DOCSLIB.ORG

Unlikely Candidates for Paradigmatic Cases of Intercultural Communication, Reply to Van Brakel

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Unlikely Candidates for Paradigmatic Cases of Intercultural Communication, Reply to Van Brakel This article from Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy is published by Eleven international publishing and made available to anonieme bezoeker R&R 2006 / 3 Unlikely Candidates for Paradigmatic Cases of Intercultural Communication, reply to Van Brakel Wim Staat* After my first reading of Jaap van Brakel’s ‘De-Essentialising Across the Board’ I wondered less about what ‘de-essentialising’ could mean, than about the implications of Van Brakel’s subtitle. According to this subtitle there is ‘No Need to Speak to Same Language,’ but I could not immediately tell to what this claim applies.1 Our conference section was called ‘The Possibility of Intercultural Communication,’ so I felt urged to ponder the idea that Van Brakel believes that speaking the same language is not a precondition for intercultural communication. Yet, the argumentation concerns communica- tion in general, that is, both inter- and intracultural communication. Subsequently, Van Brakel’s appeal to a principle of mutual attunement sug- gests that he at least also considers the possibility of cultural exchange founding a community, which would generate political and/or moral conse- quences for the claim that there is no need to speak the same language. If we concur that such a community can come into existence without the need to speak the same language, we should, again, observe that the main argument is not exclusively intercultural. Moreover, Van Brakel’s paradigm case, the First Contact between peoples, is mainly historical and anthropological, and less representative of contemporary culture clashes that have triggered spec- ulation about, for example, the impossibility of intercultural law. These First Contact illustrations almost seem to deflect any over-eager attempt to make philosophical work ‘useful’ or at least ‘fashionable’ in contemporary cross- cultural, political debates. From a media studies perspective I might add that film scholars as well have found themselves hard pressed for interpretations * In his teaching and research Wim Staat (assistant professor Film and Visual Culture, University of Amsterdam) has developed an interest in the political representation of cultural identity in film, and in the specific ways in which film can be considered as performatively dis- playing ethical concern. In the latter perspective he has written on filmethics in Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line, on Dogville’s (von Trier) relation to John Ford’s version of The Grapes of Wrath, and on questions of responsibility in Claire Denis’L’intrus. Recently, he has co- edited (with Patricia Pisters) Shooting the Family: Transnational Media and Intercultural Values (2005). 1 J. van Brakel,‘De-essentialising Across the Board. No Need to Speak the Same Language’, in this issue. 295 This article from Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy is published by Eleven international publishing and made available to anonieme bezoeker R&R 2006 / 3 of global trends in cinema, the quality of which is not seldom measured by the firm confirmation or denial of the possibility of a cinematic version of intercultural dialogue. In my response to Van Brakel I have tried to follow up on what appears to be Van Brakel’s implicit suggestion that in spite of the often heart-felt urge to do some kind of short-term philosophical right thing, we should pause and take at least one step back to reconsider the presuppo- sitions of many proponents of the installment of intercultural dialogue. I have to admit, then, that I am quite sympathetic to the idea that de-essential- ising across the board would imply, if I may paraphrase in another idiom, that the essence of interculturality is nothing intercultural. Correspondingly, for media studies, the relevance of film for contemporary discourses of intercul- turality may be found less in the politically engaged, thematically intercul- tural recent-year film festivals of Rotterdam, Berlin or Cannes, than in least- likely candidates such as a Hollywood screwball comedy or a woman’s weepy of the 1930s and 40s. To be sure, Van Brakel’s claim that we do not need to speak the same language is not exactly new, as I want to show by means of anecdotal, 25 year old ‘evidence,’ but it is exactly not irrelevant either, when and if we are