Click here to listen to the interview. Shelley Stamp has made musing on the role of gender in film her life’s work. From her fascination with 70s horror films, to the work of pioneering filmmaker Lois Weber, a long-forgotten director working at the same time as D.W. Griffith, and just as popular. And just as… Read More »
ACTORS OF SOUND
One of my favorite cinema stories is about KING KONG and the trouble it ran into with the censors even in that pre-Code time of 1933. It wasn’t Fay Wray in her slinky satin negligee, it wasn’t dinosaurs tearing each other apart. No, the only censored bit of KING KONG was the sound of Kong… Read More »
Anita Monga on the 2016 San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Few people speak about silent cinema with such authority and such affection as Anita Monga, Artistic Director of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. When we spoke on May 16, 2016, it was to discuss not just the dynamic slate of films at this year’s festival, its 21st, but also the work that the festival… Read More »
HOLLYWOOD BEFORE THE CODE: SEX! CRIME! HORROR! with Elliot Lavine, Tourguide
If you had to sum up what it’s like to talk with Elliot Lavine, cinema programmer extraordinaire, scholar of film history and engaging raconteur, it might be the moment when an emergency vehicle went by the room where I was interviewing him on February 17, 2106. While ruminating on studio policies about film restoration, he… Read More »
Kent Jones on HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT
When Francois Truffaut sat down with Alfred Hitchcock in 1962, the former was in his early 30s with few films to his name, the latter was in his early 60s, and was the undisputed master of suspense. Hitchcock was not, however, given proper respect as an artist, at least not as far as Truffaut, and… Read More »
FANTASIA/FANTASIA 2000: 2-Movie Collection Special Edition
Finally together and on both DVD and Blu-Ray format, the deluxe, 4-disc, release of FANTASIA and FANTASIA 2000 is more than the chance to see both features in all their glory. It’s a chance to marvel that the old-fashioned hand-drawn animation, for all its limitations, has none when it comes to imagination. It is the emotional… Read More »
COOK, THE
Take note silent film fans and devotees of comedy, silent or not. Milestone has released a sterling collection of short silent films featuring Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle in two of its three selections. Arbuckle had a brilliant and lucrative career as a top box office attraction that ended when he was tried for causing the death… Read More »
Stephen Salmons and The 2003 SAN FRANCISCO SILENT FILM FESTIVAL
With co-founder Melissa Chittick, Steve Salmons started the San Francisco Silent Film Festival with a dream, excellent organizational skills, and a firm belief that there was a whole new audience just waiting to rediscover this exquisite art form. To judge by the the way the festival always packs the Castro Theater, a vintage silent movie palace seating… Read More »