Reading Room

Battling Butler - San Francisco Silent Film Festival (opens silentfilm.org in a new tab)

Festival documentation of Keaton's personal favorite and commercially successful comedy.

On Battling Butler

Obscure Films: The Avenging Conscience (1914) (opens silentology.wordpress.com in a new tab)

Critical examination of Griffith's adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe with analysis of early cinematic psychology and horror techniques.

Silent-ology

On The Avenging Conscience

La Bohème - San Francisco Silent Film Festival (opens silentfilm.org in a new tab)

Festival resource on Vidor's romantic tragedy and Gish's acclaimed performance.

On La Bohème

Bird of Paradise (1932): King Vidor's Exotic Adventure, Starring Dolores del Río and Joel McCrea (opens emanuellevy.com in a new tab)

Critical analysis of Vidor's exploration of forbidden desires around race and sexuality in pre-Code Hawaii.

Emanuel Levy

On Bird of Paradise

Flesh and the Devil - San Francisco Silent Film Festival (opens silentfilm.org in a new tab)

Festival resource on Garbo and Gilbert's chemistry and film legacy.

On Flesh and the Devil

Twenty Minutes of Love (20 April 1914) (opens chaplinfilmbyfilm.wordpress.com in a new tab)

Analysis of Chaplin's directorial debut featuring his famous tree-embrace parody and romantic park bench scenes.

Chaplin: Film by Film

On Twenty Minutes of Love

The Unholy Three - San Francisco Silent Film Festival (opens silentfilm.org in a new tab)

Festival resource on Browning's unique approach to grotesque cinema.

On The Unholy Three

Film essay for Morocco — Library of Congress National Film Preservation Board (opens loc.gov in a new tab)

Official preservation essay on this milestone film in Dietrich and Sternberg's collaboration.

On Morocco

Blonde Venus (1932) (opens criterion.com in a new tab)

Criterion's overview of Sternberg and Dietrich's melodrama about a chanteuse's moral decline.

Criterion Collection

On Blonde Venus

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

HOT SATURDAY ( 1932 ) (opens cinemavensessaysfromthecouch.wordpress.com in a new tab)

Essay on Seiter's pre-Code examination of small-town morality and rumors about women's sexuality.

CineMaven's Essays from the Couch

On Hot Saturday

The psychological horror of Dreyer's Vampyr — BFI Sight & Sound (opens bfi.org.uk in a new tab)

Essay on Dreyer's dreamlike approach to horror and psychological terror in his first sound film.

On Vampyr

Variété - San Francisco Silent Film Festival (opens silentfilm.org in a new tab)

Festival analysis of Dupont's revolutionary mobile camera techniques.

On Variety

The Avenging Conscience (1914) | and you call yourself a scientist!? — Film Criticism Blog (opens andyoucallyourselfascientist.com in a new tab)

Deep analysis of Griffith's horror masterpiece featuring innovative use of cutaways and Poe's literary influence on cinema.

On The Avenging Conscience

MoMA | Josef von Sternberg's Morocco — Museum of Modern Art (opens moma.org in a new tab)

Essay on Sternberg's visualizations of obsessive desire and cinematic exoticism.

On Morocco

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

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

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

A Farewell to Arms: a greater film than Hemingway knew — BFI (opens bfi.org.uk in a new tab)

Critical essay examining Frank Borzage's 1932 adaptation and how it differs from Hemingway's vision.

On A Farewell to Arms

Thoughts On: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (opens silentology.wordpress.com in a new tab)

Analysis of Mary Pickford's performance in this literary adaptation examining collaboration with director Marshall Neilan.

Silent-ology

On Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

Mother (1926) - Writers Without Money (opens writerswithoutmoney.com in a new tab)

Critical perspective on Soviet cinema's approach to revolutionary narrative.

Writers Without Money

On Mother

Universal's 1916 Film of 20000 Leagues Under the Sea (opens medium.com in a new tab)

Essay on this pioneering underwater photography film and its technical innovations versus narrative weaknesses.

Medium

On 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

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

Watch the Film That Invented Cinema: Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory in Lyon (1895) (opens openculture.com in a new tab)

Educational analysis of the film's historical importance as a foundational work of cinema history.

Open Culture

On Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory