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Reviews14
ostia666's rating
This movie had such an impact on me... It was astonishing! All right, I may be exaggerating, but it brought out some strange feelings in me, which happens to be the main reason why I'd like to review it.
Prinsengracht is one of the main canals of Amsterdam. While on board of a ship, we'll get to see the city buildings, its bridges, and every day scenes: from people walking down the streets to carriages, other ships and so on. It's just a regular non fiction movie -hundreds alike were made showing beautiful (sometimes not so) exotic places-. But this one was particularly special to me, must have been its saddened atmosphere.
Filmed by Emile Lauste (according to the information I've compiled), this man was sent over to the Netherlands by the Biograph Company to film some movies in this country (Lumière agents worked in a very similar way). In fact, a Dutch Biograph & Mutoscope Company was established as a subsidiary, but it would be closing down a couple of years later, after releasing just a few films.
So, this is a beautiful unpretentious movie. It's not meant to teach you anything (as a matter of fact it won't), it's just an inner-journey that made me feel like Marlow sailing upriver. But once again, I may be exaggerating... Anyhow, take a look at it, it won't hurt you. In case you've never been to Amsterdam, you'll get to know what it was like. In case you ever visited the place, this movie will sure make you nostalgic. Those good old days...
Solomon Roth
Prinsengracht is one of the main canals of Amsterdam. While on board of a ship, we'll get to see the city buildings, its bridges, and every day scenes: from people walking down the streets to carriages, other ships and so on. It's just a regular non fiction movie -hundreds alike were made showing beautiful (sometimes not so) exotic places-. But this one was particularly special to me, must have been its saddened atmosphere.
Filmed by Emile Lauste (according to the information I've compiled), this man was sent over to the Netherlands by the Biograph Company to film some movies in this country (Lumière agents worked in a very similar way). In fact, a Dutch Biograph & Mutoscope Company was established as a subsidiary, but it would be closing down a couple of years later, after releasing just a few films.
So, this is a beautiful unpretentious movie. It's not meant to teach you anything (as a matter of fact it won't), it's just an inner-journey that made me feel like Marlow sailing upriver. But once again, I may be exaggerating... Anyhow, take a look at it, it won't hurt you. In case you've never been to Amsterdam, you'll get to know what it was like. In case you ever visited the place, this movie will sure make you nostalgic. Those good old days...
Solomon Roth
Given that no one has deigned to comment on this movie I feel compelled to since this film pioneer can't be overlooked any longer. Paul Nadar was a photographer, he specialized hinmself in famous people and his portrait of Sarah Bernhardt is one of his notorious works.
To start off, this is NOT a movie... It's 6 movies! put together. Since film techniques were yet to be developed, filmmakers would let the camera roll till the roll was over and suddenly stopped. This gives us, in this particular case, films that go slightly over one minute long. In 1950, once Nadar was dead, the French government purchased his material. His films ended up at the Cinémathèque française where they were restored by mythic Henry Langlois helped by his assistant Marie Epstein (Jean Epstein's sister). The films were edited together and released under the title Programme Nadar by 1970.
Supposedly, this material was filmed in 1896, but who knows for sure. Four of the filmed pieces consist of dances. Two of the dancers have been successfully identified as Carlotta Zambelli (ballet) and Loie Fuller -who performs a serpentine dance in this movie, pretty much like the ones filmed at the Edison studios-, as a matter of fact, the black walls in the back remind very much of Edison's Black Maria studio. The two last films share no relation with the others (all of them are hardly related to one another either way, as I said, we're talking about different films edited together). Well, the two we get to see in the end consist of crowded places. The camera is placed in a public square in one of them and in a nearby street, I believe, in the last one.
This movie can't get a fresh rating since it shouldn't even exist. It is purely Langlois' film obsession. Buy, analyzing them separately, we can conclude that Nadar did not evolve the medium. His films merely copy what others had made before. Anyway, we've got his point of view here.
Solomon Roth
To start off, this is NOT a movie... It's 6 movies! put together. Since film techniques were yet to be developed, filmmakers would let the camera roll till the roll was over and suddenly stopped. This gives us, in this particular case, films that go slightly over one minute long. In 1950, once Nadar was dead, the French government purchased his material. His films ended up at the Cinémathèque française where they were restored by mythic Henry Langlois helped by his assistant Marie Epstein (Jean Epstein's sister). The films were edited together and released under the title Programme Nadar by 1970.
