Called “one of the finest mad-genius silent film directors who never was” ( The New York Sun ), Guy Maddin has, from THE HEART OF THE WORLD through BRAND UPON THE BRAIN!, shown that the fondest font for his movie-mad imagination is silent cinema; even when making films with sound, dialogue, and music, his aesthetic draws on that rich tradition. (Writing about Maddin somehow invites - nay, dictates - florid language and mixed metaphor.) Given the occasion of the presentation of Maddin's brilliant faux-silencio BRAND as part of the Luminato festival, we thought it opportune to give Maddin the chance to choose a half dozen classics from the silent period - his very own “cabinet of wonders” - to present at the Cinematheque. Unsurprisingly, Maddin selected not only two of the greatest films of the era (and of all time) - SUNRISE and BROKEN BLOSSOMS - but also a quartet of rare works, from the Soviet Union, Japan, America, and Germany - all in their way expressionistic: sweaty and intense in BY THE LAW; hallucinatory and gorgeous in CROSSROADS; comic and strange in THE UNHOLY THREE; crazed and extravagant in THE ARMOURED VAULT. Wonders never cease, at least when Maddin is around.
There are so many things that silent films still do better than the talkies. Silent film is obviously and assertively one step closer to the realm of artifice than synch-sound movies - a few en point steps closer to the mime and lyricism of narrative ballet - and therefore one giant, exhilarating step closer to freedom from the literal-minded viewer, the viewer who thinks he requires his films to represent “ reality” as he knows it, whatever that is. The same viewers who applauded the “ realism” of Porter's THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY in 1903 derided its corniness just a few years later; and these movie buffs now, if they were alive, would, according to this undying desire to behold “ reality,” be thrilled to watch a security-cam feed as long as it was in 3D and HD, with Dolby, Odorama, and Sensurround to boot. Actually, they wouldn't be happy until they
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