Silent Britain

12 out of 15 people found the following review helpful:

Interesting, but ...

peterm from , 28th September, 2007

This is a very interesting documentary (made for BBC 4), in which Matthew Sweet attempts to highlight and address the poor reputation afforded silent British films. His is a very impassioned view (essentially: British filmmakers were pioneers) and that there is more to early British cinema than a soon-to-defect Alfred Hitchcock. I don't quite buy his argument, as he does not expand on enough points that he makes. Indeed, I felt some facts were glossed over in many places. In particular, we are offered tantalising clips which are all that exist from some films (including rushes for a Napoleonic epic). This left me wondering exactly HOW these clips survive (would it have been too much to add a line saying 'which only exist as they were kept in the director's garden shed for fifty years'- or whatever?) This could even have made an interesting DVD extra in it's own right. Overall, yes I would recommend Silent Britain as it is very informative and interesting, but I'm only giving it 3 starts as it's not quite detailed enough for my liking. But then again, I'm hard to please :) lol.

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1 out of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Keep it in

COLIN JONES from RHYL, NORTH WALES, 12th June, 2007

There’s plenty here to interest the general viewer. Presenter Matthew Sweet argues the case that British silent cinema has been under-rated and that it was, in fact, very interesting and innovative. This argument is illustrated with film extracts which tend to be brief - but the DVD extras include a complete short silent film titled ‘Cut It Out’.

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1 out of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Enjoyable

A Customer from Cornwall, 16th November, 2006

This DVD was really interesting and enjoyable. Looking at the history of silent film. How it came about and how it developed. It tells of what happened to the stars when talking pictures arrived. Worth viewing

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1 out of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Tantalising Titbits

Jacuzzi from , 12th July, 2006

This documentary was recently broadcast as part of BBC 4's silent British cinema season. I rented this mainly because I missed half of the broadcast and was eager to see the whole thing. It's a tantalising look at the wealth of groundbreaking material produced by cinema pioneers in this country from the birth of the medium through to the late 1920s. I use the word tantalising because it includes clips from films that have either been lost/destroyed or not as yet been made available from the vaults of the BFI. For instance one of these clips is from a science fiction film that pre-dates anything (as far as I know) produced in the USA or anywhere else. This documentary is an ideal companion to 'Early Cinema, Primitives and Pioneers' also released by the BFI which includes some of the films in their complete versions. I've given this release 4 stars because I feel that it could have offered more in the 'extras' department (1 film only), but it's still well worth renting even if your not a total fan of the genre.

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