Schneider Steven - Steven jay schneider стр 20.

In 1999, film restorer Rick Schmidlin released a four-hour version of Greed that was reconstructed from original production stills and von Stroheims shooting

script. AN

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1920s

SHERLOCK, JR. (1924)

U.S. (Buster Keaton) 44m Silent BW

Director: Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle, Buster Keaton

Producer: Joseph M. Schenck, Buster Keaton

Screenplay: Clyde Bruckman, Jean C. Havez

Photography: Byron Houck Elgin Lessley

Music: Myles Boisen, Sheldon Brown, Beth Custer, Steve Kirk, Nik Phelps

Cast: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Joe Keaton, Erwin Connelly, Ward Crane Ward Crane

Sherlock, Jr. is Buster Keatons shortest feature film, yet it is a remarkable achievement, possessing a tightly integrated plot, stunning athleticism (Keaton did all his own stunts, unknowingly breaking his neck during one of them), artistic virtuosity, and an avant-garde exploration of the perennial dichotomy of reality versus illusion. Keaton here plays a projectionist and detective wannabe falsely accused of stealing from his girlfriends father. Framed by a rival suitor (Ward Crane), the young man is banished from the girls home. Dejected, he falls asleep on the job. In his dream state, he transcends into the screen (in a brilliant sequence of optical effects), where he is the dapper protagonist Sherlock, Jr.the worlds second greatest detective.

Unbelievable stunts and complicated gags move this 44-minute film along at a fever pitch. At first, the cinematic reality refuses to accept this new protagonist and the tension between the two worlds is magnificently presented via a montage of spatial shifts that land our bewildered hero in a lions den, amid roaring waves, and in a snowdrift. Gradually, he assimilates fully into the film world. In the mise-en-abyme storyline, the villain (also played by Ward Crane) is trying to kill the hero in vain, before Sherlock, Jr. solves the mystery of the stolen pearls.

Sherlock, Jr. not only features the incredible stunts for which Keaton is famous, but also poses a number of issues. From a social perspective, it is a commentary on the fantasies about upward mobility in American society. On a psychological plane, it introduces the motif of the double striving for fulfillment in imaginary spaces, as the protagonist is unable to achieve it in ordinary, tangible reality. Above all, the film is a reflection on the nature of art, a theme that resurfaces again in The Cameraman (1928), when Keatons focus shifts from medium to spectator.

Keatons films remain interesting today, in part due to the director-stars almost otherworldly stoicism (compared to Chaplins pathos), and in part due to their occasionally surreal nature (admired by Luis Buñuel and Federico García Lorca) and their delving into the nature of cinema and existence itself. Chuck Jones, Woody Allen, Wes Craven, Jackie Chan, and Steven Spielberg are among the filmmakers to pay homage to Keatons irresistible mischief, and his films remain perhaps the most accessible of all silent movies. RDe

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1920s

DER LETZTE MANN (1924)

Despite a ludicrously unconvincing happy ending grafted on at the insistence of UFA, F.W. Murnaus The Last Laugh remains a very impressive attempt to tell a story without the use of intertitles. The plot itself is nothing speciala hotel commissionaire, humiliated by his loss in status when he is demoted to lavatory attendant because of his advancing years, sinks so low that he is tempted to steal back his beloved uniform

(the symbol of his professional pride). In some respects the film is merely a vehicle for one of Emil Jannings typically grandstand performances.

Above and beyond this somewhat pathetic parable, however, exists one of Murnaus typically eloquent explorations of cinematic space: the camera prowls around with astonishing fluidity, articulating the protagonists relationship with the world as it follows him around the hotel, the city streets, and his home in the slum tenements. Some of the camera work is subjective. as when his drunken perceptions are rendered by optical distortion; at other times, it is the cameras mobility that is evocative, as when it passes through the revolving doors that serve as a symbol of destiny. The dazzling technique on display may, in fact, be rather too grand for the simple story of one old man, yet there is no denying the virtuosity either of Murnaus mise-en-scène or of Karl Freunds camera work. GA

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1920s

SEVEN CHANCES (1925)

U.S. (Buster Keaton) 56m Silent BW / Technicolor

Director: Buster Keaton

Producer: Joseph M. Schenck, Buster Keaton

Screenplay: Clyde Bruckman, Jean C. Havez, Joseph A. Mitchell