Thursday, April 05, 2012

Amazing shots from silent movies







All these shots are from F.W. Murnau's Faust, 1926. This movie is one of the finest examples of art direction and composition in cinematic history. Disney's Night on Bald Mountain sequence in Fantasia borrowed heavily from Faust. I strongly recommend seeing this if you can get it on dvd. Murnau also directed Nosferatu and Sunrise. Sunrise is maybe the most brilliant movie ever filmed. You have to see it if you love movies.

14 comments:

Joshua Marchant (Scrawnycartoons) said...

Wow! Incredible composition, framing that cloaked character with those trees!

And it's from the man who directed Nosferatu?? Definitely going on my list of movies to see.

Mick said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mick said...

these are exquisite

Jimbo said...

Ooops just noticed I posted the same image twice. I will find another one. Thanks for the comments. Silent movies are still the standard for visuals.

Eric Noble said...

Thanks for this. The image of Satan hanging over the town is mind-blowing. Just beautiful. I will definitely have to check these out.

Anonymous said...

Strange. Not familiar with the film, but I loved Nosferatu, so I'll definitely check it out if TCM plays it or something.

Did you read my previous post about that Ren and Stimpy cartoon "Lair of the Lummox" you storyboarded? I really wanted some background on the cartoon itself.

Jimbo said...

Roberto please remind me about that post. Was it on this blog? What did you want to know about the cartoon? I did boards and layouts on that show.

Anonymous said...

"Also, I'm watching "Lair of the Lummox." Great cartoon and I love the drawings you did for it, but I wish the cartoon had been outsourced to Rough Draft. What's the story behind this cartoon and "To Salve and Salve Not?"

Here you go, Jim!

Jimbo said...

Lair was another parody of nature shows. We wrote and storyboarded it at Spumco. The rest was done at Games. I know very little about the the Salve cartoon, other than it was inspired by a 3 Stooges I think. It was written at Spumco and maybe storyboarded, the rest was produced at Games. I have not watched it yet.

Mike Nassar said...

hot damn! Thanks for sharing (and opening my eyes), Jim. I gotta check these out.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the great background on the cartoons, Jim! I always thought Lair was one of the most Spumco looking of the season 3 episodes produced at Games and I finally know why. I may be in the minority here, but I always loved a lot of the season 3 episodes of Ren and Stimpy, even though a couple of the cartoons fell flat. Even the worst of them is a 100x better than whatever cartoons are being produced for television now, especially in terms of art direction.

Aidan Casserly - Dada Hyena said...

'Nosferatu' is definitely one of the greatest silent movies of them all, so I get the feeling that I really need to seek out 'Faust'.

Did you ever see 'Haxan'? It's not quite as lavish as 'Faust', but has the same creepy vibe.

Aidan Casserly - Dada Hyena said...

Update: found it, watched it, loved it. "Faust" isn't just a visually great film, it's one of the best silent films ever. Go watch it, people!

Jimbo said...

It's awful good