International

Man With the Movie Camera

Described by director Dziga Vertov as an experiment in the language of pure cinema, "The Man With the Movie Camera" is perhaps the most dazzling and sophisticated, not only of Soviet, but of world silent cinema. Music by the Alloy Orchestra.

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

The title says it all: this is a visual symphony in five movements celebrating the Berlin of 1927: the people, the place, the everyday details of life on the streets. Director Walter Ruttman, an experimental filmmaker, approached cinema in similar ways to his Russian contemporary Dziga Vertoz, mixing documentary, abstract, and expressionist modes for a nonnarrative style that captured the life of his countrymen. But where Vertov mixed his observations with examples of the communist dream in action, Ruttman re-creates documentary as, in his own words, "a melody of pictures." Within the loose structure of a day in the life of the city (with a prologue that travels from the country into the city on a barreling train), the film takes us from dawn to dusk, observing the silent city as it awakens with a bustle of activity, then the action builds and calms until the city settles back into sleep. But the city is as much the architecture, the streets, and the machinery of industry as it is people, and Ruttman weaves all these elements together to create a portrait in montage, the poetic document of a great European city captured in action. Held together by rhythm, movement, and theme, Ruttman creates a documentary that is both involving and beautiful to behold. The original score by Timothy Brock is lyrical and dramatically involving, complementing the mood and movement marvelously. Also included is the avant-garde short Opus 1, an abstract study in animated shapes and movement. --Sean Axmaker

At once an invaluable photographic record of life in Weimar Berlin and a timeless demostration of the cinema's ability to enthrall on a purely visceral level, "Berlin, Symphony of a Great City" (1927, 62 min.) offers a kaleidoscopic view of a single day in the life of the bustling metropolis. Also included on this DVD is "Opus 1" (1922, 10 min.), a rare example of the German avant-garde cinema. Director Walther Ruttmann's hand-colored film is an exploration of the geometry of movement.

Les Vampires

This legendary seven-hour silent French serial, one of the earliest and most original gangster films, combines realism and fantasy. Written and directed by Louis Feuillade, Les Vampires concerns an intrepid reporter's pursuit of a strange gang of jewel thieves terrorizing Paris. The gang ambitiously seeks political, psychological, and sexual domination of the city's social elite, with the seductive Irma Vep (an anagram of "vampire") as its brazen leader. While slow going at first, the 10-part serial becomes more and more fascinating with each episode, thanks in large part to the alluring Musidora as Irma Vep. Because of her many guises and frightful charms, she truly becomes a vampire of sorts. Feuillade achieves a subversive, nightmarish atmosphere amid the everyday goings-on of the city. Filmed on the streets and back alleys of World War I Paris, the 1915 picture was a huge commercial success, though temporarily banned by Paris's chief of police for glamorizing crime. --Bill Desowitz

A legendary seven-hour silent crime serial in ten episodes. "Les Vampires" follows the exploits of a brazen and resourceful band of arch-criminals who rob the rich, transfix the elite of France, and almost elude the obsessive pursuit of crusading journalist Phillipe Guerande and his sidekick Mazamette. A series of Grand Vampires with names such as Satanas and Venomous share the irresistible Irma Vep (an anagram of "vampire") as strategist and mistress. Sometimes seductively garbed in a black body stocking and a black hood, sometimes disguised as a boy or hidden in plain view as a maid, stenographer or bourgeois spinster, feared and desired by both her cohorts and stalkers, Irma is perhaps the first liberated screen woman. Shot off-the-cuff by writer-director Louis Feuillade in the streets and interiors of 1915 Paris, "Les Vampires" was banned by the Paris police for glorifying crime. A smash hit when finally released, and for fifty years celebrated as a masterpiece of French cinema, "Les Vampires" is complete and restored, with English titles and inserts, tints and an evocative orchestral score.

October (Ten Days That Shook the World)

Officially produced to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the Russian Revolution, October quickly became another of Sergei Eisenstein's experiments in film form. As in his masterpiece, Battleship Potemkin, Eisenstein uses explosive montage to create the spirit of revolution--in this case, the events in St. Petersburg during the months leading up to the Bolshevik revolt. Eisenstein's insistence on speaking the language of pure film (deploying space, shadow, movement, and rhythm to create his meaning) shoves his mad rush of images straight into the viewer's eye. A worker's rebellion in the streets, followed by the raising of bridges to isolate their neighborhood, becomes a visual symphony of panic. The film has also been known as Ten Days That Shook the World, its release title in the U.S. (borrowed from the book by John Reed). Its value as propaganda can be debated, but October is incredibly dynamic as film art. --Robert Horton

Russian director Sergei Eisenstein's powerful retelling of the 1917 Russian Revolution, "October" is an acknowledged masterpiece in the use of editing, lighting, camera placement and mise-en-scene. An absolute must for any film connoisseurs collection.

