THE BLOT & SUSPENSE: Two FIlms by Lois Weber - Anything But Silent with Organ Accompaniment by Ben Model

Showings

Cinema Arts Centre - Cinema 2 Wed, Nov 14, 2018 7:30 PM

Description


Anything But Silent with Organ Accompaniment by Ben Model

THE BLOT | SUSPENSE

Wednesday, November 14 at 7:30pm
$11 Members | $16 Public

Two incredible silent movies by Lois Weber, a film industry pioneer and one of the most influential female filmmakers of all time.

In a time where women played a central role in creating the American cinema, Lois Weber (1881–1939) was the outstanding woman filmmaker, writer and producer of the silent era. She was also one of the highest paid directors — man or woman — of her time! Weber’s films were critically acclaimed financial successes that created huge controversies around the country.  Weber sought to bring the same quality of artistry to the screen as flourished in other media. A proponent of social justice, she often talked of using film as a means of achieving political change.

The Blot (1921) Hailed as a masterwork, this intimate drama is a biting commentary on economic inequality. Through her portrait of the Griggs family—an underpaid college professor, his long-suffering wife, and their daughter Amelia, a young librarian—Weber reveals a society where “keeping up with the Joneses” is an issue of basic nutrition rather than material possession. Weber juxtaposes social classes through the varied stations of the three men vying for Amelia’s heart: an affluent college student, a middle-class “boy next door,” and an impoverished minister. The Blot remains the most popular of the more than 100 films she directed. Weber’s two remarkable young discoveries, Claire Windsor and Louis Calhern, rose to stardom with this film, and remained popular Hollywood actors for years.  (USA, 1921, 91 Mins., NR, English Intertitles | Dir. Lois Weber)

Suspense (1913) An early silent thriller, Suspense centers on a young mother alone in a remote house trying to fend off a home invasion while her husband listens on the telephone. (USA, 1913, 10 Mins., NR, English Intertitles | Dir. Lois Weber and Phillip Smalley)

Ben Model is one of America’s leading silent film accompanists, and has been playing piano and organ for silent films at the New York MoMA since 1984, and the CAC since 2006.