Finally. Ever since I studied Film at A-Level I’ve been bewildered by the fact I wasn’t forced to watch it before getting the grade, lol; today, now I’ve seen it, I’m even more bewildered. I’m not a huge fan of silent film in general for the obvious reasons. But this one really lives up to its reputation, and aside from the obvious things like title cards and production values, it almost still stands up today.

I’ve always loved and sided with what François Truffaut said about movies – he said, “I am not interested in all the films that don’t vibrate” – and this one practically pops off the screen. I’d seen clips and read about the movie in textbook after textbook; I knew all about Eisenstein and the invention of montage etc, but nothing can prepare you for the effect each and every cut in this movie has. It lags a little following the outstanding and infamous Odessa Steps sequence – I mean, what could they possibly have topped that with? – but this is clearly as important a film as Citizen Kane, if not moreso. Just on the one viewing I could see how its influence spread from Welles to Spielberg, Friedkin, right up to the present day.

One regret: I really should’ve turned the volume down for the first viewing – I can’t name the exact edition I saw, it was on TV, but it was one of those lame and annoying cheesy MIDI scores accompanying the action. I’d like to see it with the new Pet Shop Boys score which I think I have somewhere in iTunes, but even that would probably annoy me – I mean, it’s Eisenstein’s movie, not a Pet Shop Boys music video. I never liked the idea of Philip Glass doing a score for Dracula for the same kind of reason. If a movie’s so great, why steal attention from it with another great artist’s work? I don’t understand why these things can’t just be shown with a simple recording of whatever accompaniment they originally came with, like, when the director was present and uncomplaining … I mean, this information must be documented somewhere. I’ll be careful if I ever look for it on DVD, or just turn the volume off next time.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 21st, 2006 at 3:32 am in 5 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.