Paris Qui Dort (1925) - part1 - René Clair -

This time i wanted to dedicate the next 24 frames to a short movie by Rene Clair named Paris Qui Dort.



Made in 1925, it is one of the most poetic movie made from the avant-garde of the french cinema in the Twenties, also know as "Le Cinema Pur". I chose to select certain frames to make up another movie based on what moves me most in Paris Qui Dort.
But first of all, i have to say that this one is the exception to my rule of focusing this blog on out of print & rare movies because
1 - you could find it recently (2002) on a Criterion DVD as a bonus to the first full-length movie of Rene Clair : Sous Les Toits De Paris.
2 - You could also strangely find it on another DVD still as a bonus to The Bells (1926) a gothic melodrama by James Young !! released in 2000.
As i think many of you won't buy these DVD only to see this short movie, i thought i have to do this because Paris Qui Dort needs to be seen by everyone interesting in Cinema as Art. Then, buy the Criterion edition because if Sous Les Toits De Paris is more conventional it is still one of the great french movie of the Thirties and highly influential to the "Realisme Poetique".
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This was the first 12 frames i'll post of this movie.
Next time you'll see the last 12.
In the meantime, any comments will be appreciated.

7th Heaven (1927) - part2 - Frank Borzage

This is the last 12 frames of my tribute to Seventh Heaven by Frank Borzage. I hope those frames do justice to this real masterpiece. Don't tell me about syrupy romance please !!
Borzage was at his prime at this time, making "4 chef d'oeuvres" in a row : 7th Heaven - Street Angel - Lucky Star - The River. Of course, none of them are available in DVD, so expect them some day or other to be found on this blog.

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This sequence is one of the most powerful one. Chico & Diane are feeling one another through space & war thanks to this medallion. They are connected themselves as a few years later will do Gary Cooper and Ann Harding in Henry Hattaway's Peter Ibbetson or Jean Dasté and Dita Parlo in Jean Vigo's L'Atalante. These movies show us the great mysteries of Love in all its simplicity and its beauty. Either you'll get it or you don't.
This is not for the cynics.

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Did i tell you that Charles Farrell did his best pictures with Borzage ?
I'll remember him.

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I told you that sentence is magical.

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Sometimes, not every happy endings are bad.
If you like trivia, you'll be happy to know that this movie won 3 Oscars but who cares for prizes anyway ? It also was laudaded by the surrealists at the time.
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PLOT
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Chico (Farrell) is a poor sewer worker who has only two dreams in life: to be promoted to sweeping streets and to find a woman who will be his wife. While he prays for guidance and blessings, he continues to work in the filth beneath the Parisian streets. However, one day he meets Diane (Gaynor), a beautiful woman who has been handed many hardships in life and is being chased by the police for a petty crime. Chico helps her hide from the cops, and soon the two have fallen in love. Despite their poverty, they give each other a reason to go on, and they happily marry. But their bliss is shattered when Chico is called to fight in World War I; Diane lives for the day he returns, and when she's told that Chico was killed in battle, her world collapses and she renounces her faith in God. However, while Chico was severely injured on the battlefield and is now blind, he did not die, and now he must find his way back to the woman he loves. (New York Times)
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NOTES
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These frames are taken from an original VHS issued in Italy by Mondadori Video in 1991.
I believe it's the only commercial copy available so far (June 2005).
No relation whatsoever with the french film of the same name issued in 1997 by Benoit Jacquot.

7th Heaven (1927) - part1- Frank Borzage

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Seventh Heaven by Frank Borzage is one of the most moving silent movie i have ever seen. The love story between Diane & Chico is pure melodramatic. Simple and powerful. Love over fate or whatever. I don't know how to write so i won't make a fool of myself. Read real critics instead. I can only be sensitive about movies. Don't know and don't want to know how to "intellectualize" them.

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Look at Janet Gaynor. how she is radiating in this frame !!
Most of people know her from Murnau's Sunrise but i think she never was as wistfully beautiful than in Borzage's movies. and she's done several. We'll talk about this later.

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You have to see the movie to understand how magical this sentence could be :
"You are an extraordinary person".

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This was the first 12 frames i'll post of this movie.
Next time you'll see the last 12.
In the meantime, any comments will be appreciated.
...

The Wind (1928) - Victor Sjostrom

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The Wind (1928) - Victor Sjostrom

Let's start this blog with one of the great silent movie by swedish director Victor Sjostrom, renamed in Hollywood Seastrom.
I'm not a movie critic, i don't want to analyze movies that i deeply feel inside. I'm just interested in emotions. So don't expect here big comments and film studies.
This is not a tribute to Serge Daney or Les Cahiers Du Cinema !!
This is about pictures, frames that moves me. Hope you'll feel the same way.
If you want more informations, check the links and do your own research. You'll be rewarded, trust me.
So, "The Wind" is Lilian Gish masterpiece & i focused these 24 frames mostly on her & how you can feel her emotions on her face. But it was very difficult to choose 24 frames out of this beautiful movie because this is a very visual movie, a sort of swan song of the Silent movies , the sad year of the start of the Talkies. If only the Talkies could have begun a couple of years later, what great silent movies would have been made !! but that's another story.
So watch Lilian Gish and fall in love...

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What is this with these silent movies that we don't find anymore ?

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PLOT
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Letty (Lillian Gish) travels from Virginia to Texas to stay with her best friend. Unfortunately, he lives in a place in the middle of the desert and the wind is constantly blowing and throwing sand around. Letty begins to slowly go mad living there. She marries a man she doesn't love (handsome Lars Hanson), kills a man who rapes her and almost kills herself. (Imdb)
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NOTES
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These frames come from a VHS copy recorded in early nineties on FrenchTV sunday cine-club program named : "Le Cinema De Minuit".