Intolerance (1916)

Why it's here:
I had intended to include D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation in this film fest, because it is always mentioned as monumental cinema. But the more I read about the film's heavy violence and racism, it just did not seem in fitting with what I was trying to do this summer.  So, we went with Intolerance instead, also a Griffith masterpiece, but more focused on love. The film was inventive for its use of four interwoven tales set in four different time periods, each vignette employing similar story themes.

Specs:
3 hours. Yes, you read that right. This is an epic. Black and white (with color filters employed to distinguish among the 4 vignettes) and silent. We watched it on Netflix.

Our family's average rating (on a scale of 1-10):

5.83

More about the movie and our reaction to it:
The movie was visually stunning relative to all that had come before. This was so astonishingly better quality a film that there is no question Griffith was a master of his art. His use of close-ups made the experience so vibrant we felt we felt that the actors of 96 years ago were sitting in our living room, and the depth of field was also phenomenal. I found myself obsessively scanning the background to look at details simply because I could -- the details were so sharp. Truly a grand epic on a larger scale than most of what gets made today, this film employed 1000s of extras, massive extraordinary sets and beautifully detailed costumes. (Though families should bear in mind that some of the costumes are pretty racy.)

The movie is worth watching (or I should say starting to watch) for its spectacle value alone and to help appreciate the genius of Griffith who clearly had an impressive vision and the ability to conceptualize how film could be used. But we didn't stand a chance of seeing the whole thing. That would take a special level of interest and commitment from a modern family. My 13 year old was bored after a half hour, while my 10 year old (who has a more natural affinity for silents) enjoyed it almost as much as I did, but even we only lasted about an hour and a half.

Ultimately, we recommend it, but also recognize that successful viewing of silent film drama requires a special interest and the desire to make a leap out of what feels normal and expected.

Iconic shot:

The Last Drop of Water (1911)

Why it's here:
We added this film, an early Western, into our list in order to beef up on some early era times we'd moved through too quickly.

Specs:
Just 15 minutes, black and white; easily available online in the public domain. We watched on youtube.

Our family's average rating:
6.5

More about the film and our reaction to it:
This is surprisingly good. So much so that I imagine most modern viewers (even those with no experience watching silents) would find it entertaining. It is directed by D.W. Griffith and you can really see just how good a director he was. He was excellent at using the camera to focus your attention, with cutting and editing film, with changing the camera's perspective and filming backgrounds (like extras in crowd scenes), to allowing the actors to really act and, in short, just filming a story in a very complete way.

The Western format is such a staple of American film, it feels odd to hark back in time to its earliest roots and see how many of the conventions we are now so used to were first employed. He's got the Indian attack on the wagon train. (Not sure about this, but the Indians may in fact be played by Native actors). He's got the hard-drinking cowboy who makes good. He's got the girl-next-door in peril, the stark landscape and the empty canteens. However, I think none of these can properly be called cliches when you're filming them in 1911!

I was fascinated by the landscape that looked to me like Arizona, with cholla and prickly pear and short scrub. But it turns out that Griffith filmed this in the deserts around the San Fernando Valley in California. I was surprised to learn that because the film was made before the movie industry had re-located itself to Southern California, but, apparently, Griffith took his film company on location in winter to California and was one of the first directors to chose this area to make films.

Iconic shot:

The Lonely Villa (1909)

Why it's included:
You may have noticed a large gap in years between our last film, The Great Train Robbery (1903) and this one. There's a reason. Although a key point in our project was to watch cinema through time, slowly noticing how things changed around us, it is also important to win your family's trust by not unduly trying their patience with the earliest, choppiest, least developed silents. You don't want to poison them against the amazing silents that are coming up in the 1920s! In any case, for my family it was time to advance a few years. 

This film was chosen to see Mary Pickford -- perhaps the most famous and beloved of all silent actors -- in an early role (credited only as 'one of the children') and because it was directed by D.W. Griffith who is the most acclaimed director of this very early era.

Specs:
Short - just 8 minutes; black and white, silent and easily available online in the public domain.

Our family's average rating (on a scale of 1-10):

5.5

More about the film and our response to it:

Like The Great Train Robbery, this one is tense and involves pretty scary bad guys. A family is barricaded inside their home when robbers start to menace them after dad has left the house for the day. Luckily, phones had been invented at this time! (yay) and the family is able to call up dad and tell him to get his sorry self home. Which he does, before any serious mayhem can ensue.

This is a good film. It is entertaining and even rather tense, but don't expect it to blow you or your kids away. On the other hand, its only 8 minutes long! A pretty small investment of energy.  How much your family enjoys films like this will depend heavily on how much they're willing to throw themselves in to the experience. We noticed that, already, the "art" of film-making had advanced considerably since 1902, with stiller cameras, better sets, and more coherent acting and plot-lines. Even so, the house set is very basic, just a couple of walls thrown together. Location shots are better and really quite pretty.

As with other old films, it is compelling to note the technology and conveniences that people lived with. Its fun to notice whether the people -had phones? were driving cars? riding horses? Or to  notice what their clothes and hairstyles looked like. We look for things like sidewalks, radios, stores, iceboxes, anything that helps place the film in its period context is fun. One way to keep interest strong in this unfamiliar territory is to think of the film as a living time capsule. The power of seeing a movie that is so old is, for some odd reason, heady. This seems especially true when you see young children in a movie from 1909 and imagine that everyone on screen is almost certainly dead now.

Iconic shot: