BEST FILMS OF 1928
by Mike Lorefice

Arsenal
Aleksandr Dovzhenko

The lyrical poet of the silent cinema Dovzhenko is usually seen as a second to Eisenstein, some lesser technical virtuoso of the same era who also made memorable use of visuals and editing. Though this is probably his most Eisensteinian work, in many ways the linkages are superficial. While both made "propaganda" films, Dovzhenko's didn't fit clearly into any scheme or subscribe to any dogma. His work has far more depth and ambiguity than Eisenstein's, and much of that comes from his readiness to stray from what he was commissioned to do. In this case that's glorify the Bolshevik revolutionaries stand against the nationalist troops at a munitions plant in 1918. Dovzhenko's film is as much a celebration of Ukraniane folklore and a condemnation of at different times fighting and peacetime conditions through the traumatizing of women. The editing is awesome, surpassing Eisenstein, with rhythms driving the piece (that the orchestral score on the Kino version actually seems to understand). While Eisenstein was often content to show the masses in action, Dovzhenko is always linking, often through crosscutting. With Eisenstein we want to lead the charge, but with Dovzhenko we understand the moral dilemma, that there's no one left to work the factory and more importantly that the living are often left lifeless through the loss of loved ones. Dovzhenko will give you a brilliant tracking shot of soldiers marching alongside train tracks then almost imperceptibly cut to a tracking shot of the men lying dead alongside the tracks like a group of collapsed dominoes. The film has very little dialogue (there aren't too many intertitles and half of them are explanatory), but doesn't need it because it uses faces for characterization. The lighting is exceptional, highlighting and hiding areas for dramatic effect. Another reason the piece is so visually impressive is it incorporates so many terrains and times of the day, giving each segment a different texture. The brilliance of Arsenal is not it's verve, though it's driving energy is amazing, but how much it's able to say simply by showing statuesque individuals; the contrast between the kinetic (representing communism) and the static (representing Tsarist inequality) is what makes the film so dynamic. It's perhaps interesting that the heroes are slaughtered in their final stand (unlike the triumphant Eisenstein works), which has been compared to the Alamo for US audiences I'd say for lack of an alternative example. It's really an example that the heart and spirit of the revolution cannot be extinguished. That being said, I don't come out feeling like I've been asked to sign up, but rather I've been given an idea of what it's like to be in the midst of a society undergoing major transitions through battles and equally been shown what cinema is capable of. [2/12/06] ****

The Circus
Charlie Chaplin

Underrated Chaplin film is much funnier than Gold Rush & City Lights. Running from the fuzz, Charlot accidentally winds up mixed up in a circus act, and steals the show. It's one of the only films that deals with the fact that almost everyone is far funnier when they aren't trying to be. Once Chaplin has to force it, he's a bore. He eventually becomes the star of the show and there's a ton of sentimental mush involving a female bareback rider, but Chaplin's humanism works far better here than usual as for once we feel kind of bad for laughing at him because he makes us see he's humiliating himself for our enjoyment. Despite the famed finale, the first 15 minutes are by far the strongest. [9/12/05] ***1/2

The Crowd
King Vidor

****

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Laugh, Clown, Laugh
Herbert Brenon

***

The Passion of Joan of Arc
Carl Theodor Dreyer

Dreyer takes an unglamorized and unsentimentalized look at the French icon from trial to death, as Robert Bresson later did in his underseen Trial of Joan of Arc. Otherwise, these legitimate Jeanne films could not be more different. Dreyer's is a tour de force of expressionism, utilizing all its haunting distortion in an attempt to present the inner truth through grotesque exteriors. Meanwhile, Bresson's is about as strict as anything ever attempted, essentially eliminating everything and simply having the characters go through the actual lines from the trial text, the lack of gimmicks allowing for a the transcendent finale. Maria Falconetti is amazing as Jeanne, so sad, so tortured, so rundown, yet of unbending belief; it's the essential performance of silent cinema. Rudolph Mate films almost entirely in closeup during the interrogation, allowing the expressive unmasked faces to show it all. It's probably the best proof that (with the exception of Lon Chaney and Orson Welles, the only two that actually used it for purpose) paint automatically eliminates at least half the dramatic value because all the character and uniqueness is hidden. Film is supposed to be an intimate medium, but what intimacy can you have with a walking mannequin? Mate's cinematography is the stuff of legend, but makes his work and the editing by Dreyer and Marguerite Beauge so impressive is the camera rarely changes distances; if Mate's framing were not so perfect, this would result in the edits being too noticable. Amazing finale intercutting the burning stake with the mob riot. The only downside to this seminal silent is there's too many intertitles, but given the subject matter I don't know how it could have been avoided. [9/8/05] ****

