As usual, I come to praise all things passé today.

Have you made your last run to the store for that much needed carrot, bottle of bubbly, or pearl onion? If not, maybe, like me, you’ll find that mulling over what’s really needed makes you believe you’ll get by without it by now–especially since the rising crescendo of anxious shoppers may peak to a grumpy roar by 3 o’clock today, when people are making one more resentment-filled return to the market. I’ve decided to forgo the hunt for fresh sage and to review a few of those intangibles in my mental pantry today.

Oprah and her myriad acolytes discovered the power of being grateful some time ago, though I’m always a bit reluctant to be a “joiner”. Many of the unenlightened, like me, distracted by the sometimes overwhelming business of keeping our proverbial heads above water, sometimes forget what we’re grateful for in this world. Though I don’t fill my days with kvetching, it wouldn’t hurt to make a point of occasionally taking stock, and noting what has been good about the last year, at least cinematically.  As we try to find ways to express our gratitude for what we have in the here and now, as well as our personal memories, I thought I’d dog it this week and throw out an eclectic and personal list of a few things great and small that make me grateful for classic movies, especially since I recently realized I’ve been pushing a verb up against a noun here at this blog for one year now:

First, after all the tinkering with that slippery concept of persistence of vision by our clever ancestors led to the invention of the Fantasmagories, Thaumatropes, Phenakistoscopes and Zoetropes,  I’m grateful that the Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis (right), found a spot at the Grand Cafe in Paris on December 28th, 1895 to produce what many regard as the first real cinematic show with the presentation of their Lumiere Cinematographe for a dumbfounded, paying public. Film director Bertrand Tavernier has pointed out that the brothers’ 50 second movies documenting everyday life marked where “the history of invention stopped … and the history of filmmaking began.” I wish I could have been there, but these first films from Les Frères, recently issued by Kino on Video as The Lumière Brothers’ First Films, gives us a fascinating glimpse of their way of looking at the world, which can be seen in truncated form here:

Secondly, I’m very grateful for the smile of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., along with his dash and inventive charm, which made me first realize that before they could talk, movies could move. If you’ve seen this dynamo’s classic masterworks of the 1920s, such as Robin Hood (1922), The Thief of Bagdad (1924), or The Black Pirate (1926), like me, you might be surprised and delighted to discover Fairbanks‘ early, combustible energy bursting forth in seemingly spontaneous glory at the end of the teens.

I was unexpectedly overjoyed earlier this year by the sight of Douglas Fairbanks Sr.’s infectious smile throughout A Modern Musketeer (1917), a broadcast premiere in March of this year on–where else?–TCM . I love the way that–even when Fairbanks was supposed to be alone in a room–he still smiled to himself! My favorite moments in this movie, which was directed by Allan Dwan, are when our hero makes his small time life bearable by fantasizing about feats of derring-do that he would chivalrously perform–taking on all comers for some imagined slight–even though his chosen damsel-in-distress doesn’t seem particularly impressed. I also loved his dangerously spontaneous jesting along the edge of the Grand Canyon…or so it seemed.

A friend pointed out that this actor looked “as though he enjoyed moviemaking more than anyone else on screen…ever.” Fairbanks‘ utterly irresistible kinetic charm deserves to be rediscovered again and again. Thanks to the December release of an upcoming 5 disc DVD set featuring this movie, as well as His Picture in the Papers (1916), Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916), Flirting With Fate (1916), The Matrimaniac (1916), Wild and Woolly (1917), Reaching for the Moon (1917), When the Clouds Roll By (1919), The Mollycoddle (1920), The Mark of Zorro (1920), and The Nut (1921), Doug’s irrepressible ebullience need never fade from memory.  Kudos to producers David Shepard and Jeffery Masino and  Flicker Alley for this welcome event.

