I may live in the 21st century on the south coast of England, but here on my desk it often looks like I am somewhere else entirely. Weimar-era Berlin, to be precise. It is the epicentre of some truly great silent filmmaking, such as the works I often share on this blog, it is the setting and source for the first film book I wrote (Pandora’s Box, as you asked), and it is here that we find the origins of much of the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema that I write about elsewhere.
It also sometimes looks this way when I am reading the news, but that, perhaps, is another matter.
It is no secret that I love the programming of South West Silents, keeping silent film alive in the Bristol area all year round. My head was especially turned by their new programme of urban big-screen double-bills. The Mega Silents: City Montage Season explores the long history of the City Symphony with a series of double-bills projected on to Bristol’s Megascreen at the city’s former aquarium.
On Saturday, they paired Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929) with Bustern Keaton’s The Cameraman (Edward Sedgwick, 1928), an inspired combination. In Saturday 29 March, they are exploring urban warfare by showing Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) together with The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966). That will be epic.
But on Saturday 15 March, SWS are coming to my neck of the woods, with a Weimar double-bill of Berlin: Symphony of a City (Walter Ruttmann, 1927) and the divinely decadent Cabaret (Bob Fosse, 1972). I am delighted to say that I am introducing these two screenings, which are right up my strasse.
It’s inspired programming to me, not just because they are two of my favourite, but because even though one of these films is a silent and another a musical, music is integral to both films, and to the way that they represent the seductions and the dangers of both an urban space, and a moment in time. Such gorgeous, meticulous filmmaking, such a devotion to finding the beauty in the ugliness and vice versa, in both films. I sincerely hope I will see some of you there!
