Man With A Movie List

Directors: Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand Year: 1921 Runtime: 10 min Source: Youtube The ten-minute art piece Manhatta , conceived by two photographers Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand is occasionally called cinema's first avant-garde film, and is somehow both more conventional, and more extreme, than that description denotes. To start with, Manhatta  is not about rejecting the status quo, but celebrating it, in this case the apotheosis of the industrial era that was Manhattan after the turn of the century.  We see stunning shots of a city-scape that is both familiar and strange, unmistakably New York despite missing most of the landmarks we would recognize (with the exception of the Brooklyn Bridge, which has never looked so stunning outside Woody Allen's own ode to the city).  These shots are paired with words from Walt Whitman's poem about the city - the passages chosen here center around man's mastering of the environment, and implicitly, his own destiny. ...

Director: Charlie Chaplin Year: 1921 Runtime: 53 min Source: Youtube Surely this will be a sad cliche by the time I give up on this mad quest, but while watching Charlie Chaplin's The Kid , I couldn't help but think about superhero movies.  Specifically, the way that superhero movies once could be relied on to contain predictable and largely superfluous plots, and now, due to their massive popularity, they're trying to adapt themselves to a whole host of genres, from slapstick comedies to emotional dramas. Somehow that's the best analogy for me to make sense of The Kid .  This was Charlie Chaplin's gambit, to adapt his vaudeville-rooted comedy, all based around his wildly successful Tramp character, to somehow fit into a tearjerker drama, which seems to be heavily influenced by D.W. Griffith (who Chaplin definitely admired and partnered with to create United Artists).  Chaplin adopted Griffith's penchant for nameless, archetypal characters (The Tramp is f...

Director: Buster Keaton and Malcolm St. Clair Year: 1921 Run-time: 22 min Source: Youtube I won't turn down two Buster Keaton films in a row.  While  One Week  was all physical slapstick and set-based humor, the comedy in this film is more situational, although it also dives heavily into surreal farce.  The classic persona he shows in his films feels a little more developed, with that stone face barely hiding flashes of distress. I couldn't possibly be the first to notice this, but Keaton shares a spiritual bond with Jackie Chan.  Certainly both performers were physical comedians of the highest order, and both suffered repeated injuries on set.  There are stunts in this film that boggle my mind, considering how little trickery filmmakers of the period had access to. I didn't care much for what plot there was in The Goat , but it has a manic energy and pacing to it that's kind of infectious.  One thing that impresses me about the silent age is ...