is called Shhhhh! Silents in the Library. I viewed the exhibits yesterday. To quote from the library's website,

Explore the silent film era through displays of rare books, ephemera and photographs. The Silent Screen in the City looks at the Bay Area’s role in silent film production, while Downtown Movie Palaces of the 1920s evokes a visit to San Francisco's lost theater landmarks. Reading the Stars showcases vintage books about the movies published during the era. Included is a nod to The San Francisco Silent Film Festival, one of the world’s largest silent film festivals, now in its sixteenth year.

All except one of the exhibits were on the 4th floor. I counted five wall-mounted display cases and a rack of SFSFF posters dating back to Year 1 on the 4th floor and one display case on the 6th floor. It was interesting for me to see some of the early SFSFF posters. When I first started attending the festival, it had expanded to three days but in the early days, the festival was a one day event and then expanded to two. I believe this is the second year the festival has run four days.

The exhibit was nice but a little disappointing to a cinephile like me. It was interesting to see the cue sheets and display on musical accompaniment. I would have like to have seen more on the Downtown Movie Palaces of the 1920s. I didn't know there was a Pantages Theater in SF. It was located on a presently boarded up block of 900 Market (odd number side of the street). The St. Francis Theater (where I saw the remake of Shaft) was on that same block.

Shhhhh! Silents in the Library will be on display until August 28. On August 7 at 2 PM, Diana Serra Cary better known by her stage name "Baby Peggy" will talk about her life as a child star in the 1920s. Her talk will be in the Koret Auditorium in the basement of the Main Library. At 1 PM on the same day, the curators of Shhhhh! Silents in the Library will give a special guided tour of their exhibit. If you are interested, meet in Steve Silver Room on the 4th floor of the Main Library.

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This post has grown to unwieldy proportions and I have yet to discuss any of the films so I'll split the post in two. I'll share my thoughts on several of the films in my next post.

2011 San Francisco Silent Film Festival Winter Event

On February 12, I spent the day at the Castro Theater watching the San Francisco Silent Film Festival Winter Event. The main festival runs three and lately four days in July but they have produced a one-day winter event for the past several years.

This year's line up was:

The Pawn Shop starring and directed by Charlie Chaplin; silent with intertitles; (1916)
The Rink starring and directed by Charlie Chaplin; silent with intertitles; (1916)
The Adventurer starring and directed by Charlie Chaplin; silent with intertitles; (1917)
L'Argent; directed by Marcel L'Herbier; silent with French intertitles; (1928)
La Bohème starring Lillian Gish & John Gilbert; directed by King Vidor; silent with intertitles; (1926)

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The Chaplin films were part of a short film program featuring early Chaplin films when he was under contract with Mutual Film Company. His films at Mutual were his final under contract to another studio. After the Mutual contract ran out, he founded Charlie Chaplin Studios. It was at Chaplin Studios where the Little Tramp's greatest films were recorded. Films such as The Kid, City Lights and Modern Times were shot...and then distributed by United Artists which Chaplin partially owned at the time.

The shorts featured Chaplin's stock company of actors including Edna Purviance, Eric Campbell and Henry Bergman. The Chaplin films were accompanied by Donald Sosin on piano.

I thought films were entertainig but they lack the pathos which Chaplin's feature films have. The films felt more like slapstick which may be due to their nature. Each film was between 23 and 25 minutes so there wasn't a lot of time for character development.

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L'Argent was based on an Emile Zola novel. It was accompanied by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. The film was screened with French intertitles. I'm not sure if the English intertitles were laser projected or added to the celluloid.

The production was spectacular with crowd scenes and lavish sets. Director Marcel L'Herbier employed experimental techniques that have since become standard such as overhead shots and vertical tracking shots. The net effect of the cinematography is awe inspiring. That's not to say that the performances were equally inspired. In the lead role as the villain is Pierre Alcover as financier Nicolas Saccard. The beefy actor plays the treacherous and sleazy Saccard as driven by two parts greed and one part lust.

