A selection of Georges Méliès short films played throughout the festival. Special thanks to Lobster Films. On December 28, 1895, in the Grand Café on le boulevard des Capucines in Paris, a 34-year-old magician sat among the other 30-odd guests, which included the directors of the Folies Bergère … [Read more...] about Cinema’s First Virtuoso: Georges Méliès
Chicago
An attractive and scantily clad woman with shiny bobbed hair lounges in her apartment, sipping a cocktail while listening to a Victrola recording of “Hula Lou.” It’s a typical setting for a modern woman of the 1920s—except, perhaps, for the man lying at her feet, dying of a gunshot wound. The … [Read more...] about Chicago
Chaplin at Essanay
If the early slapstick comedy of the Keystone Film Company represents Charles Chaplin’s cinematic infancy, the films he made for the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company are his adolescence. The Essanays find Chaplin in transition, taking greater time and care with each film, experimenting with new … [Read more...] about Chaplin at Essanay
Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness
Carrying 20,000 feet of undeveloped film from Isfahan in central Persia across the Mediterranean to Paris, Merian Coldwell Cooper and Ernest Beaumont Schoedsack already knew what was missing from their picture. After 18 months trekking around Eurasia, they had found a nomadic tribe to follow and … [Read more...] about Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness
Champagne
Champagne is a romantic comedy about a millionaire’s decision to teach his frivolous “flapper” daughter (played by the effervescent comedy actress Betty Balfour) a lesson by feigning bankruptcy. Hitchcock saw it as a rags-to-riches story about a poor girl working in a Reims champagne factory and … [Read more...] about Champagne
The Cave of the Spiderwomen
Surviving films from the silent era in China are rare. Destruction from wars, government censorship, neglect, and deterioration have taken a sizable toll, so the recent discovery of The Cave of the Spider Women (Pan si dong) from 1927 is a cause for celebration. Even missing its opening scene and a … [Read more...] about The Cave of the Spiderwomen
The Cat and the Canary
In the 1920s, European directors streamed into Hollywood, infusing American films with their artistic sensibilities. They often created masterpieces that were beloved by those who saw film as an art form but that were frequently ignored by audiences. Few of those directors were successful in … [Read more...] about The Cat and the Canary
Carmen
Carmen the tempestuous gypsy made her first appearance in an 1845 novella by Prosper Merimée, and this tale of the treacherous cigarette factory girl who discards her lover for a bullfighter has inspired countless operas, plays, ballets, musicals, and more than 30 films. Georges Bizet’s 1875 … [Read more...] about Carmen