“Fridrikh Ermler was one of the greatest masters in the history of Soviet and world cinema,” writes film scholar Peter Bagrov. “This was acknowledged by such filmmakers as Eisenstein, Chaplin, and Pabst … Why he is unknown in the West is a mystery.” In her 1992 book Movies for the Masses, Denise J. … [Read more...] about Fragment of an Empire
Exit Smiling
In 1926 Beatrice Lillie was a catch, and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio had sufficient line to reel her in. A hit on the British stage, the Toronto-born Lillie had been called “the Charlie Chaplin of London” and hailed for being able not only to “raise her eyebrow and get a laugh” but also “turn … [Read more...] about Exit Smiling
Dorothy Farnum: Advice from a Scenario Writer
This feature was published in conjunction with the screening of Good References at SFSFF 2018 Back in the silent era a woman didn’t have to be an actress to get the glamour treatment from the studio’s PR department. Witness the press on Dorothy Farnum who wrote the Constance Talmadge vehicle Good … [Read more...] about Dorothy Farnum: Advice from a Scenario Writer
Coeur Fidèle
Who is Jean Epstein? Historian Tom Gunning tells the academic version of the two-guys-walk-into-a-bar story: two film scholars are at conference. One says to the other, “Why didn’t you mention the influence of Epstein?” The second looks confused. “Do you mean Eisenstein?” Epstein is that other … [Read more...] about Coeur Fidèle
Battling Butler
Sooner or later, nearly all silent clowns found themselves in the ring: looking pitiful in boxing shorts, making a mockery of the Marquess of Queensbury. Buster Keaton, who liked to say that he’d been “brought up being knocked down” in his family’s roughhouse vaudeville act, took the fight game more … [Read more...] about Battling Butler
The Ancient Law
It’s not true, as some recent news articles have it, that Das alte Gesetz (The Ancient Law) was forgotten, nor was it lost. Highly praised by Lotte Eisner, the grande dame of Weimar cinema criticism, the film has received a fair amount of attention in academic circles ever since a 1984 restoration, … [Read more...] about The Ancient Law
An Inn in Tokyo
For such a professionally modest filmmaker—“I just want to make a tray of good tofu,” is the oft-quoted self-assessment—Yasujiro Ozu generates a surprising amount of critical discord. Is he a neorealist or a formalist? Radical or conservative? The most or least Japanese of Japan’s filmmakers? … [Read more...] about An Inn in Tokyo
American Legacy
This feature was published in conjunction with the screening of Rosita at SFSFF 2018 Actresses have carried many films to cha-chingdom and the silent era is no exception. Pearl White fell off horses, flew airplanes, and faced fisticuffs in her many serials, rising to be 1916’s most popular star. … [Read more...] about American Legacy