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[ktron]

it's official. whether you count by number of discs (3 vs. 2) or number of movies (5 vs. 2), i now own more dvds of silent movies than of talkies. mainly thanks to a box-set of two charlie chaplin and two buster keaton movies that suddenly showed up on wally world's $5.50 rack. i couldn't resist. and not that it's much of a collection either way, but it still struck me as pretty strange when i noticed the ratio. makes me want to run out and find sunrise (one of my favorite movies ever, silent or otherwise), metropolis, and nosferatu... just because.

Comments

[anarchat.livejournal.com]

If you like silent film you should watch In "The Land Of The War Canoes" and "Les Vampires". The latter isn't about what you might think it is. Unless you've already seen it/heard about it, in which case you would already know that. "The Thief of Baghdad" is also good.

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[ktron.livejournal.com]

ooh, i'll have to try to find copies of those first two sometime... thanks for the recs. thief of baghdad is actually the fifth i own on dvd :) i want to find a copy of the 1940 remake some time too -- it sounds even more like disney's direct ripping material for aladdin, judging from character names on imdb! ever see any of george méliès' stuff? le voyage dans la lune (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000417/) (1902) is fascinating for super-early special effects, cinematography, etc...

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[anarchat.livejournal.com]

It's probably fair to assume that Disney drew influence for Aladdin from Thief of Baghdad, but then it's probably fair to assume Douglas Fairbanks drew inspiration from The Arabian Nights. Then again there was a tale in Nights called "Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp", so who really knows whose inspiration came from where(except for the writers, of course)?

At any rate, thanks for the George Méliès recommendation. There's actually a collection of his stuff (including Le Voyage Dans la Lune) in the TTU media center so I'll check it out when I have some free time.

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[ktron.livejournal.com]

yeah, birdwell makes his world film history classes watch the méliès stuff, so he's probably mostly to blame for it being in the library. if i recall correctly, he also had a dvd with several of the lumière bros shorts and a documentary on their camera; not sure if it's in the library or not.

man, i miss having access to the media center :)

oh, and the reason i claim aladdin's a bit of a rip-off: when watching the 1920s thief of bagdad, the interpretation of ancient persia -- the designs and sets and such -- seemed really familiar-looking. then i took a look at imdb.com... and it turns out that in the 1940 version, "jafar" and "abu" figure as characters... and i'm pretty sure they don't figure in aladdin's tale in arabian nights! i won't deny disney's creativity - musical numbers, vocal talents, etc. - but they do like to borrow...

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[anarchat.livejournal.com]

What you said about Thief of Baghdad seems likely (especially since Jafar occupies the same position in each, I think). After an additional reading of Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp fron Nights it seems like Disney's adaptation was an amalgamation of Thief of Baghdad and the tale from Nights with a little singing thrown in. Aladdin from the Disney film is definitely much more like the hero from Thief of Baghdad than the boy from Nights while the story from the Disney film and the tale from Nights basically matches. It's definitely interesting to see the influences of classic film in modern cinema.