addressing interculturality in our own time. In 1981 Hans-Georg Gadamer and Jacques Derrida explored the possibility of an intercultural language that would bring together the philosophical tribes of hermeneutics and post-structuralism. They were not very successful. In the end, there was little rapport between Dialogue and Deconstruction.2 Some would say that Gadamer and Derrida never came round to speaking the same language, which, by the way, many did not deplore. This was twenty-five years ago, and there was quite a lot of ‘de-essentialising’ going on, not just by decon- structionists alone: the beneficence expressed by the political correctness of multiculturalism in the 1980s, was criticized as veiled ideology by commenta- tors ‘across the board.’ Our own time and place hardly expresses the same political correctness, given current attempts to (re-)essentialise culture. Professor Van Brakel’s call to de-essentialise across the board, implying that there is no need to speak the same language, then, may sound familiar but also quite different given contemporaneous, politically resounding efforts to establish who and what exactly belongs to us, in the Netherlands ranging from the authorization of the cultural canon, to definitive citizenship tests, and even parliamentary passport information control. There is a remarkable new ring, therefore, to the old adage that we do not need to speak the same language as long as we respect each other’s values, beliefs, identities. 2 D.P. Michelfelder & R.E. Palmer (eds.), Dialogue and Deconstruction: The Gadamer-Derrida Encounter (SUNY Press, Albany, 1989). 296 This article from Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy is published by Eleven international publishing and made available to anonieme bezoeker R&R 2006 / 3 John Caputo’s return to the ‘ill-fated non-exchange [between Gadamer and Derrida] in 1981’ appears to be driven by a concern for what he in the eight- ies would not have dared to call a shared ‘hope for a justice (…) to come.’3 In 2002, however, Caputo has come to reconsider his fin-de-siecle impressions of what he probably thought was a forever-lost possibility of humanistic dialogue; instead, Caputo now writes that Gadamer’s ‘demand for (…) the good will to try to understand one another’ is actually close to Derrida’s (later) call for friendship: ‘For hermeneutics and deconstruction alike turn on a common faith, that as soon I open my mouth (or take pen in hand) I have promised myself and the other that I am speaking the truth. That is what Gadamer calls good will and Derrida calls friendship.’4 I would contend, then, that Van Brakel’s diagnosis that Gadamer suffers from ideal language syndrome5 is not unlike the guter Wille zur Macht reproach made in the 1980s by Derrida; analogously, Van Brakel’s subse- quent adherence to some version of a charity principle resembles Derridean reconsiderations of friendship as not too dissimilar from what Gadamer was after in the first place. Indeed, if we would accept that what Caputo calls ‘a common faith’ denominates both good will and friendship, we are not too far from also covering the assumption that ‘any speaker is consistent, a believer of truths, and a lover of the good in the majority of cases’ also known as Donald Davidson’s ‘charity principle’.6 Of course, Caputo contin- ues by emphasizing that even if there is closeness, Derrida and Gadamer do not agree and remain importantly different in several respects. Or in an extended analogy, even if the hermeneutic, the post-structuralist and the analytic philosopher have something in common concerning the possibility of mutual understanding, Van Brakel would say that there is no need to assume that they speak, or even ought to speak, the same language. Van Brakel’s preferred expression characterizing the assumption that an interpreter has to attribute at least some meaning to the utterances of a speaker is ‘attunement’.7 As Van Brakel explains in his 1999 article ‘We’, we cannot find out what a speaker means unless we assume ‘definite things about his beliefs’.8 Yet, the only access to the speaker’s beliefs is through his words to which, as a consequence of our assumptions, we have always 3 J. Caputo, ‘Good Will and the Hermeneutics of Friendship: Gadamer and Derrida’, in: Philosophy & Social Criticism, vol 28 (2002), no 5, 512-522, at 522. 4 Ibid., at. 516. 5 In this issue at 266 and 274. 6 In this issue at 275. 7 In this issue at 275. 8 Jaap van Brakel, ‘We’, in: Ethical Perspectives 6 (1999), issue 3-4, 266-276, at 272. 