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Post by epicgordan on Oct 17, 2017 0:04:18 GMT -5
Instead of plaguing the Reviews thread with low-quality reviews that I find myself feeling rather repetitive, I have decided to make this a combination of two things--an archive of 1910's films, and a discussion concerning the merits of such. I will try to keep my thing feature-length related for now, but hopefully, some will be willing to participate and maybe uncover some additional films.
Thus far in my marathon of films from the 1910's, I've mainly focused on the feature length films. Thus far, the only one I really liked was L'Inferno from 1911. Mind you, "liked." Necessarily saying the couple I have seen in addition to it--Defense of Sevastopol (1911) and Cleopatra (1912)--were bad is a tad premature, and maybe I am not of the proper qualifications to articulate the merits of said film. They're more or less a product of the fact that they came out over a hundred years ago, and the artistic visions of many of these artists have yet to be fully realized. As such, I find myself struggling to quantify the merits beyond personal preferences. I prefer L'Inferno over Sevastopol or Cleopatra; is it a vastly superior film than those two? Or is it the lack of sound, editing, or even background music that causes me to lose my attention on said films?
Either way, it might be a fun activity to archive as many of these feature-length and short films as possible. They're all pretty much in the Public Domain anyways, so if possible, one can look for and add pretty much anything.
So with that said, let's discuss, review, and archive the 1910's in film.
I'm thinking that after I cover all the feature-length films (for the 1910's, let's just say they have to be at bare minimum 40 minutes long), I'll start going after the short films. May I suggest in addition to L'Inferno, the works of Winsor McKay, D.W. Griffin, and Georges Méliès. |
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Post by epicgordan on Oct 17, 2017 0:10:22 GMT -5
1911 in Feature Films
L'Inferno (Dante's Inferno)
Den sorte Drøm (The Black Dream)
The Colleen Bawn
Karadjordje
Defense of Sevastopol
That's pretty much it. There were about four or five feature length films that came out prior to these five, but they are all either lost or exist merely as fragments. Any other feature length films that may have came out that same year are pretty much lost. But these five films became the first blockbuster films, and are pretty much what got the boom of feature length movies going. Feel free to discuss.
Once I get done watching all the 1912 films, I'll post them here as well. |
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Post by epicgordan on Oct 17, 2017 0:45:06 GMT -5
1912 in Film
The Adventures of Lieutenant Petrosino
Les Armours de la rein Elisabeth
Cleopatra
The Conquest of the Pole
From the Manger to the Cross
The Independence of Romania
The Invaders
And that's all I've been able to uncover thus far. I tried finding Richard III and Oliver Twist--the two oldest feature-length Hollywood films, as well as the What Happened to Mary serials. But no such luck. I guess tomorrow, I'm gonna begin looking for the 1913 films. |
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Post by epicgordan on Oct 19, 2017 13:16:30 GMT -5
Sorry for the lack of updates. I just uncovered a couple of additional films from 1911--The Colleen Bawn, the earliest known Irish feature film; Den sorte drøm, the earliest Danish film; and The Life and Deeds of the Immortal Vozd Karadjordje (or just simply Karadjordje), which was the first Serbian/Balkan film (thankfully, there are no signs of any newborn babies in this film...and no, I'm not trying to be funny). If there were any other feature length films released that year, they are either lost or incredibly hard to find.
Speaking of being incredibly hard to find, not only had I stumbled upon another film from 1912 in The Adventures of Lieutenant Petrosino, but am in the search for about 3-5 specific examples in the history of feature-length film: Lorna Doone, the earliest known British feature film; Oliver Twist, the very first ever American-made feature film; Paul J. Rainey's African Hunt, a documentary covering the year-long expedition of legendary British hunter Paul J. Rainey; Quincy Adams Sawyer, yet another American-made film; and Richard III (also known as The Life and Death of Richard III, presumably because back then, everything about a specific person needs Life and Death/Times/Adventures of [specific person]), the oldest American feature film to survive in its entirety.
Neither of these five films to my knowledge are on YouTube, but am constantly on a vigilant search for these films. I doubt I'll continue to look for any other stragglers outside of these five though because then I'll never be able to move on to 1913. I wish to make a complete archive of all existing feature films of the 1910's, so any possible assistance will be welcomed.
