Essay

In his witty introduction to film historian Angela Dalle Vacche’s seminal 2008 study Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema, Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin writes, “When on a shopping spree for anguish, rapture, martyrdom, comas, counts, rapes, bastards, orphans, dogaressas, philtres, … [Read more...] about Rapsodia Satanica

Helen Hunt Jackson wrote her 1884 novel Ramona as a beacon against racism and injustice, the Uncle Tom’s Cabin for the Native American. Jackson, a writer and U.S. Interior Department agent, became radicalized after attending a lecture given by Ponca Chief Standing Bear, who told harrowing tales of … [Read more...] about Ramona

Arguably no movie star has ever been so thoroughly rehabilitated in popular esteem—going from footnote to icon—as Louise Brooks. In her brief career heyday, she was a Hollywood up-and-comer whose career self-sabotage came too early to afford her the protection an established star might have had from … [Read more...] about Prix de Beauté

“Prince Siddhartha styled on earth — Lord Buddha — In Earth and Heavens and Hells Incomparable, All-honored, Wisest, Best, most Pitiful; The Teacher of Nirvana and the Law. Thus came he to be born again for men” — Preface, The Light of Asia by Sir Edwin Arnold Prem Sanyas (The Light of Asia) … [Read more...] about Prem Sanyas

Born Gladys Mary Smith in 1892 in Canada, Mary Pickford began her career when she was only five years old. By the time she was eight, she was already an experienced actress and financially supporting her mother, brother, and sister. It was David Belasco who gave her the stage name Mary Pickford when … [Read more...] about The Poor Little Rich Girl

During the course of more than twenty-five years exploring the history and influence of film noir, I’ve encountered two wonderful and related surprises: First is the realization that the seeds of noir often were sown in places far afield from what’s been circumscribed in academic orthodoxy. Which … [Read more...] about Policeman

Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov was born in Tambov, Russia, in 1899 and came of age in a turbulent world. Civil war gripped the country. Cinema, like the dream of socialism, was in its infancy. As a set designer under the Tsarist filmmaker Yevgeni Bauer, the young Kuleshov was already writing about the … [Read more...] about Po Zakonu