Right now, TCM is showing F.W. Murnau’s silent film classic, Sunrise.
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The first time I saw scenes from Sunrise was in the documentary series Hollywood: A Celebration of The American Silent Film, that was co-created by Kevin Brownlow. Saturday night, Brownlow received an extremely well-deserved honorary Oscar®. The Bioscopic site has an excellent post about the event, including links to videos.
http://bioscopic.wordpress.com/2010/11/14/kevin-brownlow-honoured/
Discussions of the various IPTV streaming video players that are available (go Roku!) all revolve around the prospect of consumers having the option of dropping cable TV. But as long as that’s where Turner Classic Movies is found, there’s no letting go of cable for me.
Monday, TCM began its new 7-part series, Moguls & Movie Stars. The first installment is The Films of Thomas Edison, and it reminds me in no small way of Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film.
At least once each week, either as a comment at the link above, or by mail, I hear from somebody requesting (sometimes pleading) that I post the complete series or make DVD copies. Silent aficionados are anything but silent! The one thing I won’t do is make DVD copies. That’s crossing a line too far.
The acclaimed Hollywood series was produced 30 years ago in England, by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill (now deceased). Brownlow is being awarded an honorary Oscar™ this month, so this week and next, New York’s Documentary Festival will be honoring Brownlow.
The TCM documentary is a survey of the entire history of Hollywood, so there’s no way it can even begin to scratch the surface of silent films, compared to Brownlow and Gill’s in-depth, 13-part series. Yet I won’t be surprised if it kindles some more interest in the Silent era.
I know that Brownlow would love to see a DVD set released of Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film. While we’re waiting, I would certainly love to post it, but even if Brownlow were to contact me he couldn’t grant permission, due to the copyright hassles that have been holding back the set’s release. What I would like to see is TCM step in and help get things moving legally. Ideally, TCM would show the series the same way it presents everything — complete and unedited — and promote a DVD box set with some never-seen extras.
