Reading Room

Restoring Hitchcock #1: how a film restoration begins (opens bfi.org.uk in a new tab)

Bryony Dixon on how the BFI began restoring Hitchcock's nine surviving silent features.

By Bryony DixonBFI9 Aug 2012

Amazing Tales from the Archives 2008 (opens silentfilm.org in a new tab)

By Robert ByrneSan Francisco Silent Film Festival8 Jan 2008

Chaplin, Charles (opens sensesofcinema.com in a new tab)

Senses of Cinema Great Directors profile of Charlie Chaplin from Keystone through City Lights.

Senses of Cinema1 Jan 2008

Amazing Tales from the Archives 2007 (opens silentfilm.org in a new tab)

By Shari KizirianSan Francisco Silent Film Festival8 Jan 2007

Erich von Stroheim's Damned Queen: Queen Kelly (opens sensesofcinema.com in a new tab)

CTEQ annotation on Stroheim's unfinished Queen Kelly and the coming of sound.

Senses of Cinema1 Jan 2007

Amazing Tales from the Archives 2006 (opens silentfilm.org in a new tab)

By Stacey Wisnia and Stephen SalmonsSan Francisco Silent Film Festival8 Jan 2006

Griffith, D.W. (opens sensesofcinema.com in a new tab)

Senses of Cinema Great Directors profile of D.W. Griffith, including his late silent and early sound career.

Senses of Cinema1 Jan 2006

More Sinned Against than Sinning: The Fabrications of "Pre-Code Cinema" (opens sensesofcinema.com in a new tab)

A critical history of the pre-Code Hollywood myth and the MPPDA Production Code.

Senses of Cinema1 Jan 2003

The Wonderful World of Early Colour | BFI National Archive (opens youtube.com in a new tab)

YouTube video from the BFI channel on early colour in silent cinema.

By BFIBFI

A Long-Lost Film, Finally Found (opens lcm.loc.gov in a new tab)

LoC Magazine feature on rediscovering a lost Méliès film from 1897.

Library of Congress Magazine

Restoring Hitchcock #2: reconstructing intertitles (opens bfi.org.uk in a new tab)

Archive feature on reconstructing intertitles for Hitchcock’s silent restorations.

BFI

The restoration of Alfred Hitchcock’s silent films (opens bfi.org.uk in a new tab)

Video feature on restoring Hitchcock’s silent films (The Pleasure Garden through Blackmail).

BFI

American Artifacts Preview: Early Motion Pictures - Library of Congress "Paper Prints" (opens youtube.com in a new tab)

C-SPAN video on LoC paper prints and early cinema preservation.

By C-SPANC-SPAN / Library of Congress

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (SFFP restoration) (opens filmpreserve.org in a new tab)

Restoration overview for F.W. Murnau's Sunrise (1927), including Movietone, Czech, and Dutch versions plus trailer and outtakes work with the Library of Congress.

San Francisco Film Preserve

Alice in Wonderland (1903) (opens youtube.com in a new tab)

Early cinema short preserved and shared by the BFI National Archive on YouTube.

BFI National Archive

Restoring Erich von Stroheim’s Foolish Wives (opens bfi.org.uk in a new tab)

BFI London Film Festival interview on the restoration of Foolish Wives (1922), reconstructing sequencing, tinting, and intertitles.

BFI

F.W. Murnau's Classic Sunrise Opens Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival (opens variety.com in a new tab)

Trade coverage of the San Francisco Film Preserve Sunrise restoration premiere at Il Cinema Ritrovato.

Variety

Buster by the Bay (opens criterion.com in a new tab)

Three Keaton shorts open A Day of Silents at the Castro before a series runs through December in Berkeley.

Criterion Current

Alice Guy Blaché: The Trailblazing Woman Filmmaker Who Understood the Future of Storytelling (opens moma.org in a new tab)

One of the most talented and prolific early film directors, long lost to history, returns to the screen.

MoMA Magazine

Looking For Lulu - Documentary on Louise Brooks (opens youtube.com in a new tab)

1998 documentary about the life of Louise Brooks, created by Hugh Munro Neely. Narrated by Shirley MacLaine and featuring numerous interviews with friends and relatives of the legendary star, it also contains excerpts from many of her films including her first on-screen appearance.

By Hugh Munro Neely

On Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl

Movies Silently (opens moviessilently.com in a new tab)

Mabel Normand scored a smash hit with this feature-length comedy about a mining camp brat who goes to live in the big city. Chaos ensues but you knew that already.

On Mickey

Cinema as Portraiture: Dovzhenko’s Earth – Establishing Shot (IU) (opens blogs.iu.edu in a new tab)

Jack Miller argues that Dovzhenko’s Earth represents a radically non-narrative alternative to Eisenstein’s dialectical montage, treating its agrarian subjects and the natural world as monumental, painterly presences rather than characters in a story.

On Earth

Beginner's Guide to Alfred Hitchcock: Juno and the Paycock (1930) (opens talkfilmsociety.com in a new tab)

Guide to Hitchcock's adaptation of Sean O'Casey's play and his frustrations with theatrical material.

Talk Film Society

On Juno and the Paycock

Hell's Angels (opens criterion.com in a new tab)

Criterion release featuring essay on Hughes' epic war film and revolutionary aviation sequences.

Criterion Collection

On Hell's Angels