The Silent Cinema Reader

The Silent Cinema Reader
Author: Lee Grieveson
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780415252843

The Silent Cinema Reader brings together key writings on cinema from the beginnings of film in 1894 to the advent of sound in 1927, addressing the development of film production and exhibition technologies, methods of distribution, film form, and film culture during this critical period on film history. Thematic sections address: film projection and variety shows; storytelling and the Nickelodeon; cinema and reform; feature films and cinema programs; classical Hollywood cinema and European national cinemas. Each section is introduced by the editors, and contains suggestions for further readings and film viewings.

Italian Silent Cinema

Italian Silent Cinema
Author: Giorgio Bertellini
Publisher: JOHN LIBBEY PUBLISHING
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2013
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780861966707

Despite the wealth of studies of silent cinema in the English language, knowledge of the medium's first decades has remained attached to a canon in which Italian silent cinema appears deceptively familiar but largely absent. With 30 essays written by leading scholars in the field, 'Italian Silent Cinema' illuminates this understudied area of film history. Featuring over 100 illustrations, the reader brings into focus individual film companies, stars and genres and seeks to place the Italian production of dramas, comedies, serials, newsreels, and avant-garde works in dialogue with international film culture.

Silent Movies

Silent Movies
Author: Peter Kobel
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 607
Release: 2009-02-28
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0316069590

Drawing on the extraordinary collection of The Library of Congress, one of the greatest repositories for silent film and memorabilia, Peter Kobel has created the definitive visual history of silent film. From its birth in the 1890s, with the earliest narrative shorts, through the brilliant full-length features of the 1920s, Silent Movies captures the greatest directors and actors and their immortal films. Silent Movies also looks at the technology of early film, the use of color photography, and the restoration work being spearheaded by some of Hollywood's most important directors, such as Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. Richly illustrated from the Library of Congress's extensive collection of posters, paper prints, film stills, and memorabilia -- most of which have never been in print -- Silent Movies is an important work of history that will also be a sought-after gift book for all lovers of film.

Sessue Hayakawa

Sessue Hayakawa
Author: Daisuke Miyao
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2007-03-28
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780822339694

DIVCritical biography of Sessue Hayakawa, a Japanese actor who became a popular silent film star in the U.S., that looks at how Hollywood treated issues of race and nationality in the early twentieth century./div

Missing Reels

Missing Reels
Author: Farran Smith Nehme
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2014-11-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 146831078X

New York in the late 1980s. Ceinwen Reilly has just moved from Yazoo City, Mississippi, and she’s never going back, minimum wage job (vintage store salesgirl) and shabby apartment (Avenue C walkup) be damned. Who cares about earthly matters when Ceinwen can spend her days and her nights at fading movie houses—and most of the time that’s left trying to look like Jean Harlow? One day, Ceinwen discovers that her downstairs neighbor may have—just possibly—starred in a forgotten silent film that hasn’t been seen for ages. So naturally, it’s time for a quest. She will track down the film, she will impress her neighbor, and she will become a part of movie history: the archivist as ingénue. As she embarks on her grand mission, Ceinwen meets a somewhat bumbling, very charming, 100% English math professor named Matthew, who is as rational as she is dreamy. Together, they will or will not discover the missing reels, will or will not fall in love, and will or will not encounter the obsessives that make up the New York silent film nut underworld. A novel as winning and energetic as the grand Hollywood films that inspired it, Missing Reels is an irresistible, alchemical mix of Nora Ephron and David Nicholls that will charm and delight.

Guide to the Silent Years of American Cinema

Guide to the Silent Years of American Cinema
Author: Christophe P. Jacobs
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 381
Release: 1999-09-30
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0313032173

The latest offering from the Reference Guides to the World's Cinema series, this critical survey of key films, actors, directors, and screenwriters during the silent era of the American cinema offers a broad-ranging portrait of the motion picture production of silent film. Detailed but concise alphabetical entries include over 100 film titles and 150 personnel. An introductory chapter explores the early growth of the new silent medium while the final chapter of this encyclopedic study examines the sophistication of the silent cinema. These two chapters outline film history from its beginnings until the perfection of synchronized sound, and reflect upon the themes and techniques established with the silent cinema that continued into the sound era through modern times. The annotated entries, alphabetically arranged by film title or personnel, include brief bibliographies and filmographies. An appendix lists secondary but important movies and their creators. Film and popular culture scholars will appreciate the vast amount of information that has been culled from various sources and that builds upon the increased studies and research of the past ten years.

Silent Film & the Triumph of the American Myth

Silent Film & the Triumph of the American Myth
Author: Paula Marantz Cohen
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2001
Genre: Electronic books
ISBN: 019514094X

Cohen argues that silent film allowed America to sever its literary and linguistic ties to Europe and develop an original form of expression compatible with American strengths and weaknesses. She connects the rise of film and the rise of America as a cultural center and 20th century world power.

The Titanic and Silent Cinema

The Titanic and Silent Cinema
Author: Stephen Bottomore
Publisher: The Projection Box
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2000
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9781903000007

"Number nine in a series of monographs on pre-cinema and early film."

Silent Films, 1877-1996

Silent Films, 1877-1996
Author: Robert K. Klepper
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 597
Release: 2015-09-16
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1476604843

This film reference covers 646 silent motion pictures, starting with Eadweard Muybridge's initial motion photography experiments in 1877 and even including The Taxi Dancer (1996). Among the genres included are classics, dramas, Westerns, light comedies, documentaries and even poorly produced early pornography. Masterpieces such as Joan the Woman (1916), Intolerance (1916) and Faust (1926) can be found, as well as rare titles that have not received critical attention since their original releases. Each entry provides the most complete credits possible, a full description, critical commentary, and an evaluation of the film's unique place in motion picture history. Birth dates, death dates, and other facts are provided for the directors and players where available, with a selection of photographs of those individuals. The work is thoroughly indexed.

Seductive Cinema

Seductive Cinema
Author: James Card
Publisher:
Total Pages: 319
Release: 1999
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780816633906

On the history of silent films.