Post by Capo on Jan 23, 2007 7:55:26 GMT
Shooting Stars
Anthony Asquith / A. V. Bramble 1927 UK
Screenplay: Anthony Asquith, John Orton; Producer: H. Bruce Woolfe; Photography: Henry Harris, Stanley Rodwell; Cast: Brian Aherne, Annette Benson, Donald Calthrop.
A famous actress has an affair with a co-star, and is ruined for it.
Charles Barr called this, "mature silent cinema that speaks for itself". What the opposite to "mature" might be is anybody's guess - one would hope the praise of this film isn't a dig at the slapstick films being made simultaneously - but even so, one would have to agree that this is pretty fantastic. Intensely self-reflexive, it takes the film-within-a-film scenario and uses it to great effect. The mise-en-abîme allows a tragicomic narrative, wherein all the characters are actors starring in slapstick comedy, but offscreen they're descending into heartbreak and scandal. Some delightful touches: crane-shots of crane-shots, very little use of intertitled dialogue (titles are used mainly instead of establishing shots); and one scene in which a film crew shoot a comedy scene on a beach, in which we cut between shots of the crew, shots of the actor, shots of the audience watching the crew film and the actor perform, and even a POV shot of the actor cycling out of control; later on, when the same actor falls from a chandelier, the POV is a chaotic overload of dissolves to invoke the feeling of dizziness. The final shot, of a heroine-cum-peasant leaving an empty set, is devastating. A forgotten masterpiece.
Anthony Asquith / A. V. Bramble 1927 UK
Screenplay: Anthony Asquith, John Orton; Producer: H. Bruce Woolfe; Photography: Henry Harris, Stanley Rodwell; Cast: Brian Aherne, Annette Benson, Donald Calthrop.
A famous actress has an affair with a co-star, and is ruined for it.
Charles Barr called this, "mature silent cinema that speaks for itself". What the opposite to "mature" might be is anybody's guess - one would hope the praise of this film isn't a dig at the slapstick films being made simultaneously - but even so, one would have to agree that this is pretty fantastic. Intensely self-reflexive, it takes the film-within-a-film scenario and uses it to great effect. The mise-en-abîme allows a tragicomic narrative, wherein all the characters are actors starring in slapstick comedy, but offscreen they're descending into heartbreak and scandal. Some delightful touches: crane-shots of crane-shots, very little use of intertitled dialogue (titles are used mainly instead of establishing shots); and one scene in which a film crew shoot a comedy scene on a beach, in which we cut between shots of the crew, shots of the actor, shots of the audience watching the crew film and the actor perform, and even a POV shot of the actor cycling out of control; later on, when the same actor falls from a chandelier, the POV is a chaotic overload of dissolves to invoke the feeling of dizziness. The final shot, of a heroine-cum-peasant leaving an empty set, is devastating. A forgotten masterpiece.