Film: Silent No More Author(s): Kevin Rockett Reviewed work(s): Source: Circa, No. 66 (Winter, 1993), pp. 28-33 Published by: Circa Art Magazine Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25557855 . Accessed: 22/01/2012 09:10 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Circa Art Magazine is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Circa. http://www.jstor.org AGREE -? *? r ^9ul^HEi^Hn^^^fl^^HHHHilHi^^fl^fl^^^fli^^^^BI ^ iP^Wp * # w Jf ^ilBBr ,JHBHUfl^BHIH^^^^^H ^Hll Hi - ^ -o ...j... -- ^ * iliillll1 ^ I^HIIH^^^^^^^^^H fc^fe . ^i : :: i l -^dB^^WL^Bk-^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^M ,Jp -# * ^^^HBkI, m J0r^^0^ If f 1 JBBBMI?r"?rrtMBBBfflpBIHiMiE J&ni^^^B^^B^^^H^^^^^^^^^^^^H jilflB^^Bfl^fl^^B^^BII^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H W __^j0^ J f -iilllW IIBIBBBB^B^BBMB^^^^^^^^M^^M ::^ H^^^I^Hl^HH^^K^tS,^ * 'ULr-"'.""""4L. ^L. t-::MIHHbF ^ Bi^^^^ER^^^^^^BI^Bi^^^HlrimBEE -^ "^ ^^DL Bi iii^^p^ihbb ^^sflBlil^^j^^fy: ^^^^^^H^BMhHIII^B^^^^^^^^^^^^B^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^B 9^^Ky^^^^^^H^^Bloi% V %'1;^ liiMMi^ .JIM ^flB^B& i ^^^^^^^^^BI^^^^^^^^^^BW^^^^BMBBIlfiBBiiiMnBrBi iii'^^^dPmBr^Bii ^p^^ft^^^^^iiiii^^B!J^^^^^^fc^:' '""'S' :^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^-^^ -^SIPMb ^^hhhB|^b ^^^^Bbh^^^^^^^K.Is^^^^^HhEP^^ ..^i^M^BiBii^^^^^^^^^B^Bi^.^ - ' *'' -., .-- ' -"*' H^#r*- ^ -.4-. ,. 4?*^- muz**. ?...-.--.,. _ _ FILM Silent No More Rex Ingram was a major force inAmerican cinema of the 1920s. Kevin Rockett re-assesses his importance for Irish film studies. To mark the centenary of the birth of land, silent films including Battleship who viewed Ingram's films in Dublin expe Rex Ingram, the Irish-born film Potemkin (1926) and New Babylon (1929), rienced as smooth a technical exercise as any was one maker who at time Holly have been presented with live orchestral ac in their local cinema. wood's highest paid director, The Four companiment at the National Concert Hall Brownlow's work on the silent cinema Top: a drawing by Rex Horsemen the was the few years the Irish Film was well established the time the of Apocalypse (1921) during past by already by Ingram for The Four screened at the National Concert Hall last Institute. The of The Four Horse series was screening Hollywood transmitted, especially Horsemen of the Apocalyse September. Four more of Ingram's silent men of the Apocalypse, organised by the Film due to his mammoth book of interviews features were shown at the Irish Film Centre Institute, was the first occasion on which the with American silent cinema workers, The Opposite: Rex Ingram team and cameraman and the Pordenone Film Festival in Italy, the Brownlow/Davis presented their work Parade's Gone By..., first published in 1968. John Seta only film festival devoted exclusively to in Ireland. The rapturous reception accord But it was in fact the Irish film historian a event to silent cinema, organised retrospective of ed the testifies the popularity of the Liam O'Leary's Silent Cinema, published Ingram's work. These events allow us not experience. three years earlier, which was the first 'mod to some can only explore of Ingram's cinematic Popular interest in the silent cinema ern' book to celebrate the rich diversity of to to an area most to concerns, but draw attention of be clearly traced Brownlow and the silent cinema in English. And, it was cinema history which has been little appre David Gill's Hollywood television series first O'Leary's biography of Rex Ingram, first ciated in Ireland until recently. transmitted in 1980, with music by Carl published in 1980 [1], which drew attention During the last twenty years in particular, Davis. The series showed clips together with to Ingram as a major force in the American a wide range of sophisticated film research directors, cameramen and actors recalling cinema of the 1920s, a fact confirmed since on and academic scholarship has focussed the early years of American cinema. The then in Michael Powell's autobiography: to a can the silent period. This work has, degree, programmes be readily criticised for Powell learned his trade under Ingram's su united film archivists, 'traditional' film histo anecdotal and ahistorical impressionism, and pervision in France. reason con on as rians and theorists. The for this its concentration great auteurs such What O'Leary and Brownlow have in are was a common a vergence and upsurge of interest many D.W. Griffith, who the subject of sep is historiography which is largely same and diverse, but one of the happy results has arate three-part series by the team confined to a celebratory appreciation of a move been concerted to establish silent transmitted in 1993. cinema while often reducing the cinema and