Discuss Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
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What are your fave Silent films?
posted by genplant29STAFFMOD on June 15, 2017 at 8:30 AM
I've long been a big fan of Silent movies. Over time I've amassed a wonderful DVD collection of some of my very favourite titles that are available in that form. All the following are available in either good high-quality as-is remastered or outright excellent fully restored and remastered versions that, in either case, look and sound great and that include ideal newly composed, performed, and recorded music scores that were attached to the releases during recent years:
Across to Singapore (1928), After Death (1915), A Man There Was (1917), A Throw of Dice (1929), Battleship Potemkin (1926), Beau Brummel (1924), Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925), The Big Parade (1925), Captain Salvation (1927), The Circle (1925), The Dying Swan (1917), Exit Smiling (1926), Flesh and the Devil (1926), The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), The General (1926), The Hands of Orlac (1924), Ingeborg Holm (1913), Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928), The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), Love (1927), Metropolis (1927), The Mysterious Lady (1928), The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), The Phantom Carriage (1921), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), The Prisoner of Zenda (1922), The Red Lily (1924), Scaramouche (1923), The Show (1927), The White Sister (1923), Wings (1927)
Whether you have a Silent DVDs/Blu-ray collection or just know what several of the Silents are that you particularly enjoy and find very rewatchable (like I consider all the movies above), what does/would your personal list look like? (FYI: My list, as also DVD collection, doesn't include numerous other great Silent classics that I've definitely seen and certainly appreciate and like, but that I just have never felt a personal need or desire to also acquire a copy of. Too, I have actually owned many additional top-notch DVD releases of other great Silent movies that I enjoyed watching however many times apiece before eventually, after however long, donating them to the local public library.)
By the way, consider all of the above-listed Silents to be ones I personally recommend.
Please check out the following list of titles and celebrities I've created TMDb threads for: https://www.themoviedb.org/list/118052
Reply by tmdb65271336
on June 15, 2017 at 10:45 AM
Anything involving Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton. I'm a sucker for stunt comedy. Metropolis was the only serious silent film I've watched, but I find it bleak and depressing.
Reply by genplant29
on June 15, 2017 at 2:56 PM
I readily agree, that Metropolis isn't a Silent that holds a lot of appeal other than regarding its visual artistry. Otherwise, as you stated, it's bleak and depressing. Too, the characterizations are quite cookie cutter and featuring an array of, in some cases, decidedly "old school" and overripe type performances that haven't aged at all well and that don't reflect well on the genre. Whereas a great many Silents have a timelessness to their casting, acting, and story appeal, Metropolis is really only a huge deal thanks to its truly dazzling look and impressive innovativeness, and that really awesome robot and the scientific animation thereof (that of course directly inspired a very similar also extremely famous sequence in Frankenstein).
Meanwhile, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ most definitely is a Silent that I think anyone would easily be very impressed by and greatly enjoy. Here's a thread I've created about it that goes into some detail.
Reply by catmydogs
on June 15, 2017 at 3:28 PM
The General is one of my favorite silent comedies. I also love The Chaplin Revue, if you can count that. Metropolis remains visually stunning even today. There's a certain wow factor in Pandora's Box or Diary of a Lost Girl, too. Louise Brooks is a goddess. In some ways, the silent Ben-Hur is superior to the Heston version. For horror, I enjoy Nosferatu. Does Eraserhead count as honorary mention? It's not really a "talkie."
Reply by genplant29
on June 15, 2017 at 4:04 PM
Cat, it appears we share a lot of the same views and likes where Silents are concerned. (I've never, so far, seen Eraserhead, so am unable to comment about it.)
I've long been a Louise Brooks fan and thought many times about adding Diary of a Lost Girl to my collection, though, for some reason, it's never, to date, yet quite happened. Brooks is one of those long-ago actresses who truly is timeless. It's rather curious that she was American born and raised - yet she's famous solely from German Silent films. Go figure.
Yes: For sure the Silent Ben-Hur is, I think, significantly superior to the Heston version. In my opinion, the '50s version is overproduced, "plastic" seeming, and lacks a feeling of authenticity. The Silent, on the other hand, in every type way feels like it's very much "the real deal".