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
Po Zakonu
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
Piccadilly
Like Josephine Baker and Louise Brooks, Anna May Wong was an American woman who had to cross the Atlantic to find her greatest roles. In Piccadilly, Wong seems to be sporting Brooks’s bangs and Baker’s sinuous hips, but her knowing look—wary, sultry, and intense—is all her own. Her entrance is a … [Read more...] about Piccadilly
Peter Pan
Sir James Matthew Barrie wrote numerous books and plays, but he is best remembered for Peter Pan. Born in Kirriemuir, Scotland, on May 9, 1860, he began his writing career as a journalist, and, by the turn of the century he was a well-known playwright. Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up, … [Read more...] about Peter Pan
People on Sunday
I always remind people culture is like a tree,” writer Curt Siodmak told an interviewer in Gerald Koll’s Weekend am Wannsee (2000). “It always blooms one last time before it dies.” “Berlin was like that.” When Siodmak said this, he was looking back at the city from more than a half-century’s … [Read more...] about People on Sunday
The Penalty
In or out of makeup, the face of Lon Chaney is one of the silent screen’s most compelling. Unique among film personalities, Chaney was a character actor who used his physical dexterity and mastery of makeup not to conceal, but to add depth to his powerful performances. In doing so, he became one of … [Read more...] about The Penalty
The Peach Girl
Ruan Lingyu, the ill-fated star of The Peach Girl, lived a life that could have been lifted from one of her films. Born into an impoverished family from Guangdong province, she is a native of Shanghai, a city that promised jobs to China’s rural poor and later became known as the Hollywood of the … [Read more...] about The Peach Girl
The Patsy
You can read the program essay for our 2013 screening of The Patsy here Ever since Orson Welles made Citizen Kane in 1941, Marion Davies has been persistently and erroneously identified with the character of Susan Alexander, Charles Foster Kane’s shrill second wife. In fact, Marion Davies and … [Read more...] about The Patsy