A Timeless Movie Written in Moonlight: “Broken Blossoms”
One of the most exquisite works of silent cinema, with Lillian Gish at her best.
View ArticleRushes: Oscars | Silents | Simic | Obits
Oscars Foreign Language Films shortlist announced; Turner Classics presents its ten most influential silents; Frederica Sagor Maas dead at 111.
View ArticleVideo: A Smile for Griffith
Celebrated film historians Kevin Brownlow and David Gill call forth a legend in 'D.W. Griffith: Father of Film.'
View ArticleThe Film 100: Lillian Gish, no. 66
Lillian Gish was hailed as the first serious movie actress, and her early shorts became training films for scores of actors making the transition from the theater.
View ArticleThe Film 100: Billy Bitzer, no. 13
It was Billy Bitzer who explored the possibilities of the camera, and his timeless discoveries are the fundamental building blocks of filmmaking, evident in every movie made today.
View ArticleDAILY | THE THIRD MAN All Year Long
102 blog posts inspired by Roland Barthes. Plus, David Bordwell launches a video series, the new Film Comment, wrapping LOLA 3, books, news, and more.
View ArticleThe Film 100: D.W. Griffith, no. 8
Celebrated as one of the century’s great renaissance men, director D.W. Griffith invented a film grammar that lives on today.
View ArticleThe Film 100: Erich von Stroheim, no. 59
Von Stroheim was a director willing to document his sweeping vision at all costs, and he made the first significant steps toward showing Hollywood realism in cinematic art.
View ArticleThe Film 100: Melvin Van Peebles, no. 93
Van Peebles shockingly illuminated a cultural gap between blacks and whites.
View ArticleThe Color of Silents
We don't get it, so let's forget it? Of all the misconceptions of silent-era cinema that linger, the idea that the films were solely black and white may be the hardest to correct.
View ArticleThe Film 100: Louis B. Mayer, no. 21
Reigning over Hollywood became an obsession. L.B. Mayer was the most powerful executive of the largest and most prestigious film studio for more than forty years.
View ArticleThe Film 100: John Ford, no. 30
John Ford was to westerns what Alfred Hitchcock was to suspense films.
View ArticleThe Big Ones: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
What meanings can THE BIRTH OF A NATION generate, aside from the sense of smug superiority in the modern viewer?
View ArticleDaily | GRAVITY in Venice
Plus, a Welles screenplay, an Oppenheimer interview, and a Lynch sitcom.
View ArticleSan Francisco Silent Film Festival
An international mix of dazzling, restored film lights up the Castro for SF Silent Film Festival.
View ArticleDaily | Griffith’s Epics
Was INTOLERANCE really an apology for THE BIRTH OF A NATION? Updated through 8/4.
View Article12 YEARS A SLAVE: Yesterday and Today
Three decades before Steve McQueen's 12 YEARS A SLAVE gained Oscar attention, Gordon Parks brought the same source material to life with SOLOMON NORTHUP'S ODYSSEY.
View ArticleThe Fall of the Roman Eye Candy
'Sword and sandal' pics solemnly expanded the scale of 20th-century cinema before being liberated for pure muscle-bound viewing pleasure.
View ArticleDaily | Godard, Pasolini, Resnais
Today's roundup of news and views is somewhat massive.
View ArticleOscars 2015: Based on a ‘Truthiness’ Story
Dramatizing history, taking heat this Oscar season: SELMA, FOXCATCHER, THE IMITATION GAME and AMERICAN SNIPER wrangle with the truth.
View ArticleDaily | Iñárritu, Griffith, Eastwood
Plus Serge Bozon on Luc Mullet, master classes on video and more.
View ArticleKicking and Screaming: THE BIRTH OF A NATION at 100
THE BIRTH OF A NATION in retrospect: a century hasn't salved the pain. Plus: a guide to D.W. Griffith at Biograph.
View ArticleDaily | Clément, Morris, Hellman
Plus early television work by Tim Burton and David Cronenberg.
View ArticleDaily | La Furia Umana, Brooklyn Rail
Plus a "Ballardian primer to the MAD MAX Universe."
View ArticleDaily | Welles, Doctorow, Ai Weiwei
Plus a deluge of interviews with "cinephile directors."
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