Mabel’s Married Life (1914) is an American comedy silent film made by Keystone Studios starring and co-written by Charles Chaplin and Mabel Normand, and directed by Chaplin. As was so often the case during his first year in film, Chaplin’s character is soon staggering drunk. —Wikipedia
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I think when you teach slient films and early films of course your teaching character because that is where all these archetypes came from. Yes, we can go back to France and we can go back to Aristophanes. They came from way back then, but on the film they came from this time period and we find all these characters in these early films.Sometimes in more simplistic ways which helps students understand how to back to the simple part of their story — who wants what and what’s getting in their way and you see that in this sort of film. You can teach structure in teaching silent films because we all know the purpose of having 3 acts is because you had reels and you had 1 reel and then 2 reels and then 3 reels and began to write in terms of that. It was also Paul Gulino’s sequence approach which is just about each reel. You have 8 reels, 8 sequences. They visualize, ‘Oh, this is why they do it this way because they had to to — oh, I get it!” It helps students understand the history of this profession. I love that Warren calls it a profession because that is what it is.
Teaching Silent Films allows you to teach diversity again because there were filmmakers of all colors and ethnic backgrounds. Much of that work has been lost. Some of it is findable. Oscar Micheaux was one of the people I found for my students. He was a hugely successful African-American writer/director and he also wrote novels and he translated his novels into films. One of them is called Within Our Gates and it’s free on YouTube as well and he looked at middle class African-Americans talking in the 1910’s and presented them to the audience in ways that other movies were not and I thin kit’s important for them to know his work in line with Cecil B. DeMille and D. W. Griffith and all those other guys because they’re not the only men – they’re not the only people who are around but if you look at film history classes that’s all they’ve learned and that really bothers me.
So, I think it’s really important to teach silent films because we’re teaching the screenwriters that the visual is important. Much as I love the words more, you do have to think about how they’re shown and, of course, these are visuals that show is the emotion of the moment and I think that they are really beautiful. So, it’s fun for the students — I totally agree with Warren — to have this heritage in their life, to understand that this all came before them. That’s very, very important.
Alice has two persistent suitors, one rich, one poor. Each buys her an engagement ring; the rich man pays cash, but the poor man must pay on installments. He has trouble making the payments, but then he’s injured in an auto accident and the settlement allows him to pay off the ring and propose to Alice.
Learn More About Mabel Normand with these books†
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available at the LA Public Library
In Beauchamp’s book, you’ll see all these famous women. My great joy is that one of my students, who teaches directing, found Lois Weber in my class who wrote and directed her films back in the day and now incorporates her into the set of directors that he teaches as examples because she had that kind of career back in the day. Eve Unsell ran her own production company for Universal for 10 years. Made a ton of movies that are very very successful in the day. She also allows us to go into the place where we discuss the problems with films whether it is back them or today because she was involved in what, back then, were yellow race films which were anti-Asian-American films and so that’s something students should understand about. So, again that goes back to to the title of what we are talking about and I talk fast because I’m Sicilian. I also don’t want to eat up all the time.
Jean Powergirl takes the host reigns and welcomes her guest Rosanne Welch, PhD to the show! They’ll be discussing Roseanne’s book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture.”
Transcript:
Rosanne: And then Coslough Johnson is the nicest man. He is the brother of Artie Johnson from Laugh-In and he, in fact, went on to work on Laugh-In and won 2 Emmys for being part of that.
Jean: It’s a great show. My parents love that show.
Rosanne: Everybody got started on that show. And so Coslough was great. He was a freelancer and he wasn’t on staff but he did several episodes. He wrote the episode some people will remember where Liberace guest starred and he bashed a piano to pieces with a sledgehammer. Very silly. Unexpectedly adorable and I asked him did someone recommend that and he said “No. I was just thinking one day about funny things to have happen and what musicians could do and he came to mind.” And they took that Idea to Liberace and he agreed to do it.
Jean: I’m glad he was game to do that.
Rosanne: Partially he knew it was smart to appear on a show that appealed to teenagers because he wanted that audience. So Coslough is quite marvelous and wonderful.
A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy. Capitalizing on the show’s success, the actual band formed by the actors, at their peak, sold more albums than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined and set the stage for other musical TV characters from The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana. In the late 1980s, the Monkees began a series of reunion tours that continued into their 50th anniversary.
