As a tribute to last weekend’s Glastonbury showing of Beggars of Life with a live music soundtrack by Neil Brand and The Dodge Brothers here’s a Louise Brooks poll
I confess to having only seen Beggars of Life but can’t wait to see the others.
THANKS to Stephen Horne and Stevie Nicholls for pointing out I’d missed the silent version of Prix de Beaute.
For Mark Kermode’s comments on their Glastonbury performance
Cinema is now nearly 120 years old so for the first quarter of its life it was predominantly silent.
During over 30 years, from the Lumiere Brothers first public screenings in 1895 to The Jazz Singer in 1927, films developed from short, simple, ‘moving pictures’ to an artistic and narrative form that has helped to form the world we now live in.
Seeing these first generations of film on the big screen is a wonderful experience. I have thoroughly enjoyed those special occasions where you get to see silent film in a cinema setting with a Live Music accompaniment for example those offered by The Dodge Brothers, Neil Brand, and Wendy Hiscocks.
Suffolk Silents Society is hoping that if we generate enough interest it will be possible to make the screening of silent films a frequent event and a part of our regular cinema experience in Ipswich.
On 35mm, DCP (digital projection), Blu-Ray, or DVD there is plenty of material available to keep us going for some time to come and, fingers crossed, more footage will be put out there for us to enjoy.
Silent cinema ranges from Laurel & Hardy shorts, to the great silent epics of Griffith and Stroheim, to documentary clips, to the animated fairy tales of Lotte Reiniger, to the magician’s stunts of the first special effects. All life is here.
suffolksilents 