Saccard is joined by two other immoral characters. Guant, cruel and almost cadaverous, Alfred Abel plays rival financier Alphonse Gunderman. Whereas Saccard is sweaty and excitable, Gunderman is always composed and impeccable. Abel must have specialized in these types of characters because he played a very similar role the year before in Metropolis. Finally, Brigitte Helm (fresh off her starmaking performance as Maria and the robot in Metropolis) plays Baroness Sandorf, a decadent courtesan who toys with Saccard. The Metropolis stars were cast as part of the financing deal for the expensive L'Argent.

The film clocked in at 2 hours and 50 minutes (not including intermission) so there was quite a bit of plot although much of the film served as a vehicle for Alcover, Helm and actress Mary Glory to chew up the scenery. The synopsis is that Saccard is ruined by Gunderman but sees an opportunity involving a solo airflight and subsequent mining operations in South America. Saccard finances Jacques Hamelin's venture for his financial gain as well as to become better acquainted with Hamelin's wife (Glory). After Hamelin's success which requires an extended stay in French Guiana, Saccard's maneuvers and machinations (both financially and romantically) are chronicled with gusto.

Although Alcover, Helm and Glory emote and slink around, the real stars of the film are the elaborate and enormous set pieces as well as location scenes at the Paris Bourse and Paris Opera House. L'Herbier exhibits impressive skill in staging large crowd scenes involving hundreds to thousands of extras.

Ironically, L'Argent which is nominally a cautionary tale of greed and excess wallows in the excess of its own production and length. Both could have been trimmed to the film's benefit but it would have lessened the grandeur of the film. The line between grand and excessive is hard to distinguish. Whichever side L'Argent falls on is largely moot because the film conveys its message perfectly by matching production standards and the director's ambition with the plot. L'Argent is spectacular and a spectacle.

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The final film of the day was La Bohème accompanied by Dennis James on the Wurlitzer. During the introduction, it was mentioned that the film could not use Puccini opera music for the film. It was until the 1970s that a young Dennis James incorporated Puccini's score during a film screening with Lillian Gish in attendance. Gish was reported moved to tears.

That sets expectation quite high going into the film. I wasn't quite as moved by the film and James' score as Ms. Gish was. James' score was very good; better than I can recall from his previous performances.

The film left me mild. I can't point to specific performance but it seems that La Bohème has been told in a more engaging manner than this version. At 96 minutes, too much of the story may have been excised to achieve its abridged length. Part of the problem is Gish herself. Whereas performances in silent films always seem anachronistic when judged by modern standards, I found Gish's Mimi to be particularly out of touch with my sensibilities. Gish's screen persona was a chaste young woman and she applied it to Mimi. Of course, Mimi remain true to Rudolph until death but Gish kind of prances around as Mimi in some strange costumes and looks and behaves like anything but Bohemian. In a nutshell, Gish distracted me from the film.

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It was nice to see Stephen Salmons (festival co-founder) introduce the Chaplin shorts. The crowd was smaller than they draw at the July festival. Speaking of which the 2011 San Francisco Silent Film Festival will be held from July 14 to 17 at the Castro Theater.

Charlie Chaplin at the Castro Redux

The Castro Theater has posted the schedule for their Charlie Chaplin retrospective. Actually, it's a touring program sponsored by Janus Films. The full Janus program consists of 17 titles but the Castro line-up only has 12.

Saturday Sept 18
The Circus (1928, 72 min.)
The Idle Class (1921, 32 min.)
A Day's Pleasure (1919, 19 min.)

Sunday Sept 19
City Lights (1931, 87 min.)
A Dog's Life (1918, 33 min.)
Sunnyside (1919, 30 min.)

Monday Sept. 20
Modern Times (1936, 87 min.)
Pay Day (1922, 22 min.)

Tuesday Sept 21
The Great Dictator (1940, 124 min.)
The Kid (1921, 54 min.)

Wednesday Sept 22
Limelight (1952, 137 min.)
Shoulder Arms (1918, 37 min.)

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I'm not sure what is prompting this retrospective. They had a Chaplin retrospective less than 3 years ago at the Castro and PFA.



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The San Francisco Silent Film Festival announced their next two events.

Their Winter Event will be on Saturday, February 12, 2011. The 16th Annual Silent Film Festival will be held July 14 to 17, 2011. I notice the festival is four days again in 2011. I recall reading that this year's festival was expanded to four days (from three) to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the festival. Apparently the fourth day was considered a success.

Presumably both events will be held at the Castro Theater.