Reading Room

A Woman of Paris: Whatever Became of Marie St. Clair? (opens criterion.com in a new tab)

Criterion essay on Chaplin's dramatic masterpiece exploring modern perspectives on female independence.

The Criterion Collection

On A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate

A Cinema History: Cœur fidèle (1923) The Faithful Heart (opens acinemahistory.com in a new tab)

Analysis of Jean Epstein's pursuit of photogénie and innovative camerawork in melodramatic setting.

A Cinema History

On Cœur fidèle

Abel Gance's La roue (opens criterion.com in a new tab)

Criterion essay on Gance's innovative rapid montage and literary influences from Victor Hugo and Émile Zola.

The Criterion Collection

On La Roue

Our Hospitality: Buster Keaton and gravity (opens rogerebert.com in a new tab)

Analysis of Keaton's physical comedy and dangerous stunts in this family feud melodrama.

Roger Ebert

On Our Hospitality

The Crux of Buster Keaton's Our Hospitality Is Ridiculous Tradition (opens trettleman.medium.com in a new tab)

Essay exploring themes of ingrained Southern hospitality tradition as social satire.

Medium

On Our Hospitality

The third genius of silent film (opens rogerebert.com in a new tab)

Great Movie essay examining Harold Lloyd's iconic clock sequence and visual metaphor for the American Dream.

Roger Ebert

On Safety Last!

Safety Last! - High-Flying Harold (opens criterion.com in a new tab)

Criterion essay on Lloyd's overlooked genius and his place alongside Chaplin and Keaton.

The Criterion Collection

On Safety Last!

The Covered Wagon (1923) Film Review (opens greatbooksguy.com in a new tab)

Analysis of the first epic Western and its influence on the genre's development through authentic pioneer wagons.

Great Books Guy

On The Covered Wagon

Mabel Normand's Star Image Culminated in The Extra Girl (opens trettleman.medium.com in a new tab)

Essay examining Normand's comedic talents and the film's place at the end of her career.

Medium

On The Extra Girl

The Pilgrim (1923) - Chaplin: Film by Film (opens chaplinfilmbyfilm.wordpress.com in a new tab)

Analysis of Chaplin's gentle satire on small-town religion with classical theatrical roots.

Chaplin: Film by Film

On The Pilgrim

Foreplays #8: Germaine Dulac's The Smiling Madame Beudet (opens mubi.com in a new tab)

Essay on Dulac's feminist cinema exploring a wife's subjectivity through visual effects and symbolism.

MUBI Notebook

On The Smiling Madame Beudet

THE STREET (Karl Grune, 1923) (opens grunes.wordpress.com in a new tab)

Analysis of German Expressionist street film with hallucinatory visuals of Berlin and innovative lighting.

Dennis Grunes

On The Street

Out of the Vaults: The Ten Commandments, 1923 (opens film-foundation.org in a new tab)

Essay on Cecil B. DeMille's revolutionary biblical epic with innovative special effects.

The Film Foundation

On The Ten Commandments

Watch the First Russian Science Fiction Film, Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924) (opens openculture.com in a new tab)

Analysis of Soviet revolutionary science fiction and its bold Martian design vocabulary.

Open Culture

On Aelita: Queen of Mars

Bombast: D.W. Griffith's America (opens filmcomment.com in a new tab)

Critical essay on Griffith's expensive historical epic about the American Revolution.

Film Comment

On America

Watch Entr'Acte: René Clair's Dadaist Masterpiece, Scored by Erik Satie (opens openculture.com in a new tab)

Essay on Clair's Dada cinema with camera tricks and avant-garde performances by Duchamp and Man Ray.

Open Culture

On Entr'acte

Greed movie review & film summary (opens rogerebert.com in a new tab)

Great Movie essay on Stroheim's vision of capitalism inscribing chaos through human degradation.

Roger Ebert

On Greed

Thoughts On: Harold Lloyd's Hot Water (1924) (opens silentology.wordpress.com in a new tab)

Essay on Lloyd's domestic comedy exploring his character's married life with family conflicts.

Silent-ology

On Hot Water

Carl Dreyer's Michael - Digitalization and the Rediscovery of a classic Kammerspiel-film (opens kosmorama.org in a new tab)

Essay on Dreyer's intimate chamber drama and its significance in gay cinema history.

Kosmorama

On Michael

Sherlock Jr. essay by Jeffrey Vance — Library of Congress (opens loc.gov in a new tab)

NFPB essay examining Keaton's innovative exploration of cinema and reality through experimental techniques.

On Sherlock Jr.

Review: Sherlock Jr. (1924) (opens philosophyinfilm.com in a new tab)

Philosophical analysis of the film as meditation on cinema's relationship to imagination and dreams.

Philosophy in Film

On Sherlock Jr.

Remembering Buster Keaton and The Navigator (1924) — Now See Hear! (Library of Congress) (opens blogs.loc.gov in a new tab)

Essay on Keaton's commercial breakthrough with mechanical gags and innovative underwater sequences.

On The Navigator

Buster Keaton in COLLEGE (1927) (opens aurorasginjoint.com in a new tab)

Film review examining Keaton's athletic comedy and slapstick innovation.

Aurora's Gin Joint

On College