We watched our silent film today. It was actually very hard to decide at the library, so we came home with five: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, Metropolis, Phantom and Destiny. They were all made between 1920 and 1926 and are all German. (A reader suggested two American films, The General starring Buster Keaton and The Gold Rush starring Charlie Chaplin, that we would also love to see but failed to find on the shelf in our brief search of the Lamont Library.)
We decided to just watch in chronological order—the assignment is one silent film, but why stop there? This evening we saw The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, made in 1920. It is a strange and wonderful film. It was filmed on set rather than on location, and the German Expressionist (according to the box) sets tilt wildly across the screen. Between the disorienting sets, the heavy eyeliner on all of the actors, and the weirdly discordant score, it’s a deliciously eerie film. There’s also a killer twist at the end. It’s funny, Watching Silent Films always seems like such a challenge but, of course, it’s not really any harder than ordinary films and it’s very rewarding to watch good movies. Which is, of course, the point of this whole endeavor: shake us out of our routine, force us to do things we “keep meaning to,” and provide rewarding experiences. So this goes in the success category.
Stay tuned for more silent films and, on Sunday, a brand new card.
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