297 This article from Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy is published by Eleven international publishing and made available to anonieme bezoeker R&R 2006 / 3 already attributed meanings. Van Brakel concludes that the interpreter ‘seems to be caught in a vicious circle’.9 In philosophical hermeneutics this is recognized as the existentialisation of the problems of textual interpretation, in which the meaning of a certain fragment of the text is informed by the meaning of the text as a whole, which in its turn depends on the attribution of meaning to the fragments. The circle not only describes the relation of tex- tual parts to a whole, it also describes what we, as interpreting creatures, are. Significantly, though, the circle in which the interpreter seems to be caught, is not a vicious circle. In philosophical hermeneutics there is nothing worry- ing about never being able to make meanings definitive.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Historical Film Notes by Jerry Beck
    UCLA Preserved Animation Website: HISTORICAL FILM NOTES BY JERRY BECK Theatre De Hula Hula (19--) Here is one in a long list of mystery films from the silent era. Clearly designed to be shown either in a vaudeville house or at a special exhibition requiring several musicians to accompany the action, it looks even to have had a specific score to match movements of the dancers. The film is processed in reverse to provide a negative effect that imparts an appropriate darkened-theater ambience to the proceedings. The bottom third of the picture is an animation “cycle” (a series of drawings repeated over and over) which gives a furious feel to the musicians. Most silent animation is based on wordplay and gag situations, but here the comical dance routines represent a wonderful early use of animation created for purely humorous effect. The animation itself is quite funny and charming, but those responsible for this delightful little gem probably will remain unknown. The Enchanted Drawing (1900) Cartoonist J. Stuart Blackton (1875-1941) was born in England and immigrated to the United States at the age of ten. In 1895, after a brief stint in vaudeville, Blackton became a reporter and cartoonist for the New York Evening World. A year later, Blackton was working for Thomas Edison’s film company, where he appeared on screen (as he does here) doing “Lightning Sketches” -- drawing at a rapid speed to the delight of onlookers. Inspired by Edison’s motion pictures, Blackton co-founded the Vitagraph studio to create films and distribute them to early nickelodeons.
    [Show full text]
  • New Findings and Perspectives Edited by Monica Dall’Asta, Victoria Duckett, Lucia Tralli Researching Women in Silent Cinema New Findings and Perspectives
    in Silent Cinema New Findings and Perspectives edited by Monica Dall’Asta, Victoria Duckett, lucia Tralli RESEARCHING WOMEN IN SILENT CINEMA NEW FINDINGS AND PERSPECTIVES Edited by: Monica Dall’Asta Victoria Duckett Lucia Tralli Women and Screen Cultures Series editors: Monica Dall’Asta, Victoria Duckett ISSN 2283-6462 Women and Screen Cultures is a series of experimental digital books aimed to promote research and knowledge on the contribution of women to the cultural history of screen media. Published by the Department of the Arts at the University of Bologna, it is issued under the conditions of both open publishing and blind peer review. It will host collections, monographs, translations of open source archive materials, illustrated volumes, transcripts of conferences, and more. Proposals are welcomed for both disciplinary and multi-disciplinary contributions in the fields of film history and theory, television and media studies, visual studies, photography and new media. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ # 1 Researching Women in Silent Cinema: New Findings and Perspectives Edited by: Monica Dall’Asta, Victoria Duckett, Lucia Tralli ISBN 9788898010103 2013. Published by the Department of Arts, University of Bologna in association with the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne and Women and Film History International Graphic design: Lucia Tralli Researching Women in Silent Cinema: New Findings and Perspectives Peer Review Statement This publication has been edited through a blind peer review process. Papers from the Sixth Women and the Silent Screen Conference (University of Bologna, 2010), a biennial event sponsored by Women and Film History International, were read by the editors and then submitted to at least one anonymous reviewer.
