I bought this DVD and was so irritated by it I sold it almost immediately! It moved so _slow_... and I don't mean pacing. I mean, the whole movie looked like it was in slow motion. I decided, in a fit of pique, that the movie must've been transferred at the wrong framerate, and got rid of it. Now, of course, I want to see it again, and can't 'cuz I sold it! But does anyone know if it was _meant_ to be that slow?
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I should warn you -- he's a Fourierist.
Hi
Yes it was shot like that to emphasise the dream like quality of the imagery
Well, that's annoying.
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I should warn you -- he's a Fourierist.
On some dvd players you can watch your silent films at a higher or slower speed, without changing the tone level of the soundtrack (i.e. the music or voices don't get higher or lower, just faster or slower).
"The Beamer Xperience: 9 feet wide home cinema bliss."
There was not really an agreed upon standard for frame rates until the coming of sound, so films were shot and shown in all kind of frame rates. Epstein's 'Usher' is definitely not the only one that looks peculiar with modern eyes. For example, scholars have for years discussed the correct frame rate to show Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis' in. Early films might even have used different frame rates from shot to shot as the cameras then were cranked by hand.
What we know today about most silent film's frame rates often comes from surviving cue sheets for the music. Some studies have shown, though, that the frame rates written in the cue sheets do not necessarily correspond to the frame rate the films were shot in.