Die Nibelungen

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Special Collector's Edition)

A milestone of the silent film era and one of the first "art films" to gain international acclaim, this eerie German classic from 1919 remains the most prominent example of German expressionism in the emerging art of the cinema. Stylistically, the look of the film's painted sets--distorted perspectives, sharp angles, twisted architecture--was designed to reflect (or express) the splintered psychology of its title character, a sinister figure who uses a lanky somnambulist (Conrad Veidt) as a circus attraction. But when Caligari and his sleepwalker are suspected of murder, their novelty act is surrounded by more supernatural implications. With its mad-doctor scenario, striking visuals, and a haunting, zombie-like character at its center, Caligari was one of the first horror films to reach an international audience, sending shock waves through artistic circles and serving as a strong influence on the classic horror films of the 1920s, '30s, and beyond. It's a museum piece today, of interest more for its historical importance, but Caligari still casts a considerable spell. --Jeff Shannon

This milestone film, known for its expressionistic sets and techniques, tells the strange tale of a sleepwalker under the spell of the mysterious and evil Dr. Caligari.

Destiny (1921) aka Der müde Tod

This beautiful gothic fantasy was inspired by a childhood dream of its writer/director, Fritz Lang, who first gained world recognition with this film's triumph. "Destiny" is the story of a young man taken by Death just as he is to be married. His lover makes a deal with the Death figure--if she can save one of three possible lives, her fiance will be returned to her. Otherworldly atmosphere is created by extraordinary, bizarre sets, gothic lighting, and eccentric characters combined with spectacle and camera trickery astonishing for its time. With its many magical and haunting images, "Destiny" still possesses real power to impress the imagination!

Cabiria

Inspired by grand opera and Italy's imperialist victory in the Libyan War (1911-12), the Italian movie industry produced dozens of historical epics in the period just before World War I. The most influential and successful of these was Cabiria, the visually spectacular film which set the standard for the big-budget feature-length movies around the world and opened the way for D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. De Mille. The story concerns a girl-Cabiria-who is separated from her parents during the Punic Wars in the Third Century B.C. In her odyssey through the world of ancient Rome, she encounters the eruption of Mt. Etna, capture by pirates, the barbaric splendor of Carthage, human sacrifice and Hannibal crossing the Alps. With meticulous care given to costume and set design, Cabiria was shot in North Africa, Sicily and the Italian Alps.

German Horror Classics (Nosferatu (1922) / The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari / Waxworks / The Golem)

Battleship Potemkin

Sergei Eisenstein's revolutionary sophomore feature has so long stood as a textbook example of montage editing that many have forgotten what an invigoratingly cinematic experience he created. A 20th-anniversary tribute to the 1905 revolution, Eisenstein portrays the revolt in microcosm with a dramatization of the real-life mutiny aboard the battleship Potemkin. The story tells a familiar party-line message of the oppressed working class (in this case the enlisted sailors) banding together to overthrow their oppressors (the ship's officers), led by proto-revolutionary Vakulinchuk. When he dies in the shipboard struggle the crew lays his body to rest on the pier, a moody, moving scene where the citizens of Odessa slowly emerge from the fog to pay their respects. As the crowd grows Eisenstein turns the tenor from mourning a fallen comrade to celebrating the collective achievement. The government responds by sending soldiers and ships to deal with the mutinous crew and the supportive townspeople, which climaxes in the justly famous (and often imitated and parodied) Odessa Steps massacre. Eisenstein edits carefully orchestrated motions within the frame to create broad swaths of movement, shots of varying length to build the rhythm, close-ups for perspective and shock effect, and symbolic imagery for commentary, all to create one of the most cinematically exciting sequences in film history. Eisenstein's film is Marxist propaganda to be sure, but the power of this masterpiece lies not in its preaching but its poetry. --Sean Axmaker

Based on the unsuccessful 1905 Russian Revolution, Sergei Eisenstein's masterpiece "Battleship Potemkin" is often voted one of the ten greatest films ever made, this program includes a powerful musical score by N Kruikov.