    [Show full text]
  • Pass the Gravy by Steve Massa
    Pass the Gravy By Steve Massa Max Davidson had appeared in movies since the early teens – act- ing at Biograph, supporting Fay Tincher in her Komic Comedy and Fine Arts comedy, and briefly headlining in his own Izzy Come- dies” – usually portraying stereo- typical Jewish tailors and mer- chants. After scoring a notable success co-starring with Jackie Coogan in the features “The Rag Man” and “Old Clothes” (both 1925) he was hired by producer Hal Roach to be part of his stable of supporting comedians. Proving himself in the service of Roach star comics Cuckoos” (1927) introductory description of “Love’s such as Stan Laurel, Charley Chase, and Mabel Greatest Mistake.” Screen freckles usually denote Normand in the shorts “Get ‘Em Young,” “Long Fliv fresh and fun-loving characters, but Spec’s spots the King” (both 1926), and “Anything Once” (1927), came with an icy heart, a malevolent grin, and Max was bumped up to the leading role in his own beady eyes that loved to see his screen father series and given the opportunity to flesh out his squirm. standard screen persona. The first entries were di- rected by Leo McCarey, then director-general of the In contrast to his sons like Spec, Max’s screen Roach Studio, who laid the ground work with shorts daughters are always his pride and joy, but still such as “Why Girls Say No,” “Jewish Prudence,” cause him a lot of aggravation, particularly when “Don’t Tell Everything,” and “Should Second they take up with boys he doesn’t approve of or as- Husbands Come First?” (all 1927).
    [Show full text]
  • A Study Guide for Teachers
    KAPUT A STUDY GUIDE FOR TEACHERS ABOUT THE STUDY GUIDE Dear Teachers: We hope you will find this Study Guide helpful in preparing your students for what they will experience at the performance of Kaput. Filled with acrobatic thrills and silly blunders, we’re sure Kaput will delight you and your students. Throughout this Study Guide you will find topics for discussion, links to resources and activities to help facilitate discussion around physical theatre, physical comedy, and the golden age of silent films. STUDY GUIDE INDEX ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE RESOURCES AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. About the Performer 1. Be the Critic 2. About the Show 2. Tell a Story Without Saying a Word 3. About Physical Theatre 3. Making a Silent Film 4. About Physical Comedy 4. Body and Expression 5. The Art of the Pratfall 5. Taking a Tour 6. The Golden Age of Silent Films (1894 – 1924) 6. Pass the Ball 7. Physical Comedy + Silent Film = Silent Comedy 7. What’s in a Gesture? Being in the Audience When you enter the theater, you enter a magical space, charged, full of energy and anticipation. Show respect by watching and listening attentively Do not distract fellow audience members or interrupt the flow of performance Applause at the end of the performance is the best way to show enthusiasm and appreciation. About The Performer Tom Flanagan is one of Australia’s youngest leading acrobatic clowns. A graduate of the internationally renowned circus school, The Flying Fruit Flies; Tom started tumbling, twisting, flying and falling at the age of six.
    [Show full text]
  • Silent Films, Hollywood Genres, and William Faulkner
    SILENT FILMS, HOLLYWOOD GENRES, AND WILLIAM FAULKNER -Somdatta Mandal Much of the research concerning William Faulkner’s relationship to film focuses on the writer’s experience as a scriptwriter during the 1930s and 1940s, perhaps assuming that Faulkner’s serious interest in film began only with his arrival in Hollywood in 1932. But as Jeffrey J. Folks1 has pointed out, silent film had comprised a significant part of available popular entertainment in Oxford during Faulkner’s youth and according to Murray Falkner, Faulkner is said to have attended silent films regularly, as often as twice a week. John Faulkner says that after movies came to Oxford, which would have been about 1913, he and ‘Bill’ went every Friday - and would have gone oftener had they been allowed to.2 Though it is not possible to determine exactly what films Faulkner might have seen in the first years of film showings, the standard features certainly consisted, to a large extent of Westerns, melodramas and comedies. One may assume that among performers featured were Mary Pickford, Lilian Gish, Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon and Fatty Arbuckle. The many Westerns that Murray Falkner recalled having seen with his brother William, may well have featured Tom Mix, William S. Hart, and Broncho Billy (G.M.Anderson) as well as many lesser known performers. Faulkner seems to have had the normal introduction to this aspect of American culture, though as an adult he may have had less contact with it. As mentioned earlier, Faulkner’s extensive knowledge of the silent film is evident from the many references to it in his fiction.
