After four days of packed houses and 18 extraordinary programs, the 16th Annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival ended on a spectacular note.
Alexander Payne introduces the Closing Night Film Photo © Pamela Gentile
The festival concluded with Victor Sjöström's masterpiece HE WHO GETS SLAPPED and the brilliant accompaniment by the Matti Bye Ensemble from Sweden. In their excellent introductions of the film, Guest Director...
L’ÎLE ENCHANTÉE (LutèceFilm, FR 1926)
Regia/dir., scen: Henry Roussell; f./ph: Maurice Velle, Paul Portier; scg./des: Georges Jacouty, Gaston Dumesnil; riprese/filmed: 7-11.1926 (Corsica [Plana, Evisa], Caen (steelworks), La Grave, Vals les Bains; Studios Menchen, Épinay); data uscita/released: 13.5.1927; cast: Rolla Norman (Francesco della Rocca), Jacqueline Forzane (Gisèle Rault), Jean Garat (Firmin Rault), Gaston Jacquet (Gabriel Lestrange), Renée Héribel (Chilina Leonardi), Paul Jo...
L’ÎLE ENCHANTÉE (LutèceFilm, FR 1926)
Regia/dir., scen: Henry Roussell; f./ph: Maurice Velle, Paul Portier; scg./des: Georges Jacouty, Gaston Dumesnil; riprese/filmed: 7-11.1926 (Corsica [Plana, Evisa], Caen (steelworks), La Grave, Vals les Bains; Studios Menchen, Épinay); data uscita/released: 13.5.1927; cast: Rolla Norman (Francesco della Rocca), Jacqueline Forzane (Gisèle Rault), Jean Garat (Firmin Rault),
Abel Gance's J'Accuse (1919), a politically and stylistically daring anti-war drama produced while the trench warfare of World War I was still grinding up soldiers on both sides of the battle, opens with the title spelled out by the bodies of soldiers striding into formation, like a marching band at a half-time show. Then they collapse, as if dead, to startling effect. Appropriating the cry leveled by Emile Zola during the Dreyfus affair, Gance levels his accusations at war itself.
The fil...
