Reading Room

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

Ideology and Reality: Society and Vsevolod Pudovkin’s Mother (1926) - Senses of Cinema (opens sensesofcinema.com in a new tab)

Cara Marisa Deleon explores the tension between the film’s progressive ideals and its deeply patriarchal treatment of its female characters

On Mother

La fée aux choux | film by Guy-Blachê (opens britannica.com in a new tab)

Encyclopedia entry on Alice Guy-Blachê's pioneering narrative film, the first fiction film ever made.

Britannica

On The Cabbage-Patch Fairy

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

A History of Screenwriting – The Cabbage Fairy (La Fée aux Choux) (opens rosannewelch.com in a new tab)

Scholarly analysis of the film's significance as the first narrative film and its pioneering screenwriting.

On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

On The Cabbage-Patch Fairy

MoMA | Howard Hawks's The Dawn Patrol — Museum of Modern Art (opens moma.org in a new tab)

Analysis of Hawks' direction of World War I aviation drama and Academy Award-winning story.

On The Dawn Patrol

Out of the Vaults: Abraham Lincoln, 1930 (opens film-foundation.org in a new tab)

Analysis of this early sound biography and its historical inaccuracies alongside its artistic merits.

Film Foundation

On Abraham Lincoln

Caught in a Cabaret (27 April 1914) (opens chaplinfilmbyfilm.wordpress.com in a new tab)

Critical essay on Chaplin's early comic performance and character development.

Chaplin: Film by Film

On Caught in a Cabaret

Westfront 1918 (opens criterion.com in a new tab)

Criterion release with essay on Pabst's pacifist war film and its innovative sound design.

Criterion Collection

On Westfront 1918

Westfront 1918: War Is Hell (opens criterion.com in a new tab)

Essay on Pabst's intimate depiction of WWI trench warfare and its immediate Nazi ban.

Criterion Collection Current

On Westfront 1918

MoMA | G. W. Pabst's Westfront 1918 — Museum of Modern Art (opens moma.org in a new tab)

Analysis of Pabst's effective realism and brilliant use of sound in this anti-war film.

On Westfront 1918

City Lights (1931) | The Definitives (opens deepfocusreview.com in a new tab)

Critical essay on Chaplin's final silent film and its combination of comedy and profound emotion.

Deep Focus Review

On City Lights

Ozu's Space Adventures: Editing in PASSING FANCY (opens criterionchannel.com in a new tab)

Essay examining Ozu's distinctive editing and compositional techniques in this family comedy.

The Criterion Channel

On Passing Fancy

Willing Seduction: The Blue Angel, Marlene Dietrich, and Mass Culture (opens berghahnbooks.com in a new tab)

Book-length study of the film's relationship to mass culture and Dietrich's star image.

Berghahn Books

On The Blue Angel

I Cover the Waterfront (1933) with Claudette Colbert and Ben Lyon (opens pre-code.com in a new tab)

Analysis of this pre-Code drama about smuggling and forbidden romance.

Pre-Code.Com

On I Cover the Waterfront

The Disappearance of the Working Class from the Cinematic Screen — Widok. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture (opens pismowidok.org in a new tab)

Scholarly article examining the representation of working-class labor in early cinema and its historical significance.

On Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory

Fun Facts And Murky Legends About 'The Arrival Of The Train At La Ciotat Station' (1896) (opens silentology.wordpress.com in a new tab)

Critical examination of legends surrounding the film and analysis of its composition and reception.

Silent-ology

On The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

The Blue Angel (1930) | The Definitives (opens deepfocusreview.com in a new tab)

Critical analysis of Sternberg's direction and Dietrich's iconic performance as Lola Lola.

Deep Focus Review

On The Blue Angel

The Aquatic Allure of The Kingdom of Fairies (opens trettleman.medium.com in a new tab)

Scholarly essay examining the film's visual composition and theatrical influences on cinema.

Medium

On The Kingdom of the Fairies

People on Sunday (opens criterion.com in a new tab)

Criterion release with essay on this Weimar-era film by young filmmakers including Siodmak and Ulmer.

Criterion Collection

On People on Sunday

WEEK 11: Murder! (1930) (opens weeklyhitch.wordpress.com in a new tab)

Analysis of Hitchcock's innovative use of voice-over and sound design in this early talkie.

Weekly Hitch

On Murder!

Vampyr at 90: how Carl Dreyer conjured a waking nightmare — BFI (opens bfi.org.uk in a new tab)

Retrospective essay celebrating Dreyer's creation of atmosphere through visual innovation and technique.

On Vampyr

M (1931) | The Definitives (opens deepfocusreview.com in a new tab)

Critical analysis of Lang's masterpiece and its prescient warnings about mass justice.

Deep Focus Review

On M