Weekends in Tinseltown, Part I

[tealin]

Told you there was a Part I.


A little over a month ago, on the internal Disney Animation website, someone posted information about a concert at UCLA where the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra would accompany a silent film, and for which Disney employees got a rather generous discount. It had been quite some time since I'd been to a concert, and the discounted tickets as well as the novelty of seeing a silent film with live orchestra convinced my sister and me that this could be worth taking time out for. We decided to make a day of it, and take advantage of the commute to do a Hollywood Heritage Tour, taking pre-freeway surface streets all the way from the studio district of Burbank through the hills, into Hollywood, then down the famous stretch of Sunset Blvd (past what would be 10086, if such an address existed) to UCLA, where we wandered around for a while gawping at the fantastic architecture, taking photos in the golden light of the setting sun, and looking for a bathroom that was open after 6 on a Saturday. When the auditorium's doors finally opened we found our seats and generally settled in for an evening of culture just like any other concert we'd been to, with the slight exception that one of the speakers introducing the event was Dustin Hoffman. The lights went down, the orchestra tuned up, the projector started ...

Now, I've been told since starting animation school that you have to watch silent films. I'd seen bits and pieces here and there, we watched some Chaplin in class and I once caught a documentary on Mary Pickford on The Knowledge Network*, but while they were entertaining and excellent examples of pantomime, I never took more than a professional interest in them. I wasn't one of those people who professed that all the best films were made before 1930: the acting was stilted, the film sped up, the dialogue cards too intrusive and plentiful, the stories and gags intended for an unsophisticated audience** and it was all accompanied by some canned honky tonk piano music that tinkled on irrespective of what was happening onscreen – not my idea of entertainment.
*Last remaining bastion of integrity in educational television since PBS started making shows intended for resale to the Discovery Channel. Only in Canada, you say? Pity.
**as explained by my Animation History teacher when questioned as to why old cartoons were timed oddly slowly and not terribly funny.

That was all changed by THIS MAN.

The film we had come to watch was Speedy, starring Harold Lloyd. It was his last silent movie, made in 1928, and shot largely in New York, including Coney Island, the last horse-drawn trolley car, and Babe Ruth (really!). It was fantastic. The print had been restored, it was running at its proper speed, the orchestra was playing a score that had been written for the movie (quite well, I might add, and not some ghastly modern-sounding thing intended to 'update' it, either), and it was absolutely enthralling. The story was simple but solid, the characters engaging, their complications frustrating, the action exciting, the gags plentiful and imaginative, but not distracting, and funnier than anything I've seen in recent memory. And the dialogue was surprisingly judicious – most of the time, you knew what they were saying without it being blatantly stated, so cards were only used when delivering a specific gag line or important exposition. How flattering, for a moviemaker to trust the audience's imagination instead of assuming they need everything spelled out for them.

On top of that, the whole audience was incredibly involved in the film. I don't know if it was the setting, or the lack of an overpowering sound system, or the fact that you actually had to pay attention to the movie to get anything out of it, but there was much more audible reaction – genuine, unconscious, instant reaction – to what was going on onscreen than I've ever heard before. There was one moment at the very height of the climax where something goes suddenly wrong and the audience, as one, let out a tremendous gasp. It was amazing.

I left the theatre giddy, and with joy discovered that there was a wealth of Harold Lloyd material on YouTube as well as a 5-DVD set of restored films with new scores (most by the same composer as Speedy) which happened to be at the Burbank public library. I decided to wait to post about all this until I'd found a good clip to share, but with work and all, my trawling of the archives was rather slow. I finally decided I had to post sooner than later and just link to the best of the clips I'd found so far, but upon searching YouTube this morning it appears all the good ones have been taken down. Curse you, copyright holders! How are you supposed to entice people to buy your DVD if you don't give them an appetizer? Anyway, if you have access to a library and that library is blessed enough to have any of the new DVDs (released 2005, I believe), I highly recommend you check them out. Speedy is still my favourite but Safety Last is probably the most famous and is surprisingly gripping while still being funny – it had me literally on the edge of my seat and actually physically tense, the first time a movie's done that to me since Return of the King. You're doing yourself a disservice if you don't at least expose yourself to these movies, no matter how much you think you don't like silent film. Just make sure you give them your full attention; that'll be the most rewarding. Take it from a convert. If nothing else, marvel at how a movie can be both funny and charmingly sincere, the art of which seems to have been mostly lost in the quagmire of snarky dialogue and post-modern self-referencing.

Comments

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Wow, that one's still up! Thanks so much! It didn't turn up when I searched 'Harold Lloyd' earlier, I guess his name isn't on the file anywhere. Sweet!

Speedy had some coloured scenes too ... apparently it was common practise back then. Clever.

And YES, gut-wrenching. Holy crap. Such simple, simple scenes, no CG or crazy Peter Jackson camera moves, just a nice guy in plain straightforward peril, which is somehow all the more engrossing for just being able to sit there and watch it (and cringe), not be distracted by superfluous movie stuff. And even though you know it's all camera tricks, it's harrowing to watch. Genius!