Interview
Benshi Performers Pass Along a Way of Thinking
Ichirō Kataoka and Kumiko Ōmori tell Hyperallergic about the modern-day conventions and challenges of the Japanese art of narrating silent films.
silent film
Film
Pandora’s Box Unleashes a Universe of Male Oppression
Newly restored, G.W. Pabst’s 1929 film provides a bleak, unsettling account of a showgirl’s ruin at the greedy hands of competing male suitors.
Film
This 1902 Footage of a Flying Train Is the Film of the Summer
The Museum of Modern Art has released a short film of a German elevated train from its archives, and it absolutely rules.
Art
Alice Guy-Blaché, the First Woman Filmmaker
Alice Guy-Blaché is recognized as the first woman filmmaker, going back to an 1896 silent short, but her career remains unsung in the history of cinema.
Art
Guy Maddin's Algorithmic Cinema Resurrects Lost Silent Films
The director's latest project with the National Film Board of Canada shuffles scenes into a one-time viewing experience.
Art
The Bumbling Robots and Awkward Automatons of Silent Cinema
The word "robot" first appeared in Czech author Karel Čapek's 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots).
Art
Nature in an Acid Bath: Early Color Films of National Park Vistas
In the 1930s the National Park Service created silent films, hand-tinted and toned with vibrant color, to promote outdoor oases to American travelers.
Art
A Disappeared Houdini Film Escapes from Obscurity
The great escape artist Harry Houdini starred in five silent films in the early 20th century, but one considered among his best was long considered lost — until now.
Art
Faster than Sound: Color in the Age of Silent Film
Looking back now, there is the impression that all old silent films were black and white, the advent of sound in the mid-to-late 1920s marking the first great milestone on the march to our 3D, high-definition contemporary world. Yet by the early 1920s — years before cinema found its voice — 80% of m