Third, I’m filled with gratitude for a rare opportunity to see Louise Brooks on the big screen in Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), her second collaboration with G.W. Pabst after Pandora’s Box. That chance came along last night at the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY, where a packed Dryden theater was the setting for the seduction of an entire audience of diverse people by an eighty year old silent movie just last night. Of course, a crowd for Louise in Rochester is not that unusual. Thanks to the nurturing friendship she maintained with Eastman House curator James Card, Louise spent her final years in the city, a semi-recluse who lived in a modest apartment that I’d pass regularly on my way to work on North Goodman for years–a spot that many residents now cherish.

It’s only some time after seeing this relatively simple story of a young girl’s initiation into the grim, class ridden world around her that the film seems to leave a mark. The sordid adults populating this lurid celluloid Weimar Republic use, abuse and judge young Thymiane Henning (Brooks) in this film. But those adults, with a few exceptions, are alternately appalling and amusing in a revolting, almost Heronymus Bosch way. There was surprisingly much laughter and, if I detected it correctly, actually hissing by audience members of the lechers and losers during this melodramatic movie–though never at the vibrantly suffering and ultimately triumphant Brooks, only her oppressors. The compelling direction of Pabst conveys so much about the people and the world they live in with just a few brief scenes, very few titles, and, of course, the vital quality of Louise Brooks‘ presence on film, which reverberates in memory long after the end. Her languid, natural dancer’s grace is celebrated throughout this film, particularly noticable in one brief moment of film when we don’t even know for sure that we are looking at her–she’s simply a flying figure running away from the camera across a beach, her lithe feet barely touching the sand.  Yet, her intense physicality is balanced by something magnetic and unknowable inside her, which comes through most forcefully in her small, dark eyes.  As Barry Paris, the author of Louise Brooks (Knopf) wrote in 1989, “With the advent of talkies, her name would largely dsappear, but her face would not: a girl in a Prince Valiant bob, with electrifying eyes that drilled straight to the heart from the silent screen and left you weak when you met their gaze. Eyes that beckoned not so much ‘come hither’ as ‘I’ll come to you.’” Her ability to communicate didn’t need words, though she wrote well, but, on film, particularly with Pabst, they were superfluous to her art. One thing I know for sure. Seeing Louise Brooks on a small home screen doesn’t compare with the effect she can still have on an audience in 2008.

Fourth, I’m grateful for that little scar on Gene Kelly‘s left cheek, reportedly the result of a bicycle accident as a boy.  Without it, his too dazzling blend of talent, hard work and appeal as a real guy who was also an artist might have faded for me–maybe. With that sign of mortality, and his expressively raspy but oddly pleasing singing voice, I don’t think he would be nearly as likable as he remains for me. I’m like Leonard Robert Trachtenberg, who made the American Masters documentary Gene Kelly: An American Life tells this story about when a very young woman was in his office repairing his computer while he was still working on the production. His assistant asked the techie out of the blue, “What happens when I say Gene Kelly to you?”  The girl instantly said, “I smile.”

He has that effect still. Seeing Kelly for the first time in Jacques Demy‘s film, The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) this year was an all too brief a reminder of the lost grace that went out of movies once he and Fred Astaire inevitably left the scene. The only other dancer in his league, Astaire made it all look so effortless, using his unique ability to make a ballroom dance a lesson in an elegance only a few could dream of attaining, it was  Kelly‘s deceptively casual moments of dance, often alone on a building site or in an empty barn or dank street that made ordinary moments something special. Here’s one of my favorite examples of his ability to translate everyday experience into something timeless–a pas de deux with a newspaper in Summer Stock (1950)…

Fifth, I’m very thankful for the excuse that this congenial blog gives me for a weekly continuing education in the medium of film. I’m also appreciative of all the people whose generosity has helped me to keep learning from you with your comments, guidance and shared sense of fun. Thank you all.

For tomorrow, may your home soon be filled with the savory scent of turkey roasting, the sound of the laughter of those you love, and the quiet hope that all those who are separated will soon be together.  Hope that you’ll add your gratitudes as well. Be well, be safe, and–I hope–you’re at peace, if for only a moment during this time.