Saturday, April 22, 2006
Just watched "birth of a nation". Had always wanted to. Part of "silent movies" phase. Fascinating stuff. The mastery and the craft. And yet... the subject matter is so utterly ugly. It's a vehicle for racist propaganda. A story abt the formation of the Ku Klux Klan. A highly coloured and distorted version of history. And deliberately so. But the amount of work and art and money that went into this film is amazing. And it shows. A pioneering work of film. Too bad it's so difficult to get your hands on.
Some other silent films which I loved.
1. Battleship Potemkin
2. Metropolis ( a MUST watch... fascinating early sci-fi... just the concepts)
3. The cabinet of Dr. Calgari
4. Nosferatu
5. City Lights (the obvious Chaplin)
6. Intolerance (another epic... from the makers of "Birth of Nation")
7. Greed
8. Dr. Mabuse (one of my favourite movies of all time.... influenced me deeply... what a central character!)
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8:55 AM
