Before Cortés defeated Moctezuma and the Spanish colonized what is now Mexico, Tepeyac—meaning “hilltop”—was sanctuary to Tonantzin, the Aztec goddess of the earth, corn, and fertility. Once Spain defeated the Aztecs, the Catholic Church began to hold sway over the souls of the indigenous people. … [Read more...] about Tepeyac
Talk About Funny!
Featuring two modern jesters inspired by the great comedians of the silent era Larry Pisoni cofounded The Pickle Family Circus, the first “new circus” to rely on clowns, jugglers, and acrobats without animals, in 1974. He taught clowning at the Ringling Brothers Clown College, and appeared in … [Read more...] about Talk About Funny!
Another Fine Mess: Silent Laurel and Hardy Shorts
SHOULD MARRIED MEN GO HOME? Directed by James Parrott, 1928 Supporting Cast Edgar Kennedy, Edna Marian, and Viola Richard Production Hal Roach Studios Supervising Director Leo McCarey Photography George Stevens Editor Richard Currier Titles H.M. Walker Print Source UCLA Film and Television … [Read more...] about Another Fine Mess: Silent Laurel and Hardy Shorts
The Swallow and the Titmouse
André Antoine’s fifth film looks surprisingly modern today. Never released at the time production was completed in 1920, it wasn’t pieced together until the early 1980s when the Cinémathèque française sifted through six hours of perfectly preserved footage using Gustave Grillet’s script and the … [Read more...] about The Swallow and the Titmouse
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
You can read the program essay for our 2009 screening of Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans here Historian William K. Everson dubbed 1927 “the absolute zenith of the art of the silent film.” Metropolis, from Germany, and Napoleon, from France, are noteworthy enough to mark the year as significant. But … [Read more...] about Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
You can read the program essay for our 2011 screening of Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans here Sunrise sits at the rare intersection of great art and great commerce. Perhaps the film could only have been made through an unlikely alliance between two opposing personalities: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, … [Read more...] about Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg
When they made The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, the director and leading stars all had something to prove. Ernst Lubitsch was already a famous director by the time he came to MGM, and was known for his sophisticated, stylish and satirical films. The Student Prince, based on the Wilhelm … [Read more...] about The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg
The Strongest
For a brief period between the late 1910s and early 1920s, Swedish cinema challenged the supremacy of Hollywood in the production of sophisticated, mature, and visually majestic films. Filmmakers Victor Sjöstrom, Mauritz Stiller, and the lesser known outside Sweden Gustaf Molander led the way, … [Read more...] about The Strongest