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Post by morbius on Oct 20, 2017 5:52:37 GMT -5
Sorry for the lack of updates. I just uncovered a couple of additional films from 1911--The Colleen Bawn, the earliest known Irish feature film; Den sorte drøm, the earliest Danish film; and The Life and Deeds of the Immortal Vozd Karadjordje (or just simply Karadjordje), which was the first Serbian/Balkan film (thankfully, there are no signs of any newborn babies in this film...and no, I'm not trying to be funny). If there were any other feature length films released that year, they are either lost or incredibly hard to find. Speaking of being incredibly hard to find, not only had I stumbled upon another film from 1912 in The Adventures of Lieutenant Petrosino, but am in the search for about 3-5 specific examples in the history of feature-length film: Lorna Doone, the earliest known British feature film; Oliver Twist, the very first ever American-made feature film; Paul J. Rainey's African Hunt, a documentary covering the year-long expedition of legendary British hunter Paul J. Rainey; Quincy Adams Sawyer, yet another American-made film; and Richard III (also known as The Life and Death of Richard III, presumably because back then, everything about a specific person needs Life and Death/Times/Adventures of [specific person]), the oldest American feature film to survive in its entirety. Neither of these five films to my knowledge are on YouTube, but am constantly on a vigilant search for these films. I doubt I'll continue to look for any other stragglers outside of these five though because then I'll never be able to move on to 1913. I wish to make a complete archive of all existing feature films of the 1910's, so any possible assistance will be welcomed. |
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Post by morbius on Oct 20, 2017 5:53:38 GMT -5
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Post by epicgordan on Oct 20, 2017 11:31:55 GMT -5
Thank you. Though I'm probably going to hold off on this for a couple of days. Last time I ordered something online, I didn't get it right away. I want to at least be at home when the package gets dropped off.
Unfortunately, Kino Lorber doesn't carry Lorna Doone, Oliver Twist, Paul J. Rainey's African Hunt, or Quincy Adams Sawyer. At least not their 1912 versions. Some of these films aren't even reported as being lost films--I know Oliver Twist is being preserved and restored in the Library of Congress (one of their five reels is missing, so in essence roughly 10 minutes of its total runtime is currently lost), and Lorna Doone is in the British Film Institute. African Hunt and Quincy Adams Sawyer don't even have Wikipedia articles, so I have no idea of their preservation status.
I'll get my hands on Richard III, and then attempt to preserve it on YouTube (it's public domain, so it's legal to do so). I'm currently arranging a playlist of all these ancient pieces of film history in a playlist in the order of release date.
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Post by epicgordan on Oct 21, 2017 2:04:44 GMT -5
Just updated a couple of posts (once I get myself a copy on Richard III, I will update my 1912 post with it at the end). Now to move on to the next year:
1913
Atlantis
Der Andere (The Other)
Le Diamant Noir (The Black Diamond)
Ingeborg Holm
The Island of the Blessed
Ivanhoe
The Last Days of Pompeii
The Life and Work of Richard Wagner
A Message from Mars
The Night Before Christmas
Quo Vadis
Raja Harishchandra
Spartacus
The Student of Prague
Traffic in Souls
Twilight of a Woman's Soul
And that's pretty much it. I found pretty much every single solitary 1913 feature-length film from 1913 that still exists in its entirety--or at the very least, in feature-length form. Almost missed one too in The Life and Works of Richard Wagner, too.
Edit: Found a few more movies. Added one from YouTube, the but the rest I had to search for elsewhere online. I'll add links where applicable, since I can't really insert the videos for all of these movies. Here they are:
Fantômas: In the Shadow of the Guillotine
Juve vs. Fantômas
The Murderous Corpse
I know those technically aren't films but serials, but considering that every episode of the Fantomas serials are all definitively feature-length, with the shortest of the films by far being 52 minutes long (and the longest being 90 minutes in length), I decided to include them. I'll include the 4th and 5th entries in the 1914 database.
Next stop, 1914. |
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Post by epicgordan on Oct 26, 2017 12:56:53 GMT -5
I wish to update this thread because it has gone without much use for a while now, other than some edits. I wish to invite William A. Smith and a few others on the discussion of film released in the 1910's. I'm probably am going to need some help in contextualizing some of these films of said decades. The vast majority of them have felt quite a drain on me so far.
