The Robber (2010)

(A talkie, courtesy of TIFF Bell Lightbox, in Toronto)

How maddening must it be to do time? How repetitive, how boring, even for a patient prisoner, dedicated to reform? Every day the same; every day passing in succession, while outside, things are moving on, and you know it. Would you fear the day you finally go free, dropped back into a world so far ahead of where you last remembered it?

The Robber (Der Räuber) is about a man who could handle this better than most. Johann Rettenberger is a convict at the end of a six-year prison term in an Austrian lockup. He has spent, you can bet, all 2,190 of those days running. He runs on a treadmill in his cell; in circle after circle around the prison yard—he’d probably jog on the spot if he had no other choice. His quarters are lined with white sneakers. “Training?” his parole officer asks. “I never stopped,” he replies.

Scenes from a Separated Life (2010)

Scenes from a Separated Life is an erotic film. Metaphorically, and nearly literally, its minute-worth of images imply sex—sex happening, or having happened, or possibly about to. Nothing is certain though, not even the relationship between the couple onscreen. They are together because the film puts them together, but if they’re lovers, or ever were, it’s because we’ve imagined them to be.

Imagination is a powerful thing.

Trees Underfoot

Good afternoon from the freezer that is Toronto. Yesterday I spent a few minutes taking pics in Oriole Park, one of the city's many green (and yesterday, white) spaces. This photo, depicting a pool of water in that park, seemed like it had enough crossover appeal for Silent Volume, so here it is. I was reminded of a Daguerreotype.

For more of my photos, please visit and bookmark my other blog, Balcony Shots.

~Chris

The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917)

The Poor Little Rich Girl is the last of four Mary Pickford films being screened as part of “Mary Pickford and the Invention of the Movie Star,” an exhibit dedicated to the silent icon (and Toronto native), currently running at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox. The exhibit is located on the fourth floor of the Lightbox, in the new Canadian Film Gallery, and features some 300 items, including photographs, posters, memorabilia, postcards, and products endorsed by Pickford, assembled over a 30-year period by private collector Rob Brooks. It’s curated by Sylvia Frank, Director of the Toronto International Film Festival’s Film Reference Library and Special Collections.

TIFF Bell Lightbox screens The Poor Little Rich Girl this Sunday, January 23rd, at Noon. The series also includes Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm; and Sparrows; screened January 15th and 16th respectively, and Daddy-Long-Legs, screening January 22nd.

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Though Mary Pickford’s career didn’t take off until her late-teens, she’d spend much of it playing children. Her fans accepted her in these roles because they didn’t need realism to suspend their disbelief—just a consistent, honest evocation of youth they could see through the guise—and Pickford usually delivered. In The Poor Little Rich Girl, she doesn’t, quite. Its heroine, Gwen, is a mystery not only to other characters in the film, but to Pickford herself. Her performance is uneven; oddly so from a pro like her. So odd that I think you should see it happening, and judge for yourself. You may end up siding with poor Mary against her own script, as I did; for I believe it did her no favours.

Daddy-Long-Legs (1919)

Daddy-Long-Legs is the third of four Mary Pickford films being screened as part of “Mary Pickford and the Invention of the Movie Star,” an exhibit dedicated to the silent icon (and Toronto native), currently running at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox. The exhibit is located on the fourth floor of the Lightbox, in the new Canadian Film Gallery, and features some 300 items, including photographs, posters, memorabilia, postcards, and products endorsed by Pickford, assembled over a 30-year period by private collector Rob Brooks. It’s curated by Sylvia Frank, Director of the Toronto International Film Festival’s Film Reference Library and Special Collections.

TIFF Bell Lightbox screens Daddy-Long-Legs this Saturday, January 22nd, at 11 am. It will be followed by The Poor Little Rich Girl (January 23rd). The series also included Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Sparrows, screened January 15th and 16th, respectively.

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An infant is found in an ash can, nameless, with no note attached to her blankets. Mrs. Lippett, matron of orphans, must give her a name. She takes ‘Abbott’ from the phone book and ‘Jerusha’ from a nearby gravestone. Jerusha Abbott, nicknamed ‘Judy,’ grows to be a bright, capable twelve-year old in the orphanage; and her past—no more than the name, a fiction borne of expediency and luck—will never really impact her. Daddy-Long-Legs isn’t about the past, or very much else, besides the furtive push through life of a very talented, determined young woman. This is one of Mary Pickford’s best films.