From the beginning it was not an ordinary event. In its first year, the Telluride Film Festival featured two special guests: 75-year-old silent screen diva Gloria Swanson and controversial German director Leni Riefenstahl. Stage Struck, about a small-town waitress with big-time dreams, screened … [Read more...] about SFSFF Award 2012: Telluride Film Festival
The Wonderful Lie of Nina Petrovna
A clock strikes 12. Whether noon or midnight is not yet known. Meanwhile in another room, a large bathtub filling with hot water nears to overflowing. As a servant girl closes the faucets in the nick of time, the camera begins to track backward, out of the steamy bathroom to the side of an unmade … [Read more...] about The Wonderful Lie of Nina Petrovna
Wings
You can read the program essay for our 1999 screening of Wings here There had been other great war films before Wings. With the popular success of two of them, The Big Parade (MGM, 1925) and What Price Glory? (Fox, 1926), Paramount set out to make a war film of its own. Each of those earlier … [Read more...] about Wings
Stephen Horne: The Re-Animator
Look at any review of Stephen Horne’s performances and you frequently find the words “exhilarating” and “sublime,” typically in the same sentence. This speaks to Horne’s facility and sensitivity, how his accompaniments create true cinematic experiences. But if you’re a devoted fan of the Silent Film … [Read more...] about Stephen Horne: The Re-Animator
Stella Dallas
Despite being condemned for her vulgarity and criticized in the New York Times as “vain and selfish,” Stella Dallas has lived a long and profitable life. She first appeared in 1922, when author Olive Higgins Prouty published the popular novel. A stage version followed, then two film versions (the … [Read more...] about Stella Dallas
The Spanish Dancer
When Pola Negri arrived in the United States in 1922 after a spectacular career in German cinema, the Polish star was the first European actress to be signed to a contract by a major Hollywood studio. Already famous for the films she made with director Ernst Lubitsch, she was glamorous, exotic, the … [Read more...] about The Spanish Dancer
South: Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Glorious Epic of the Antarctic
Born in 1885 in the Sydney suburb of Glebe, James Francis “Frank” Hurley was an independent, ambitious lad with the uncommon initiative to teach himself photography. When the young art form crossed over to mainstream accessibility with the postcard fad in the early years of the 20th century, Hurley … [Read more...] about South: Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Glorious Epic of the Antarctic
The Preservationist and the Playboy: Restoring Pandora’s Box
This feature was published in conjunction with the screening of Pandora's box at SFSFF 2012 Back in the mid-’90s, Martin Koerber began a project to put Pandora’s Box back together again. Researching the films of G.W. Pabst in preparation for a retrospective at the Berlin Film Festival, the film … [Read more...] about The Preservationist and the Playboy: Restoring Pandora’s Box