Every film buff and scholar has a Holy Grail, a “lost” movie he or she would give anything to see. The Battle of the Century has been at the top of my wish list since I was seven years old. I was already a Laurel and Hardy fan. I watched their talkie shorts and features every single day on local … [Read more...] about The Battle of the Century and Other Comedy Restorations
Battling Butler
Sooner or later, nearly all silent clowns found themselves in the ring: looking pitiful in boxing shorts, making a mockery of the Marquess of Queensbury. Buster Keaton, who liked to say that he’d been “brought up being knocked down” in his family’s roughhouse vaudeville act, took the fight game more … [Read more...] about Battling Butler
Battleship Potemkin
Few films have made an impact on the history of cinema like Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potyomkin). In 2016 it was ranked the eleventh best film of all time in a Sight and Sound magazine critics poll, one of only a handful of silent-era films to make the … [Read more...] about Battleship Potemkin
Back to School: Sheldon Mirowitz
This interview was published in conjunction with the screening of The Last Laugh at SFSFF 2015 Professor Sheldon Mirowitz “conducts” the Berklee Silent Film Orchestra Whose palms wouldn’t begin sweating at the thought of a final exam performed in front of a packed house at the Castro Theatre? But … [Read more...] about Back to School: Sheldon Mirowitz
Avant-Garde Paris
EMAK-BAKIA Directed by Man Ray, France, 1926 | Print Source Cohen Film Collection Live Musical Accompaniment by Earplay from an Original Score by Nicolas Tzortzis MÉNILMONTANT Directed by Dimitri Kirsanoff, France, 1926 | Print Source Cinémathèque française Live Musical Accompaniment by … [Read more...] about Avant-Garde Paris
Au Bonheur des Dames
Soaring camerawork, luminous decor, and stylish montage sequences make Au bonheur des dames (“Ladies’ paradise”) appear strikingly modern, yet it can be seen as an elegy to silent filmmaking. Directed by Julien Duvivier, the film was shot in the autumn of 1929, just as the first French sound films … [Read more...] about Au Bonheur des Dames
Around China with a Movie Camera: A Journey from Beijing to Shanghai (1900–1948)
This program was compiled in 2015 by the British Film Institute National Archive from their collections Excerpts from documentaries, newsreels, travelogues, home movies, and missionary films shot by pros and amateurs alike chart the geography and culture of pre-revolutionary China from the … [Read more...] about Around China with a Movie Camera: A Journey from Beijing to Shanghai (1900–1948)
Animation Rarities, 1917-1928
A MODERN MOTHER GOOSE (Issue #1 of Fleischer Fun Shop series, 1924) KOKO PACKS UP (Directed by Dave Fleischer; Out of the Inkwell Films, 1925) KOKO’S EARTH CONTROL (Directed by Dave Fleischer, Inkwell Studios, 1928) Max Fleischer was a New York cartoonist whose interest in mechanics led to … [Read more...] about Animation Rarities, 1917-1928