This book tells the story of The Monkees and how the show changed television, introducing a new generation to the fourth-wall-breaking slapstick created by Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers. Its creators contributed to the innovative film and television of 1970s with projects like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laugh-In and Welcome Back, Kotter. Immense profits from the show, its music and its merchandising funded the producers’ move into films such as Head, Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces.
Rosanne Welch, PhD has written for television (Touched by an Angel, Picket Fences) and print (Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space). In the documentary world she has written and produced Bill Clinton and the Boys Nation Class of 1963 for ABC NEWS/Nightline and consulted on PBS’s A Prince Among Slaves, the story of a prince from West Africa who was enslaved in the 1780s, freed by order of President John Quincy Adams in the 1820s and returned to his homeland.
So I teach history and I start in the silent film world, so I disagree with Warren. I go chronologically. This is a period they have never heard of and all the movies are free on YouTube. Nothing like telling them they can watch whatever they have to watch for free. That works, right? And so here they meet Anita Loos, Gene Gauntier — the first women — the first person to do filming on location. She went to Jerusalem to film the story of Jesus Christ — the first time it was put on film and it’s a really beautiful film you can see, for free, on YouTube. Then Jeanie MacPherson who wrote all of Cecil B. DeMille’s early movies that were successes. When she stopped working for him all his stuff failed. Nobody knows her name and she’s quite brilliant. So I thinks it’s important for women students today to know that women once ran Hollywood so all this discussion about “I don’t know if women should direct a movie” is not worth having, because they did and they were. They were the highest paid people in this town, so I think that’s important an important think for them to remember.
Jean Powergirl takes the host reigns and welcomes her guest Rosanne Welch, PhD to the show! They’ll be discussing Roseanne’s book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture.”
Transcript:
Rosanne: Another gentleman I got to meet — and sadly who passed away 6 months after I met him — was Peter Meyerson, He ended up later in life he co-created Welcome Back, Kotter which interestingly enough it’s a show about 4 boys.
Jean: I love the show.
Rosanne: Four boys who were in school — in high school. So, Peter Meyerson, he was marvelous. he came in also because of a very hippie attitude. In fact, he went to the Monterey Pop Festival. He was the kind of guy who hung out at all those events. He wore the paisley clothing and the necklaces. He just really bought into that whole Ideology and so you see that represented then in some of his episodes. And he was great and he told me some very funny stories about hanging out with the actors at parties and whatnot.
A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy. Capitalizing on the show’s success, the actual band formed by the actors, at their peak, sold more albums than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined and set the stage for other musical TV characters from The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana. In the late 1980s, the Monkees began a series of reunion tours that continued into their 50th anniversary.
This book tells the story of The Monkees and how the show changed television, introducing a new generation to the fourth-wall-breaking slapstick created by Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers. Its creators contributed to the innovative film and television of 1970s with projects like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laugh-In and Welcome Back, Kotter. Immense profits from the show, its music and its merchandising funded the producers’ move into films such as Head, Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces.
Rosanne Welch, PhD has written for television (Touched by an Angel, Picket Fences) and print (Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space). In the documentary world she has written and produced Bill Clinton and the Boys Nation Class of 1963 for ABC NEWS/Nightline and consulted on PBS’s A Prince Among Slaves, the story of a prince from West Africa who was enslaved in the 1780s, freed by order of President John Quincy Adams in the 1820s and returned to his homeland.
You got to the next question which is my first exercise in class — Name the writer. Lucky if they can. If it’s a writer/director, they can. Otherwise, they can’t and they suddenly are embarrassed because they adore the words of a person whose name they can’t tell you. If they have a favorite book they can tell you who wrote it, but they don’t know who wrote their favorite film. So it’s my goal to make them know that. I can’t stand the Auteur Theory because I think it’s bullshit. Directors aren’t the authors of their film. I don’t want to insult any directors in the class but you can’t direct something that doesn’t exist on the page first. It’s a collaborative thing and directors have lovely, but they’ve been given all the credit for far too long because, as we know, it goes back to all the book reviews in Cahiers and they came up with that theory. It’s nonsense.
![Teaching Character and Structure from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/ufva-11-character-structure.jpeg)
![Silent Films and Diversity from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/ufva-10-diversity.jpeg)
![28: Coslough Johnson and The Monkees : “Why The Monkees Matter” Interview with Jean Power [Video] (0:52)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/rmw-power-28-coslough-johnson.jpeg)
![27: Peter Meyerson and The Monkees : “Why The Monkees Matter” Interview with Jean Power [Video] (0:40)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/rmw-power-27-peter-meyerson.jpeg)
