Tag Archives: cinema of Germany

Il cinema ritrovato 2018 in review

Posted on 20 August 2018 by

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!

Posted in Film festivals | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

A rainbow of silent film

Posted on 21 August 2017 by

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 →

Posted in Film, Misc | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Varieté at the NZIFF: An interview with composer Johannes Contag

Posted on 24 August 2016 by

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 , , , , | 2 Comments

Book review: “The Film Explainer” by Gert Hofmann

Posted on 14 April 2016 by

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 →

Posted in Books | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

The film star performing the film star: Asta Nielsen in Die Filmprimadonna (DE 1913)

Posted on 16 September 2015 by

“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 , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Double trouble: Die falsche Asta Nielsen | The False Asta Nielsen (DE 1915)

Posted on 31 January 2015 by

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 , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Asta Nielsen’s Hamlet (DE 1921)

Posted on 9 September 2014 by

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 , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Das Liebes-ABC | The ABC of Love (DE 1916)

Posted on 28 August 2014 by

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 →

Posted in Film | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Phony matrimony: Die Puppe | The Doll (DE 1919)

Posted on 18 July 2014 by

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 →

Posted in Film | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Forgotten film stars: Ellen Jensen-Eck and Das Geheimschloss (Miss Clever versus the Black Hand; DE 1914)

Posted on 18 June 2014 by

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 →

Posted in Film | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments