The Recycled Film

With all of today’s unwanted remakes, disappointing sequels, and 3D blockbusters, it seems unfathomable that a silent film could win at the Oscars. But then again, Michel Hazanavicius’s The Artist isn’t your average silent film.

Fritz Lang’s great masterpiece has been re-released with 25 minutes of footage that hasn’t been seen in over 80 years. Why should you care?

To simply call this a story of temptation would be only partly correct. German filmmaker G.W. Pabst’s silent masterpiece navigates one of the most intricate plots of the late twenties and early thirties. Along with Metropolis, it represents an outstanding moment situated between the introduction of sound in America (1927, The Jazz Singer) and the [...]

It is both a blessing and a curse when a character begins to outshine its creator. Long before Paul Reubens became Pee-Wee Herman, Charles Chaplin’s “Little Tramp” gave birth to a new era of comedy. His buoyant personality, yet forlorn appearance, became so iconic that few may have recognized the creative genius underneath (Chaplin did, [...]

Compare and contrast the use of montage (editing, both from one shot to the next and in a more systemic, holistic, rhythmic way) in The Battleship Potemkin and The Man With The Movie Camera.

Compare and contrast the approaches to visual comedy and pathos taken by Buster Keaton (The General) and Charlie Chaplin (The Gold Rush), both as performers and directors.

F.W. Murnau, perhaps the most prolific of the German Expressionists, helped lead the emerging genre with films like The Last Laugh and Nosferatu, an unusual adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.