You can read the program essay for our 2000 screening of The Wedding March here Few people in the history of Hollywood have been as revered and reviled as Erich von Stroheim. Among studio magnates like Irving Thalberg, Stroheim’s inability or unwillingness to deliver a film at a usable length … [Read more...] about The Wedding March
Seventh Heaven
You can read the program essay for our 2006 screening of Seventh Heaven here Our own age usually prefers its film romances to play out between people who are rich, or at least comfortably well off. Silent film, on the other hand, loved its poor people; and the ethereal, peerlessly … [Read more...] about Seventh Heaven
SFSFF Award 2012: Telluride Film Festival
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
SFSFF Award 2005: National Film Preservation Foundation
The San Francisco Silent Film Festival presents its 2005 Haghefilm Award, for distinguished contribution to the preservation and restoration of world film heritage, to the National Film Preservation Foundation. In 1997, Congress created the National Film Preservation Foundation as an independent, … [Read more...] about SFSFF Award 2005: National Film Preservation Foundation
1919: A Decade Ends and an Age Begins
4 JANUARY Hundreds of thousands of Berliners take to the streets in support of police chief Emil Eichhorn fired for refusing to use force to quash demonstrations in the wake of World War I. Rightwing mercenaries known as the Freikorps respond and the fray results in hundreds of deaths. On January … [Read more...] about 1919: A Decade Ends and an Age Begins
1917: The Year That Changed the Movies
Golden Ages Come and Go Among the casualties of the First World War were many of the national cinemas of Europe, taking Italy’s silent divas and nearly everything French down with them. Denmark, neutral for the duration, lost its markets to war and, by 1917, its once flourishing Nordisk … [Read more...] about 1917: The Year That Changed the Movies
1915: The Year in Motion Pictures
ESSANAY SNAGS CHAPLIN Charles Chaplin had started his career the previous year at Mack Sennett’s Keystone studio but moved to the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company in January with a significant pay hike from $125 a week to $1,250. He made fourteen films with Essanay, many of which were filmed … [Read more...] about 1915: The Year in Motion Pictures
You Never Know Women
You Never Know Women brings multiple gifts to lovers of silent film: the serene beauty of Florence Vidor (“the orchid lady of the screen”); two leading men, the handsome Clive Brook and the wryly sophisticated Lowell Sherman; character actors El Brendel and Eugene Pallette; performances from key … [Read more...] about You Never Know Women