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Recent Posts
- The fallibility of film history: Valeria Creti unmasked as Filibus
- Il cinema ritrovato 2018 in review
- Bologna-bound: Il cinema ritrovato 2018
- Buster on the big screen: a visit to the delightful Time Cinema
- The perilous camera-eye: El sexto sentido | The Sixth Sense (ES 1929)
- Coda to Valentine’s Day: silent film postcards
- Power couples of Italian silent film
- Pride and passion: Pina Menichelli in Il padrone delle ferriere (1919)
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Tag Archives: cinema of Germany
Il cinema ritrovato 2018 in review
Six weeks after the fact, you say? From the Department of Better Late than Never comes my recap of Il cinema ritrovato 2018: a wonderful festival of archival film of all eras and countries. Spoiler alert: I had a blast!
A rainbow of silent film
Regular readers will have noticed that things have been pretty quiet around Silents, Please! for the last year or so. Partly, this was because I channelled a lot of energy into researching, writing and drawing my Feminist Media Histories article: a very … Continue reading
Varieté at the NZIFF: An interview with composer Johannes Contag
Varieté (also known as Variety, Vaudeville and Jealousy) is one of the most prominent works of the Weimar cinema. Directed by E. A. Dupont for UFA in 1925, it is as famous for Karl Freund’s freewheeling cinematography as for the … Continue reading
Posted in Film festivals, interview, Live cinema
Tagged cinema of 1925, cinema of Germany, interview, Live cinema, music for film
2 Comments
Book review: “The Film Explainer” by Gert Hofmann
My grandfather Karl Hofmann (1873-1944) worked for many years in the Apollo cinema on the Helenenstrasse in Limbach/Saxony. I knew him towards the end of his life, with his artist’s hat, his walking stick, his broad gold wedding ring that … Continue reading
The film star performing the film star: Asta Nielsen in Die Filmprimadonna (DE 1913)
“Lower the flags in her honour; she is incomparable and without peer.” So wrote early film theorist Béla Balázs of Asta Nielsen in his 1924 book Der Sichtbare Mensch (The Visible Man). It is well-known that Nielsen was one of the first international … Continue reading
Posted in Film
Tagged Asta Nielsen, cinema of 1913, cinema of Germany, EFG, excellent women, film about film, nitrate damage, Urban Gad
5 Comments
Double trouble: Die falsche Asta Nielsen | The False Asta Nielsen (DE 1915)
Die falsche Asta Nielsen is a film that, barring a miracle, I will never see: no copies are known to exist. It’s a great shame, because it looks like a lot of fun! Asta in a double role, a comedy … Continue reading
Posted in Film
Tagged Asta Nielsen, blogathon, cinema of 1915, cinema of Germany, dual roles, excellent women, film about film, lost films, original research, Urban Gad
11 Comments
Asta Nielsen’s Hamlet (DE 1921)
What if Hamlet was actually … a woman? That is the central premise of the 1921 film adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, starring Asta Nielsen in the role of Prince Hamlet. The concept is drawn from an 1881 publication, The Mystery … Continue reading
Posted in Film
Tagged Asta Nielsen, cinema of 1921, cinema of Germany, cross-dressing, dangerous female sexuality, excellent women, queer
8 Comments
Das Liebes-ABC | The ABC of Love (DE 1916)
Asta Nielsen: great actress, or greatest actress? She’s by far one of my favourite things about the silent era. Much has been written about her vitality, her versatility, and her charisma, so I won’t belabour the point – but it … Continue reading
Phony matrimony: Die Puppe | The Doll (DE 1919)
The end of the FIFA World Cup and Germany emerged victorious, as many predicted. What a tournament it was, though: apart from the games themselves and the high scorecount, we had the return of Chewy Luis, comedic pratfalls (then less so), meme-worthy goalkeeping, Arjen Robben’s extended … Continue reading
Forgotten film stars: Ellen Jensen-Eck and Das Geheimschloss (Miss Clever versus the Black Hand; DE 1914)
I loved Das Geheimschloß (The Secret Castle) aka Miss Clever contra de „Zwarte Hand” (Miss Clever versus the ‘Black Hand’) when I saw it at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone a couple of years ago – a gem out of nowhere. A few months … Continue reading
Silents, Please! 