Be as it may, I can pretty much safely say that I have uncovered every single solitary surviving feature film from 1911. There was one other that I did stumble across on accident, but similar to Conquest of the Pole, it was a shorter film that was padded out on YouTube to be made to look longer. I'll only keep it on there as a feature-length movie because footage does appear to be missing from this film, and it is by far my personal favorite out of all the other films I've seen from 1912.
Speaking of which, as far as 1912 and 1913 goes, there are only one feature film per year that I was not able to find, and may need to get around to purchasing before I can properly archive these films. These are the earliest surviving feature-length adaptations of Richard III and A Christmas Carol respectively (the latter film would even eventually be remade in the 1930's with the same lead actor reprising his role (I saw that version; it's one of the shorter versions out there, but it got the job done just fine)). I may need to purchase them over on Amazon though.
Other than those two, I am still looking at a couple feature-length titles closely from 1912--Oliver Twist, Lorna Doone, Quincy Adams Sawyer, and Paul J. Rainey's African Hunt. I don't want to give up on the notion that these four films are lost to time forever. According to many of my sources, only Oliver Twist and maybe Lorna Doone appear to have a missing reel, but other than those, these films appear to still be lying around somewhere. Not only are these films not available online anywhere, I can't even find them available for retail either. Richard III and Old Scrooge, I can at least buy.
This pretty much leads me to my next problem--why I haven't updated the archive with 1914 films yet. Two reasons; notice the steady increase in the number of movie titles with each passing year? In 1911, only 5 feature films are known to exist. In 1912, there are anywhere from 8 to 12 feature films, pending on the status of such films as Oliver Twist, African Hunt, Lorna Doone, and Quincy Adams Sawyer. And then in 1913, there are 15 feature films I've uncovered including the three Fantomas films released that year. If you assume that only 8 feature films from 1912 currently exist, that means that 1913 single-handedly has more features than the first two years combined.
1914 has about 30 feature films, which is even more than the first three years combined (again, pending on the existence of four potential features), and I'm still searching for any potential stragglers that I may have overlooked from that year. Granted, after 1914, the number of existing feature films will begin to plateau a bit, only to skyrocket by the end of the decade to nearly 70 films by the time 1919 rolls around. That's an awful lot of movies to archive and link movies to, as well as to cross-examine to make absolute sure these feature films are in fact feature-length.
That's also an awful lot of feature films for me to watch, and actually pay close attention to. I feel like I may need to rewatch the entire 1912 database as well as Defense at Sevastopol again too because it's really difficult to keep my attention on the films. Without the striking visuals needed to keep my attention like with L'Inferno, or any of the techniques that would eventually become commonplace not just today, but by the time the 1920's rolled around, it's just hard to get invested in any of these movies.
So, yeah, progress is moving really, really slowly. And it's even more difficult to constantly link these movies directly here. So what I'm thinking of doing instead is to leave behind links to my YouTube Playlists of Feature Films, as well as the locations of other movies I happen to find online, like the Fantomas films, Joseph in the Land of Egypt, or War is Hell for 1914. I've pretty much uncovered everything from that year anyways except for two movies: Pierre of the Plains, and The Wishing Ring: An Idyll of Old England. The latter is especially baffling since from what I've heard, it's currently preserved in the National Film Registry. So the fact that I can't even find it--either as a free online movie or even on retail--is rather baffling. Pierre of the Plains' status is a little bit more on the vague side as to whether or not it currently survives though, similar to the missing four from 1912.
But I'll get around to it. Also, anybody's inputs, contributions, or discussions would be greatly welcomed.
And after 1914, I get to tackle 1915 and 1916 in Feature Films, meaning I get to watch 3 hours a pop of both Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. Hopefully, Turner Classic Movies helps make my work easier, and soon. Speaking of which, I've got Battleship Potemkin DVR'd. At least that film is ripe with striking visual imagery. |
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Post by William Smith on Oct 28, 2017 22:05:52 GMT -5
I hope to be spending more time here now. This is a very interesting project.
It is worth discussing the merits and demerits of silent film. I've never particularly warmed to American silent films, with some notable exceptions; German, French, and Russian films are generally much more interesting.
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cmac
New Member
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Post by cmac on Oct 30, 2017 21:03:27 GMT -5
epicgordan-
posted a reply to you about Feuillade on The last thing you saw thread. Page 5
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