    [Show full text]
  • ROMANTIC COMEDY Laughter and Culture Comedy, Repression, And
    ROMANTIC COMEDY Laughter and Culture Comedy, Repression, and Cultural Dreamwork Sigmund Freud jokes function a form of liberation; whatever a society represses frequently returns in the form of comedy to taunt it. This often occurs quite literally in the figure of the Shakespearean- like fool who tells a truth that others dare not utter. Several likely prospects on the street but does a double take and hurries away when one of this would-be brides turns out to be black and another Jewish. For the Marx Brothers, nothing is sacred. From Racism to Social Integration Immigrants: Chaplin to Depardieu Chaplin, whose “Tramp” character embodies an essential ambivalence toward society. Thus, Chaplin comedies often play against the genre’s expectations, striking a note of pathos. The film’s attack on phoniness and its celebration of authentic feeling moves it, however, toward Chaplinesque pathos rather than comic triumph: Depardieu’s rediscovered integrity forces him to abandon his initial, self-centered goal of getting citizenship by whatever means possible. Integration and the Regeneration of Society Hundreds of other comedies in which an individual struggles to enter society. Through the theme of comic integration, American screen comedies demonstrate the flexibility of our democracy social structure through its ability to absorb new members and integrate them into a new social order, whose unity and diversity exceeds that of the old order. It Happened One Night (1934) , for example, begins with a ‘”bad’ marriage between an heiress (Claudette Colbert) and a playboy- socialite. The final marriage is “right’ not only because Colbert and Gable really love one another but also because it heals the divisions within society, establishing a new order through the symbolic marriage of representatives of different social classes.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction Keyword: Hokum
    Introduction Keyword: Hokum The word “hokum” is one of several examples of stage slang whose meaning, at a certain point in the 1920s, was much debated. According to a 1926 article in American Speech, it was the “most discussed word in the entire vernacular” of popular entertainment (another was “jazz”).1 The term seems to have origins in the late nineteenth century, perhaps deriving from “oakum” (material used to calk the seams of a ship; by extension, “sure-fire” gags and other material used to secure the success of a stage act) or, alternatively, as a combination of “hocus-pocus” (sleight-of-hand, trickery) and “bunkum” (nonsense). Still, those origins are sufficiently questionable that novelist Edna Ferber, in her 1929 Cimarron, could claim that the term was of exclusively twentieth-century deri- vation. (“The slang words hokum and bunk were not then [1898] in use.”)2 The ambiguous sources of “hokum” also correspond to a split in its development, which, by the 1920s, had seen the sense of “sure-fire” shift in the more dis- paraging direction indicated by “bunkum.” Writing in 1928, a reporter for the New York Times expressed incredulity that a term once describing material that “ ‘get[s] over’ . with an audience” was now synonymous with “hooey, tripe, apple-sauce, blah and bologna.”3 The word seems to have something to do with comedy, although this is not invariable. An article in the Times of 1923 indicated a possible melodramatic refer- ence as well, describing hokum as “old and sure-fire comedy. Also tear-inducing situations,” which suggests hokum’s applicability to anything that traded in strong or obvious effects, whether of comedy or of sentiment.4 “Hokum is not always com- edy; sometimes it borders on pathos” echoed the essay in American Speech.5 Still, the reference to comedy, specifically of the knockabout, slapstick variety, was primary.
