Codes of Silents: Weimar-Era 'The Ancient Law' (Das Alte Gesetz)
Like many of the best comedies and tragedies, this Weimar-Era silent film understands how each mode is often a hair's breadth from the other.
09 Jul 2018
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Becoming Douglas Fairbanks: 'The Half-Breed'
Throughout his career, Fairbanks scrubbed his scripts of racist elements. The Half-Breed is a rare example when racism is foregrounded as a theme.
11 Jun 2018
San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2018: A Transformative Cinematic Experience
Widely considered the largest and most prestigious silent film festival in North America, 21 feature films from nine countries will be represented at the Fest, with more than 40 musicians from around the world accompanying the various programs.
30 May 2018
Suffering the Inscrutable: The Ethics of the Face in Dreyer's 'The Passion of Joan of Arc'
The film is imbued with a painterly quality wherein the not-quite static framing of the human visage is its main concern, its aesthetic gambit, and the source of its affective impact.
16 May 2018
Silent Film 'The Garden of Eden' Is a Sophisticated Delight
As is his wont, Lewis Milestone's direction is lively, even flashy, indulging in gratuitously beautiful camera movements, lighting tricks, and clever editorial juxtapositions.
26 Apr 2018
Restored Silent Film 'Little Orphant Annie' Conjures Goblins and the Horrors of Poverty
Annie is a servant who delights in telling tales of spooks and spirits, always ending with the refrain "An' the Gobble-uns'll git you ef you Don't Watch Out!"
24 Apr 2018
On the Trail of Classic Western Heroes with Silent Films 'Just Pals' and 'The Calgary Stampede'
New organ scores help kick up some dust in these two reissues from Grapevine Video.
23 Apr 2018
The "Dwan" of Gloria Swanson: 'Manhandled' and 'Stage Struck'
Freshly released on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Classics are two hits, part of a series of Swanson vehicles directed by Allan Dwan at the height of her stardom.
10 Apr 2018
Lois Weber's Legacy Rises in These Troubled Times, As It Should
Silent films The Dumb Girl of Portici and Shoes reveal two sides of the early Hollywood director: the filmmaker who wanted to tell epic stories on a grand scale, and the social activist who wanted her films to spark discussion and prompt change.
15 Mar 2018
'Pink Slipped', a Study of Women Working in Silent Film, Questions the Source
Film history is re-written both deliberately and inadvertently, and so the consideration of it as "fact" becomes tricky, as Jane Gaines' work reveals.
09 Mar 2018
The BFI Re-Opens Silent Film 'Pandora's Box'
The big-eyed Louise Brooks makes a comeback on the big screen. Silent London critic Pamela Hutchinson talks about her new book on G.W. Pabst's cult classic.
07 Dec 2017
Enjoying Life Silently: Film History in Shadow and Light
You'll find more people watching silent films today than during any decade since the '20s, thanks to a busy restoration and preservation industry that thrives through festivals, revivals, the internet and home video.
03 Nov 2017
Fantom Menace: The Films of 'Fantomas'
One can’t help but feel as though the movements of this romantic and dreamlike world are the work of some whimsical puppet-mastery.
15 Jun 2016
Art Decadence in 'L'inhumaine'
Smart, sharp and fashionably ahead of its time, L’inhumaine hangs in an aesthetic balance between the cerebral pretensions of a popular literary novel and the continental-chic of a glamour magazine.
26 May 2016
Silent Film Speaks Up: This Newly Restored Chaplin Comedies Elicit New Laughs
Flicker Alley’s recent release of 15 newly restored comedies from Chaplin’s time at Essanay Studios is another priceless intervention in the decay of Hollywood history.
11 Jan 2016
Although Almost 100 Years Old, 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' Is Surprisingly Modern
Deliberate artificiality and horror based in human psychology make this horror classic, first released in 1920, feel remarkably fresh today.
17 Nov 2014
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