One thing we did pretty much entirely lose during the conversion to sound was the genre of the "cinepoem." Very loosely narrative, mostly abstract and visual, and hauntingly beautiful, these silent-era movies are often much more inspiring than even the best-developed narrative films of the sound era.
This movie is a very early, very rudimentary form of widescreen, with some interesting innovative uses. The pictures don't entirely connect, but the filmmaker (who remains unknown) uses the black line between the three frames to play with ever more complex forms of editing in relation between the screens, instead of during one frame. It still is quite easy to see, after 80+ years, how these effects were created until near the end, where images from one screen start smoothly transferring to images in another which means a very precise and focused timing.
The movie itself is quite beautiful. Though the poetry was good, and the edition I had did well with setting the words above and below the imagery in a pleasant pattern and typeface, the imagery ineffably sticks to my mind... the nymphs dancing in the water, the fairies surrounding the old man, etc. This is the type of visual/poetic art that makes such brilliant and immersive films such as La Jetee possible.
--PolarisDiB
This movie is a very early, very rudimentary form of widescreen, with some interesting innovative uses. The pictures don't entirely connect, but the filmmaker (who remains unknown) uses the black line between the three frames to play with ever more complex forms of editing in relation between the screens, instead of during one frame. It still is quite easy to see, after 80+ years, how these effects were created until near the end, where images from one screen start smoothly transferring to images in another which means a very precise and focused timing.
The movie itself is quite beautiful. Though the poetry was good, and the edition I had did well with setting the words above and below the imagery in a pleasant pattern and typeface, the imagery ineffably sticks to my mind... the nymphs dancing in the water, the fairies surrounding the old man, etc. This is the type of visual/poetic art that makes such brilliant and immersive films such as La Jetee possible.
--PolarisDiB