    [Show full text]
  • Hands Up! by Steve Massa
    Hands Up! By Steve Massa Raymond Griffith is one of silent come- dy’s unjustly forgotten masters, whose onscreen persona was that of a calm, cool, world-weary bon vivant – some- thing like Max Linder on Prozac. After a childhood spent on stage touring in stock companies and melodramas, he ended up in films at Vitagraph in 1914 and went on to stints at Sennett,- L Ko, and Fox as a comedy juvenile. Not mak- ing much of an impression due to a lack of a distinctive character, he went be- hind the camera to become a gagman, working at Sennett and for other comics like Douglas MacLean. In 1922 he re- turned to acting and became the ele- gant, unflappable ladies’ man. Stealing comedies such as “Changing Husbands,” “Open All Night,” and “Miss Bluebeard” (all 1924) away ing very popular with his character of “Ambrose,” a put- their respective stars Paramount decided to give him his upon everyman with dark-circled eyes and a brush mous- own series, and he smarmed his way through ten starring tache. Leaving Sennett in 1917 he continued playing Am- features starting with “The Night Club” (1925). brose for L-Ko, Fox, and the independent Poppy Come- dies and Perry Comedies. His career stalled in the early “Hands Up!” (1926) soon followed, and is the perfect 1920s when he was blacklisted by an influential produc- showcase for Griffith’s deft comic touch and sly sense of er, but his old screen mate Charlie Chaplin came to the the absurd. The expert direction is by Clarence Badger, rescue and made Mack part of his stock company in films who started in the teens with shorts for Joker and Sen- such as “The Idle Class” (1921) and “The Pilgrim” (1923).
    [Show full text]
  • Westminsterresearch Bombay Before Bollywood
    WestminsterResearch http://www.westminster.ac.uk/westminsterresearch Bombay before Bollywood: the history and significance of fantasy and stunt film genres in Bombay cinema of the pre- Bollywood era Thomas, K. This is an electronic version of a PhD thesis awarded by the University of Westminster. © Prof Katharine Thomas, 2016. The WestminsterResearch online digital archive at the University of Westminster aims to make the research output of the University available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the authors and/or copyright owners. Whilst further distribution of specific materials from within this archive is forbidden, you may freely distribute the URL of WestminsterResearch: ((http://westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk/). In case of abuse or copyright appearing without permission e-mail [email protected] BOMBAY BEFORE BOLLYWOOD: THE HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FANTASY AND STUNT FILM GENRES IN BOMBAY CINEMA OF THE PRE-BOLLYWOOD ERA KATHARINE ROSEMARY CLIFTON THOMAS A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University Of Westminster for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Published Work September 2016 Abstract This PhD by Published Work comprises nine essays and a 10,000-word commentary. Eight of these essays were published (or republished) as chapters within my monograph Bombay Before Bollywood: Film City Fantasies, which aimed to outline the contours of an alternative history of twentieth-century Bombay cinema. The ninth, which complements these, was published in an annual reader. This project eschews the conventional focus on India’s more respectable genres, the so-called ‘socials’ and ‘mythologicals’, and foregrounds instead the ‘magic and fighting films’ – the fantasy and stunt genres – of the B- and C-circuits in the decades before and immediately after India’s independence.
    [Show full text]
  • Mfahathome Virtual Cinema (Cont.) May 2021
    Check out the Museum’s virtual cinema lineup for May: Silent Movie Comedy Night with live accompaniment, dramas from KINO! Germany NOW!, and more exciting film options to watch #MFAHatHome from home. Visit mfah.org/virtualcinema to purchase tickets to view Virtual Cinema the following films. A portion of the admission price May 2021 supports MFAH Films. OPENS MAY 7 KINO! GERMANY NOW! MAY 14–23 Documentary The Museum joins Goethe Pop Up Houston and Houston Cinema Arts Society on this series of four recent dramas BILL TRAYLOR: CHASING GHOSTS focusing on the films’ protagonists’ struggles to assimilate into Directed by Jeffrey Wolf contemporary Germany. (USA, 2020, 75 min.) American artist Bill Traylor KINO! Germany NOW! 2021 Discover New Talent is presented by the German Film (1853–1949), born on a cotton Office, an initiative of the Goethe-Institut and German Films. plantation in Alabama, started to draw and paint in his 80s. He Special thanks to our promotional partner Houston Cinema Arts Society. devised his own visual language that was powerful and culturally rooted. With surprising use of tap EXILE (EXIL) dance and evocative period music, Directed by Visar Morina this documentary balances archival (Germany/Belgium/Kosovo, 2020, 121 min., in photographs and footage, insightful German and Albanian with English subtitles) perspectives from the artist’s descendants, and Traylor’s striking In this relentlessly taut drama, a work to celebrate the spirit of his chemical engineer from Kosovo incomparable art. increasingly feels he is being bullied at his German pharmaceutical job, straining his relationship with his wife (Sandra Hüller) and plunging him into an identity crisis.