as a area as as a to cinema valid of study well However, despite these qualifications, its history the anecdotal, biographical and to as desire celebrate the silent cinema 'experi Brownlow and Gill's series have served impressionistic recall by its practitioners. as a own a ence' major aesthetic event in its useful statements of the cultural and histori What they lack is critical methodology. right, thanks to newly struck copies of the cal value of this neglected area of cinema. This missing dimension received its first films and specially commissioned orchestral The simple technical feat of projecting silent major public expression at the International accompaniment. cinema at the correct speed, rather than with Federation of Film Archives' Conference at com we Film historian Kevin Brownlow and the jerkiness associate with, for example, Brighton in 1978. There, and in its subse poser Carl Davis have been at the forefront the Charlie Chaplin films projected at 24 quent publication, Cinema 1900-1906: an of this development through their restora frames per second rather than the required analytical study (1982), and in many other tion work in the Thames Television's Silent speed (which approximates 18-frames per fora and publications, silent cinema, espe a sense Classics, and through television documen second), immediately establishes of cially the Early Cinema (the period before tary series devoted to silent cinema. In Ire visual continuity with sound cinema. Those the establishment of Classical Narrative Cin CIRCA 29 a ema by about 1917), became of major inter pay higher ticket prices. As consequence, est to film scholars. new production and exhibition patterns Ingram's visual comment When we talk about the silent we evolved both social class lines and in on the IrishCivil War cinema, along are, therefore, exploring two quite different the content of films themselves. was but complementary projects: Early Cinema, In Ireland, however, the pattern dif and also the establishment of Classical Nar ferent. With the exception of occasional rative Cinema, the form of Hollywood cin nomic discourses informing 'production', local interest actuality items, and, from 1910 some ema which had its apotheosis during the pe but has also been concerned with the dis onwards, fiction films by foreigners, all courses a riod from the 1930s to the 1950s. One of of 'consumption', that is to say, films shown were imported. With severely areas was the main which has proved to be pro what the audience making of all this. depressed local economy in Dublin during was ductive in the study of Early Cinema has The inter-relationships between the devel the early 1900s, it primarily the middle been the close examination of the develop opment of film form, technology, industry class which could afford to attend the cine ment of film form and narrative. One well and audiences have become key elements in ma. As a result, news, travel and some com were known example, La Sortie des usines Lumiere the study of cinema. Indeed, with only edy items shown in programmes a were (1895) (Workers Leaving Factory), made about 20 per cent of the films of the silent which accompanied by operatic and to a as as a by the factory's owners, helps illustrate period surviving, it is pragmatic well other high art musical interludes. That the the methodological break in approach to necessary amendment to those versions of advertisements for such programmes at the Early Cinema. Traditionally, film studies film history which confine themselves to Rotunda, the main Dublin 'cinema' venue or might have confined this single-shot film to chronicles of matters industrial to textual during this decade, announced the availabili or a or a simple 'plotless' 'documentary' record analysis of small group of 'key' 'classic' ty of carriages to take the patrons home after a a of workers leaving factory after day's films. As Douglas Gomery and Robert C. the show, confirms that during the 1900s, ex a was work. But, Marshall Deutelbaum [2], for Allen declared [3] in famous phrase, "for film viewing in Dublin both socially an ample, draws attention to its careful struc certain investigations, film viewing is really in and ideologically geared to the middle class. was ture which begins with the gates of the fac appropriate research method". This pattern broken by James Joyce as tory closed, then opened the workers This statement helpfully draws attention when he opened the Volta Cinema in De leave and walk past the camera, and the away from the often over-determined film cember 1909. Choosing to screen an Italian gates then closing again, an action which textual readings to the exclusion of the film telling a story of patricide, The Tragic was also closes the film and the narrative.