Having been greatly impressed by Clarence Brown’s The Goose Woman, which I found in 1962 in a British film library, I searched for more silent films by this remarkable director. Thanks to the British Film Institute’s John Huntley, Smouldering Fires came from overseas (an ostrich farm outside … [Read more...] about Smouldering Fires
The History of the Civil War
It’s easy to forget that Dziga Vertov started his career, well before the other founders of Soviet cinema, as a chronicler of the Civil War precipitated by the Bolshevik coup of October 1917. The films that have kept his reputation alive, and indeed raised it above most others of his generation, … [Read more...] about The History of the Civil War
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Carl Laemmle, the founder and president of Universal Pictures, built his success on short, cheap but profitable films that could be packaged and sold to distributors at a modest price. Production costs on Universal’s silent features rarely topped $100,000 and many cost significantly less. The 1923 … [Read more...] about The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Street of Forgotten Men
Herbert Brenon is among the first great names behind the camera, a gifted director once spoken of alongside Cecil B. DeMille and D.W. Griffith. He is also among the early directors who can be considered an auteur, as he controlled many of the creative and technical components in crafting his … [Read more...] about The Street of Forgotten Men
A Sister of Six
The box office is a weekly popularity contest. And in Britain in the 1920s, the winner of that contest was very often Betty Balfour. She won the other kind, too, being regularly voted the nation’s favorite film star. A dimple-cheeked petite blonde with a smile just the right side of naughtiness, … [Read more...] about A Sister of Six
Dans la Nuit
In 1949, Jean Cocteau led the jury for a festival in Biarritz, the vision for which was to resurrect a number of films that had been buried in their own time, whether by audiences, by critics, or even by the filmmakers themselves. They called it “Le Festival du Film Maudit,” thus coining a … [Read more...] about Dans la Nuit
Limite
Limite was the only film completed by writer and director Mário Peixoto. Perhaps it could only have been made by someone who had never attempted a movie before: someone like the twenty-two-year-old Peixoto who wanted to create something entirely new, to push beyond the limit—the final, utmost, or … [Read more...] about Limite
The Fire Brigade
When I was working on the Hollywood TV series in the 1970s, I had a challenge from the outset; how to persuade an audience which had contempt for silent films not to switch off. I took a risk: first I showed a rescue from a burning building, made at the beginning of cinema and symbolic of what … [Read more...] about The Fire Brigade