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The Seashell and the Clergyman
Germaine Dulac

***

Speedy
Ted Wilde

Lloyd was the first of the silent comic geniuses to sellout to the talkie, this 1928 feature being not only his final silent but also his final essential work. In these days you could get a film made about what technology was costing us, and that was the case with Speedy, a film partly about citizens banding together to stop "progress". In this case they fought to save the horse drawn trolley, which while not particularly efficient provided a relaxing community atmosphere and didn't waste the earth's resources. Unfortunately, unlike Chaplin whose triumph of Modern Times was keeping his character apart, remaining the tramp, there's a big catch here. Though the film apparently celebrates the heroic efforts to save the old way, in the end it's nothing more than a celebration of capitalist greed. All these efforts wind up being to sell out for a higher price to the benefit of none of these helpers, who are last seen celebrating with the owner oblivious to the fact they are shit out of luck. Speedy was actually Lloyd's nickname in real life, bestowed upon him by his father. It's fitting of the character he plays here, who for better or worse dashes through the roads in a manner that makes today's cell phone kamikazes seem as unimposing as moped drivers. Lloyd plays a character that gets a new job every Monday because he's fired by the end of the week for paying more attention to the NY Bankees scores than the work he's supposed to be doing. Aside from turning the donuts he's supposed to be selling into a line score, biting them to shape when necessary, his soda-jerk work doesn't yield that much comedy and the characterization is not as sharp as in his earlier days before he traded it for frantic action. So the early portion isn't much, but it starts getting good something like thirty-five minutes in with the Coney Island time capsule. From there it quickly becomes great with Lloyd's new job as a cab driver, one of the best segments he ever did. First he invents all kinds of ways to never land a paying client, then gets a ticket because the law told him he could drive them as fast as he wanted with no problem except they don't wind up being in the cab. Finally, he drives an increasingly nervous Babe Ruth to the stadium. Ruth delivers a line you'd instead expect from Yogi Berra, "If I ever want to commit suicide, I'll call you." Lloyd's girlfriend Ann Christy won't marry him until the business between her grandfather and the evil monopoly desiring big businessmen who conspire to rob him of his trolley route is sorted out, so Lloyd must save the day in order to get what he wants. The grandfather's customers are mostly aged Civil War vets, who help Lloyd fight off the thugs sent to disrupt the service (the loophole that will cost them their route) with pans, baseball bats, whatever they can grab. These characters add a lot to the proceedings, and are a nice change from the usual Lloyd film where Lloyd would find some way to overcome the odds on his own and if one or two people helped him they did so under his direction. Lloyd still has to make a mad dash to get the trolley to the track so they can get their run started in time, eliciting the help of a dummy cop to let him burst through every intersection unimpeded. The chases are nerve wracking because without phony rear projection or CGI you can tell they are really happening to some extent. Pay extra attention to the scene on the Brooklyn Bridge, as the trolley accidentally crashes the adjoining pillars for real. The NY City location shooting ads a great deal to the character of the film, though by now the places have either disappeared or are barely recognizable. [11/25/05] ***

Storm Over Asia
Vsevolod Pudovkin

This Soviet film focusing on the British occupied portions of Tibet and Siberia during the time of the Russian Revolution is thematically notable for featuring Mongolian fur trappers, a huge break from the typical depictions of heroic Soviet masses that didn't exactly win Pudovkin a lot of friends. Apparently this rousing action epic that substitutes activities for plot was the first film to record Mongolia's traditional lifestyle. The attention to detail is amazing, but Pudovkin caricatures the evil British capitalists so badly it's more often laughable in unintended ways. The influence of D.W. Griffith is obvious, though Pudovkin's propaganda is perhaps less black and white if for no other reason than he still views the Mongolian heroes through the limited sphere of communist propaganda, which sees their religion as a corrupting influence. Pudovkin refuses to lessen the cinematic impact of any scene even one iota, but the value of the ethnographic depiction of Mongolia is reduced by the fact the authentic scenes of their culture, ceremony, and tradition are depicted in a condescending light. Daily life and suffering are depicted with what the director would like you to believe is documentary-like realism. In some sense that is the case, but as a whole this work is very manipulative in its stirring melodramatic ways, trying to call the audience to action with it's liveliness and verve. Despite it's character and ideological flaws it's still a very humanist film, siding with the few weak against the many powerful. The film is often very naive and dishonest, but in most technical aspect this is a masterpiece. The superb wide-angle panoramics allow the landscape to set the mood of the picture, bring out their effect on the people and depict the human's emotions. The montage is wonderful, perhaps not as good as Pudovkin's Soviet peers like Vertov and Eisenstein but certainly a different worthy style that surpasses them in building anticipation and fluidity. [8/23/06] ***