Supposedly, this material was filmed in 1896, but who knows for sure. Four of the filmed pieces consist of dances. Two of the dancers have been successfully identified as Carlotta Zambelli (ballet) and Loie Fuller -who performs a serpentine dance in this movie, pretty much like the ones filmed at the Edison studios-, as a matter of fact, the black walls in the back remind very much of Edison's Black Maria studio. The two last films share no relation with the others (all of them are hardly related to one another either way, as I said, we're talking about different films edited together). Well, the two we get to see in the end consist of crowded places. The camera is placed in a public square in one of them and in a nearby street, I believe, in the last one.
This movie can't get a fresh rating since it shouldn't even exist. It is purely Langlois' film obsession. Buy, analyzing them separately, we can conclude that Nadar did not evolve the medium. His films merely copy what others had made before. Anyway, we've got his point of view here.
Solomon Roth
This review won't add much more to what my comrades have pointed out about the movie but I'd like to share my opinion as well because Michael Curtiz is one of a few good directors that made it successfully from silent movies to talkies. Unfortunately, most of his work from his first period is lost, so let's break it down here and now.
Jön az öcsém (My Brother is Coming) isn't only Curtiz's sole surviving Hungarian film but also the last one he made in his native homeland before leaving the country abruptly leaving what would've been the first on screen adaptation of Liliom unfinished. Now, for a 1919 movie Jön az öcsém, put simply, sucks. Its runtime (11 minutes, 3 extra minutes to what the IMDb states) does not set the movie in a competitive position compared to others made at the time in different countries (average runtimes ranked from 50 to 90 minutes, sometimes more, at times less). The best of it is certainly the mise en scène, the tainting and the close-ups. Being all utilized in a very proper way. If you can't read Hungarian, the poem is lost aesthetically in the translation but hey, this is a movie, not a book. So that's no excuse.
This would've been an ambitious movie if made 10 years earlier but by 1919 one could expect much more. Even Griffith's 1910 The Unchanging Sea (also based on a poem, a very short one, to make matters worse for Jön az öcsém) was more ambitious! The actors' lack of experience works against the film as well, but to be honest, it was impossible to get any experienced actors from an industry that had just been born in 1912, when Curtiz's debut film was released. Besides, its propaganda message: workers of the world unite! clearly in accordance to Hungary's newly installed government turned the movie into a political pamphlet.
As a conclusion, Curtiz's talent was a wasted one in Hungary. If this movie ain't more ambitious it's just because the producers wouldn't take any chances. Directors, particularly Curtiz, would always be willing to take things one step further by attempting the more complex projects, the better. The only reason I don't rate it any lower is just because some of the images are beautiful. I'm sorry to say this but this movie is entirely dispensable, even to fans of Curtiz.
Solomon Roth
Jön az öcsém (My Brother is Coming) isn't only Curtiz's sole surviving Hungarian film but also the last one he made in his native homeland before leaving the country abruptly leaving what would've been the first on screen adaptation of Liliom unfinished. Now, for a 1919 movie Jön az öcsém, put simply, sucks. Its runtime (11 minutes, 3 extra minutes to what the IMDb states) does not set the movie in a competitive position compared to others made at the time in different countries (average runtimes ranked from 50 to 90 minutes, sometimes more, at times less). The best of it is certainly the mise en scène, the tainting and the close-ups. Being all utilized in a very proper way. If you can't read Hungarian, the poem is lost aesthetically in the translation but hey, this is a movie, not a book. So that's no excuse.
This would've been an ambitious movie if made 10 years earlier but by 1919 one could expect much more. Even Griffith's 1910 The Unchanging Sea (also based on a poem, a very short one, to make matters worse for Jön az öcsém) was more ambitious! The actors' lack of experience works against the film as well, but to be honest, it was impossible to get any experienced actors from an industry that had just been born in 1912, when Curtiz's debut film was released. Besides, its propaganda message: workers of the world unite! clearly in accordance to Hungary's newly installed government turned the movie into a political pamphlet.
As a conclusion, Curtiz's talent was a wasted one in Hungary. If this movie ain't more ambitious it's just because the producers wouldn't take any chances. Directors, particularly Curtiz, would always be willing to take things one step further by attempting the more complex projects, the better. The only reason I don't rate it any lower is just because some of the images are beautiful. I'm sorry to say this but this movie is entirely dispensable, even to fans of Curtiz.
Solomon Roth