I saw this a few days ago and it was a bit creepy. Something about early film, how dull and drab it looks, is a bit unsettling. Also, it's weird to think that everyone in this film and their kids are long dead. It's not the same as reading an old book or looking at old pictures; when you actually see an old film it makes you realize how long ago it was and how far the world has progressed. Comments?
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Old footage such as the Roundhay Garden Scene humanizes long dead people more effectively than say history books written during the same period ever could. Sometimes it's harder to empathise with descriptions of historical characters in stuffy textbooks, but when you actually see them represented in film they instantly seem more real.
You can almost sense their excitement and confusion at the novelty of Le Prince's new toy.
I have to agree with you. I often view old films and wonder about the lives of those playing bit parts. I'm not talking about the star of a movie but the extras and their extended families. I guess I just wonder if people in these very old movies had any idea that people would be viewing their human actions over 100 years later.
shareI want to thank this board for helping me realize why I find silent films fascinating. I always get a kick out of watching a classic from the 1920s that shows up on TCM. For my AP history class in high school in 2004, we had to do 1920s era, and each group had to pick a topic. Myself a movie lover chose Entertainment, and my two friends in my group decided to be creative for our presentation and make a comedic film in black and white. I'm a girl, but I wanted to be the one to dress up like Chaplin, and I used powerpoint to put the words on since our video camera wasn't so technical lol.
But anyway, I get fascinated by the life stories of Hollywood legends like Gable & Monroe, and many more, but for some 1950s movies, I can't seem to watch the movie throughout as some are boring, and the talking is quite strange. You may not understand what I mean, but back then its like the way actors spoke in the movies back then was very different, very strange, with different expression, gesture, tone and accent... but of course, it was this way, being it was in the past. And I mean this for the girls who sound like Betty Boop, or the rugged men with the cigars in their mouth with the lips curling as they voice the name Charrrrrlie or Roger... I don't know.. it was just so different.
As for silent films, I found fascination in Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin, Lon Chaney & Buster Keaton, and even though some films are romantic and funny, actors like Charlie Chaplin, though admirable, appeared very freaking creepy in the makeup in his day. Scares the hell out of me. Lon Chaney's faces are nightmares, & check out clips of Anna May Wong... though beautiful, the way she danced may have been unique to some, but presently, its just a little weird. Everyone was exact. Grainy, dark, flawed film strips, and the thought that these people have long been dead in their graves, as well as their children, & their children's children... also the knowledge of the tragic lives some of the actors had, like Clara Bow.. and the thought of the stench of ancient some of the locations or even rooms that were filmed and the props may be now if not destroyed... I don't know. The creepiness just makes it so amazing, because you can't believe your eyes are watching something made so many years before. Rather than a textbook or a photo, you are actually witnessing actual facial expressions, movements, gestures, appearances, and styles from the past.... way before you or even your mother lay in womb. (Okay, sorry for that last graphic statement. lol.)
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Yes. It is a little unsettling. When you realize just how incredibly old the film is, and that everyone in is is dead and buried, and the graininess gives it an otherworldly feel. Like you're not supposed to see it.
Still, far creepier to me is this new oldest sound recording ever (you can listen to the clip on the site):
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/03/edison_pwned.html
Yes, but I think it's simply the quality flaws from time wearing them away. Part of it may be that so many of these films have been "sped up" because the fps doesn't match today's typical cameras/projectors. But in those that are actually played at correct speed, it's not so bad.
shareIn Roundhay Garden Scen long dead people seem to everlast in those brief moments. I feel the same opinion, you get the feeling like you've opened some kind of portal to the past and that you aren't supposed to be there somehow. But there is nothing creepy about it, the only thing that makes me sad is that the world changes and we are convinced that life is what exists now forgetting that not long ago we all lived in a sort of book tale, and people were more clever (idiocracy guess) in XIX century was created the actual world: Diesel, Lumiere, Tesla, Wright, Marconi, Verne and Meucci, Most chemistry discoveries and Medicine science ones like Aspirin. just to name some.... It's only the quality that can't tell you much of the dreamy, idyllic and faded epoch, buried with its secrets, There are many misteries hidden. (This historical film is surrounded with tragedy and mystery. On October 24, 1888, only ten days after being filmed in Roundhay Garden Scene, Sarah Robinson Whitley, featured actress and Le Prince's mother-in-law, died aged 72 and was buried nearby on October 27 at St. John's Church, Roundhay, Leeds. On September 16, 1890, while about to patent his invention in London and to perform his first official public exhibition in New York, Louis Le Prince, director, mysteriously vanished in a train between Dijon and Paris. In 1902, two years after testifying in the Equity 6928 brief, Alphonse Le Prince, featured actor and elder son of the inventor, was found shot dead in New York.) It was just the dawn of a epoch, i think this world could be more technologically advanced, if they could get the instruments to carry on the cinema from the past. They are nothing old, we will become old like them, but nothing revolutionary out of the internet the future will be proud of ... the present is so sadly masked, i miss one could freely live and have the same habits of the past, because e the present is a lie when i see that shots, we don't do what we believe, we are biased by the present, it seems that now a movie won't be made if it won't be all with the latest high-techs while those people in the last centuries were honestly more expressive (art of filmmaking) and less nowadays (movie entertainment seems just for the average j,schmoe).
shareCreepiest old film EVER. Hands down.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/papr:@filreq(@field(NUMBER+@band(edmp+4036))+@field(COLLID+edison))
Warning: Its old, fake, but looks pretty damn real. Its a recreation of the execution of Mary Queen of Scots.
Vice, Virtue. It's best not to be too moral. You cheat yourself out of too much *life*.
You may not understand what I mean, but back then its like the way actors spoke in the movies back then was very different, very strange, with different expression, gesture, tone and accent... but of course, it was this way, being it was in the past. And I mean this for the girls who sound like Betty Boop, or the rugged men with the cigars in their mouth with the lips curling as they voice the name Charrrrrlie or Roger... I don't know.. it was just so different.
It's really kinda creepy that maybe in 150 days really some people might read our forum posts one day... Imagine Internet would have existed in 1888 and we would read forum posts of them about what they think about the first movie and so on...
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Don't be paranoid. People won't be reading your post in 150 days.
*checks date*
Oh, you said that 435 days ago.
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