Essays, interviews, programme notes and archives about early cinema, from the festivals, critics and archives that publish them. Every entry opens on the publisher's own site.
Essay
Bryony Dixon on how the BFI began restoring Hitchcock's nine surviving silent features.
Essay
Essay
Senses of Cinema Great Directors profile of Charlie Chaplin from Keystone through City Lights.
Essay
Essay
CTEQ annotation on Stroheim's unfinished Queen Kelly and the coming of sound.
Essay
Essay
Senses of Cinema Great Directors profile of D.W. Griffith, including his late silent and early sound career.
Essay
A critical history of the pre-Code Hollywood myth and the MPPDA Production Code.
Video
C-SPAN video on LoC paper prints and early cinema preservation.
Essay
LoC Magazine feature on rediscovering a lost Méliès film from 1897.
Video
Video feature on restoring Hitchcock’s silent films (The Pleasure Garden through Blackmail).
Video
YouTube video from the BFI channel on early colour in silent cinema.
Essay
Archive feature on reconstructing intertitles for Hitchcock’s silent restorations.
Video
Early cinema short preserved and shared by the BFI National Archive on YouTube.
Essay
BFI London Film Festival interview on the restoration of Foolish Wives (1922), reconstructing sequencing, tinting, and intertitles.
Essay
Trade coverage of the San Francisco Film Preserve Sunrise restoration premiere at Il Cinema Ritrovato.
Essay
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.
Essay
Three Keaton shorts open A Day of Silents at the Castro before a series runs through December in Berkeley.
Essay
One of the most talented and prolific early film directors, long lost to history, returns to the screen.
Video
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.
Website
Website
Review by Kyle Westphal
Website
Website