Incredible with all the technology and cinematic advancements it’s incredible how engaging, funny, emotional, enthralling and entertaining these films are. To see long gone people moving on screen over a century ago shows how the clothes and hair change but the same humanity is there. For me there is still very much a place for the simple and silent films. I thinks it’s the way you really don’t need dialogue to enjoy
It's so moving to watch such things and realize how like us they were. The differences are only the most superficial of things. But what moved them and how they expressed it are entirely relatable.
I want to compliment Phillip Peterson for the score that manages to combine music from different periods (both pre- and post 1909) and yet never distracts or detracts from the film (quite the opposite). Watching a slew of 1909 films in chronological order, I must say that this really seems like a major step for both Griffith and Pickford. Pickford is really leaping off the screen in a way none of her contemporaries were doing during this time. Also: we learn her name in this one! Perhaps this is the first time! Griffith seems to have moved his camera in a little tighter. The personality that's pouring off the screen in this is definitely a step up, and it's no wonder at all why Mary became the first movie star. She is dripping with charisma and star quality. So many subtle things, and total Pickford touches, like pointing to her forehead to get kissed. LOVE IT.
So much fun, and once again, what a SPECTACULAR print! Saw this a few years ago when it was screened at Lincoln Center, so happy to see it again!!!!!!! Thank you MPF!!!
The Biograph Gang, together again: Mary, Billy Quirk, Owen Moore, James Kirkwood, Kate Bruce et al, bringing us smiles and hearty chuckles. Love when Owen's "infernal machine" spontaneously combusted; and who could resist the sight of lovely Mary in a wheelbarrow, pushed along by hapless Billy? Thanks for the upload, and keep 'em coming.
@@perrinyone1596 For too long, preserved/restored films have been restricted to a few public showings, only to be locked away in vaults, afterwards. Really feel that Eye Filmmuseum in the Netherlands has led the way in posting so many on RU-vid, but it's great to see MPF get in on the act. Now if they'd just release features like the restored "Rosita" and "Mistress Nell" on DVD, or at least allow us to pay to stream them! (Wouldn't that help fund those restorations, and future ones?)
Mary Pickford's films are quite different from Charlie Chaplin's films. The latter's films have guys hitting, punching, and knocking everyone they see to the ground right, left, and center giving off the impression that the early 20th century was so violent that you couldn't walk down the street without being pushed or punched. But now I realize that real life back then was not like that, and that Chaplin's films were like that because they believed that comedy films would be very boring without all of that large scale physical slapstick (hitting and shoving). There was no sound or dialogue in films so they had to make up for that with the constant physical slapstick. Mary Pickford's (and the Gish sisters') films were different because they're not comedies, they're romance and drama films and they could show us stories without sound to keep us interested without physical slapstick, silent comedies couldn't. There was violence back then, but it wasn't lurking behind every street corner like in Chaplin films. And people would need a reason to get violent because it was an era of people who held principles and dignity. In Chaplin films, it was just for the sake of it, just to make us laugh. It was different among the different classes too. Many people were more refined, except the poorer folks who had harder lives. But people still needed a reason to fight. Fighting was most common amongst the very poor, because it was over food or money due to being starving or without shelter. Still, more people begged than fought, although fighting still happened.
A very cute Pickford movie. Really adorable. But, another Modernizing the Silents score that is truly awful. I wish the Mary Pickford Foundation would stop this type of music for the Pickford releases. Peterson's score was totally inappropriate and very distracting.
!["They Would Elope" (1909) [Full Film]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