    [Show full text]
  • LOS ANGELES AGO CHAPTER INVITES ATOE'rs to SILENT COMEDY FEATURE SCREENING Dec
    LOS ANGELES AGO CHAPTER INVITES ATOE'rs TO SILENT COMEDY FEATURE SCREENING Dec. 2. Hollywood, Cal. - - - - side of the store building. Of course, The famous Hollywood High Harold succeeds, but not before School, sometimes known as the some hair-raising moments during "incubator of stars'\ was the scene his ascent which consumes almost of a novel musical event tonight as half the footage. This sort of com­ organist Gaylord Carter cued a si­ edy-melodrama is right up Gaylord's lent comedy feature on a "straight" alley, even though the Skinner was organ. lacking the sound effects which The film was Harold Lloyd's Sa­ silent movies need. To compensate, / ety Last, which LA chapter chair­ he hauled in a hand-operated siren man Dick Simonton borrowed from to cue the careening chase scene Lloyd for the chapter's contribution through 1923 Los Angeles traffic to a program staged by the LA ( how those model T's dodged!). American Guild of Organists (AGO) But in the midst of the sequence chapter. The AGO chapter invited the siren broke down with a dis­ GAYLORD CARTER - Drawknobs?? Fat diapasons the ATOEr's to the show, which sonant descrescendo wail which and a fire siren that wouldn't . was held in the school auditorium. trailed off to embarrassed silence. About 350 AGOers and ATOErs The house is equipped with a 3-39 Carter found the skinner to his attended. Although such co-op con­ E.M. Skinner concert organ, install­ liking for playing this type of film certs are rare in LA, there has been ed in the mid- '20s and kept in good but stated, "I don't know what I'd a friendly spirit of cooperation bet­ playing condition.
    [Show full text]
  • Silent Comedies and Cartoons
    Funny Business Silent Comedies and Cartoons Tuesday, May 14, 2013 Grand Illusion Cinema The Sprocket Society Seattle, WA Alice Comedies Alice Rattled by Rats Released November 15, 1925 M.J. Winkler Productions Directed and written by Walt Disney. Animated by Ub Iwerks, Rollin Ham Hamilton, Thurston Harper, Hugh Harman, & Rudolf Ising. Produced by Margaret J. Winkler With Margie Gay as Alice. Music and effects soundtrack added by Raytone Productions, 1930 Left to protect Alice’s house, Julius the cat soon falls into a vat of home-brew liquor in the basement and drinks himself into oblivion. The rats, free to play, entertain themselves by dancing, playing phonograph records, cavorting with the player piano, and using the bathtub for a swimming pool. Soon the party gets completely out of control. (Why Alice was brewing alcohol in her basement remains an open question.) “Speaking of his studio in later years, Disney was fond of saying that ‘it all started with a little mouse’ – but in fact the foundation was laid in 1924 by a little girl.” – Merritt & Kaufman, Walt in Wonderland Young Walt Disney broke into the movie business in Kansas City, as an illustrator for a company that produced glass slides and advertising shorts for theaters. Along with his buddy Fred Harman, he struck out on his own, hoping to jump-start their new company with a partly-animated comical short called Laugh-O-Grams, produced for the influential local theater owner, Frank L. Newman. This was successful enough that they were able to secure funding to hire additional animators, including now- legendary pioneers Ubbe “Ub” Iwerks, Hugh Harman, Rudolph Ising, and Friz Freleng.
    [Show full text]