I saw this film for the first time in Oxford at an Art House cinema called the Phoenix Picture House. They had arranged for a four piece live jazz band to provide a soundtrack to this silent classic and considering that they improvised most of their score they did a pretty fine job. But it was for Louise Brookes that I saw this film.
She was magnificent. Lousie Brookes radically altered the course of film acting history with the magic of subtlety. Since its conception the cinema actor was a hammed up melodramatic animal thinking that because no one could hear them, they had to scream out their feelings with manic gestures and absurdly deranged facial expressions.
Lousie Brookes changed all that forever. She understood the old maxim of 'less is more' and put to incredible effect in this slickly ultra-modern silent masterpiece. Watch the crucial scene when Lulu is threatened by the jealous Doctor and you'll see what I mean. Her approach to acting was one of the most important influences in cinema history and her look was copied and reproduced over and over, as recently as 'Something Wild' and 'Naked Tango'.
Louise Brookes understood film as it was then, as a purely visual medium, and we will never see her like again.
She was magnificent. Lousie Brookes radically altered the course of film acting history with the magic of subtlety. Since its conception the cinema actor was a hammed up melodramatic animal thinking that because no one could hear them, they had to scream out their feelings with manic gestures and absurdly deranged facial expressions.
Lousie Brookes changed all that forever. She understood the old maxim of 'less is more' and put to incredible effect in this slickly ultra-modern silent masterpiece. Watch the crucial scene when Lulu is threatened by the jealous Doctor and you'll see what I mean. Her approach to acting was one of the most important influences in cinema history and her look was copied and reproduced over and over, as recently as 'Something Wild' and 'Naked Tango'.
Louise Brookes understood film as it was then, as a purely visual medium, and we will never see her like again.