Forum Posting: Analysis of Narrative in "The Thief of Baghdad" (1924)
For this posting, you should write a 200-word analysis of how the film tells its story cinematically (that is, using shots, cuts, editing, the musical score, intertitles, and so on), focusing on one or two elements (plot, dialogue, characterization, setting, etc.). What are strengths and/or limitations of narrative in silent films?
Your posting is due by Sunday, August 17 and you should read and reply to a classmate’s posting (engaging his/her ideas in about 50-words) before class on Tuesday, August 19.
When I finished watching the movie Thief of Baghdad, I said to myself: “hmm, this wasn’t half bad”. Full of magic and imagination, this movie was well made, despite the year, 1924. I’m not saying that there were no good movies in the 1920’s , but the technology for that time wasn’t very advanced, and this was the very beginning of movies. But I was very impressed by the “Thief”.
With what I was most impressed was the creatures and magic in this movie. Things like flying carpets, flying horses and even giant flying “rats”(bats). The monsters were really cool, I really liked the giant lizard, before the thief came and slit his throat.
It’s obvious that all creatures that appeared in the movie were giant puppets, but without the strings, that made them look even cooler. We see that this was well edited, puppets without strings, made them look almost real. Even the flying carpet as it levitated, looked as if it was really in the air.
We can appreciate real live creatures more, because there is contact with the actor. Not CGI, where the creature is “not really there”. I know there wasn’t any CGI in the 1920’s, but if there were(or something like it) it would not look very good. And this is what made the Thief of Baghdad so cool, in my opinion.
The limitations in sound were the only let downs. Because creatures are more terrifying if you add them a growling sound and such. A bat is not a bat, without the screeching sound, a giant lizard, well, I don’t know what a giant lizard would sound like, but again, is a silent film, there were no sound effects at the time. That’s where the musical score came in, there was no need for sound effects and narrative speech to understand what was going on. I really enjoyed the movie and it was the second silent film I’ve ever seen. (The first one being “Voyage to the moon”)
Posted 16 August 2008, 13:47There’s magic alright in The Thief of Bagdad. There are some things that are really intrusting in the film that is the scenario is not so elaborated but it makes the viewer thing there somewhere near Bagdad, it doesn’t have and end so the sun or the sky never show in the film. (At least the scenes that the class saw) the Thief is very expressive and have a good personality that people are aware of because all his expressions and personalization. The movie is one scene at the time; it does not have lots of changes you can clearly see in just one camera.
Posted 16 August 2008, 14:45The timing of scenes per second is almost there but you can notice a litter flicker. The inner titles help just to do some reference in what’s happening, it also help in the scene change witch I Thing was the main idea to do it any ways, cause the actors made very clear what was going on. In the movie they show a big scene of a monkey and I think is was good, they did a good job there because it almost look real. The notion of the time was kind of funny cause you can almost see they just shut the lights down a litter and the made the illusion.
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Posted 16 August 2008, 14:52