Hindsight is a two-edged sword. On one hand, it can give us a useful perspective on historical events; on the other, it can saddle us with preconceptions that make those events difficult to understand or appreciate. To the first-time viewer, the 1916 Famous Players version of Snow White can be a … [Read more...] about Snow White
The Smiling Madame Beudet
The time has come, I believe, to listen in silence to our own song, to try to express our own personal vision, to define our own sensibility, to make our own way. Let us learn to look, let us learn to see, let us learn to feel. —Germaine Dulac, Let Us Have Faith (1919) Germaine Dulac didn’t … [Read more...] about The Smiling Madame Beudet
Sir Arne’s Treasure
Snow is inherently cinematic. It forms a white screen, like a Chinese scroll, on which dark forms have the spare eloquence of calligraphy. And while it may suggest peace, it also evokes the burn and sting of cold, giving bite to scenes of extremity and struggle: Lillian Gish, a frail wisp battered … [Read more...] about Sir Arne’s Treasure
Silly Symphonies, 1929–1935
The Skeleton Dance (directed by Walt Disney, 1929), Hell’s Bells (directed by Ub Iwerks, 1929), Night (directed by Walt Disney, 1930), The China Plate (directed by Wilfred Jackson, 1931), Egyptian Melodies (directed by Wilfred Jackson, 1931), The Ugly Duckling (directed by Wilfred Jackson, … [Read more...] about Silly Symphonies, 1929–1935
The Silent Enemy
Like most so-called ethnographic films, The Silent Enemy owed as much to museum exhibits as to Hollywood studios. Early ethnographic films were shown as companions to natural history lectures concerned with exotic corners of the world, but quickly grew into self-contained film exhibits shot on … [Read more...] about The Silent Enemy
Silent Avant-Garde
Selections from the touring retrospective Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1894–1941, a collaborative film preservation and restoration project by Anthology Film Archives, New York; and Deutsches Filmmuseum, Frankfurt am Main; in collaboration with sixty of the world’s leading film … [Read more...] about Silent Avant-Garde
Silence
The 1920s were booming times for the American theater, with more than 200 new plays being produced on Broadway each year, peaking at 264 in the 1927–1928 season. Among the top playwrights of the time, Max Marcin, the author of the 1924 hit Broadway crime drama Silence, is largely forgotten today. … [Read more...] about Silence
The Signal Tower
Universal Pictures was the sausage factory of Hollywood, churning out westerns and melodramas for rural audiences in the Midwest. But once in a while, they came out with a Special—they called them Universal-Jewels. Clarence Brown made three of the best, Smouldering Fires, The Goose Woman, and The … [Read more...] about The Signal Tower